The Superhuman Mind: Free the Genius in Your Brain

Did you know your brain has superpowers?

Berit Brogaard, PhD, and Kristian Marlow, MA, study people with astonishing talents—memory champions, human echolocators, musical virtuosos, math geniuses, and synesthetes who taste colors and hear faces. But as amazing as these abilities are, they are not mysterious. Our brains constantly process a huge amount of information below our awareness, and what these gifted individuals have in common is that through practice, injury, an innate brain disorder, or even more unusual circumstances, they have managed to gain a degree of conscious access to this potent processing power.

The Superhuman Mind takes us inside the lives and brains of geniuses, savants, virtuosos, and a wide variety of ordinary people who have acquired truly extraordinary talents, one way or another. Delving into the neurological underpinnings of these abilities, the authors even reveal how we can acquire some of them ourselves—from perfect pitch and lightning fast math skills to supercharged creativity.

The Superhuman Mind is a book full of the fascinating science readers look for from the likes of Oliver Sacks, combined with the exhilarating promise of Moonwalking with Einstein.

BERIT BROGAARD, PhD, is the Director of the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research at the University of Miami. She is also a synesthete. Her work on perception, synesthesia, blindsight, consciousness, neuro-psychiatry, and emotions has been featured in media around the world.

KRISTIAN MARLOW, MA, is a graduate student studying philosophy and cognitive science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a fellow of the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law at Baylor College of Medicine. His current research interests include philosophy of mind, perception, synesthesia, autism, and the effects of psychoactive drugs.