Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant

by Daniel Tammet

  I agreed to take part, though I was very anxious. I had not been outside the UK for five years (nor in that time scarcely even outside my home town) and the prospect of several weeks far away from home, travelling and filming, daunted me. I worried whether I would be able to cope with the demanding travel schedule without my usual routines or counting rituals. I had never been to America before (though I could recite the dates, middle names and party affiliation of every president from McKinley onwards) and did not know how I would find it: what if it was too big, too flashy, too noisy for me? What if I felt overwhelmed and panicked in this vast country an ocean away from home?

  The thought of constantly being on the move, from day to day and location to location, was the biggest concern for my family, Neil and me. Though supportive, they urged me to talk things over with the production team. In the conversations I had with the team I was reassured that they would ensure I was never left alone in a public place (where I might get lost) and that the filming would not be intrusive, but would capture events as they happened.

  The schedule set by the team was ambitious: we were to zigzag from coast to coast over the period of two weeks with points of call en route as diverse as San Diego, California and Salt Lake City, Utah. The programme makers very quickly came up with the working title Brainman – a pun on the Dustin Hoffman film – that though at first I disliked, over time I grew to accept.

  I met the crew for the first time a week before the trip in July 2004. They were friendly and helped put me at ease. The cameraman, Toby, was the same age as me. Everyone was excited – this was a completely different kind of programme for the crew and they did not quite know what to expect. I was excited too, in part because they were excited and I take a lot of my emotional cues from the actions and reactions of those around me. I also felt happy inside; a new adventure was beginning.

  I finished packing my bags the evening before the flight: one coat, two pairs of shoes, four sweaters, six pairs of shorts and trousers, eight t-shirts, eleven pairs of socks and underwear, a fresh tube of toothpaste, electric toothbrush, cleanser, essential oils, shower gel and shampoo. Neil purchased a mobile phone for me so we could stay in touch while I was away. His work prevented him from coming with me. I kept the phone in my right pocket and my passport, ticket and wallet in my left.

  Neil drove me to the airport and hugged me before I entered the terminal. This would be the first time in three and a half years that we would be apart. Even so, I did not realise that I should show any emotion and the hug startled me. Inside the terminal building there were lots of people with luggage. They were moving around me on all sides and I began to feel anxious, so I started to count the people in the queues and felt better. The crew had already arrived and we eventually made our way over to the waiting area and then on to the plane.

  It was a typically warm and clear summer day and I watched from my seat as the blue sky disappeared below clouds as we soared high into the air. An announcement from the pilot told us that the flight time was eleven hours to Los Angeles International Airport. Whenever I am given a time estimate, I visualise it in my head as a length of dough across a table, which I picture as being an hour long. For example, I am able to understand how long a thirty-minute walk will take by imagining a piece of dough rolled out to halfway across my mental table. But eleven hours was an unprecedentedly long period of time for me and I found it impossible to picture in my mind. This made me very nervous and I squeezed my eyes shut very tight, then opened them slowly and looked down at my feet until I felt calmer.

  I like to prepare myself mentally for an upcoming event, to rehearse the different possibilities or permutations in my mind because of the way I become uncomfortable when something happens suddenly or unexpectedly. I knew at some point on board a steward would approach and ask me something (about my choice of meal, for example) so I pictured the steward standing over me and talking to me. In my mind, I imagined myself calm and answering without difficulty.

  My hands hovered continuously around my pockets, checking for the hundredth time that my phone was in my right pocket and my passport and wallet in my left. As I heard the rattling of trolleys approaching my seat I could feel myself becoming more and more tense and vigilant. I listened carefully to some of the stewards’ conversations with the other passengers so that I knew what the steward would say to me. I had my choice ready in my mind: chicken and dumpling stew. The trolley came and went without a hitch. And I’d made a good choice.

  I remained too anxious to sleep during the flight. Instead, I read the in-flight magazine and listened to music through the plastic headphones provided. As we eventually came in to land I could not help but feel an unmistakable sense of achievement: I had made it. My head hurt and my arms and legs were stiff, but I was in America.

  Outside, the weather was clear and warmer than it had been in London. I waited while the director organised a hire car. After it came, the crew piled the luggage and many boxes full of camera and recording equipment into the back. It was like watching a game of Tetris. After several attempts, they finally managed to make everything fit. The drive took us to San Diego and a hotel next to the sea. Though exhausted, I was told we were due for an early start the next day. Inside my hotel room I brushed my teeth methodically, washed my face with my usual (five) number of splashes of water at the sink and set the alarm for 4.30 a.m. before climbing into bed and falling – immediately – into a deep sleep.

  As the alarm screeched into life I jumped up and covered my ears with my hands. My head was hurting and I was unused to the sound of an alarm clock. I fumbled with one hand until I found the right switch and brought the room back to silence. It was still dark outside. I brushed my teeth for exactly two minutes and then showered. I did not like that everything in the room was different. The showerhead was larger, the water felt heavier as it fell onto my head and the texture of the towels felt strange. Once dry, I rushed into my clothes; they at least seemed and fitted how I knew they would. With considerable trepidation, I made my way slowly out of the door and down a flight of stairs to the breakfast room below. I waited for Toby to arrive, a familiar face, before sitting down and beginning to eat. I ate a muffin with some tea and after the others had come down and finished eating we clambered into the car and drove out to a large number of tall buildings with sparkling windows. We were to meet the acclaimed neurologist Professor Ramachandran and his team at California’s Center for Brain Studies.

  The scientists came out to greet us as we arrived. We were taken to the Professor’s office, past corridors that shone with the bright sunlight that poured in from the windows fitted all along one side. The office was large, darker than the corridors that led to it, with walls filled with tightly-knit rows of books, and a heavy-set table covered with plastic models of brains and sprawling sheets of paper. I was beckoned over to a chair, opposite the professor and one of his team members.

  When the professor spoke, his voice boomed. In fact everything about him seemed somehow loud – his big, round eyes and thick curly black hair and moustache. I remember thinking how large his outstretched hands appeared to me. His enthusiasm was obvious and somehow helped to put me at ease. Though I felt nervous, there was a shiver of excitement too.

  I was asked to do some calculations in my head while the professor’s assistant checked my answers with a calculator. My head was still hurting from the jet lag, but fortunately I was still able to do the scientists’ sums. They then read out a list of numbers and asked me to say whether each was prime or not. I got every one right. I explained how I saw the numbers in my head as colours, shapes and textures. The professor seemed both intrigued and impressed.

  At lunch, the professor’s assistant, a young man called Shai with jet-black hair and big, round eyes like the professor’s, escorted me to a canteen on the center’s campus. Shai was fascinated by my descriptions of how I visualised numbers and the answers to different calculations in my head. Later, I was called to another room where I met ano
ther of Professor Ramachandran’s team members, Ed. Shai and Ed wanted to know more about the specific visual experiences I had for different numbers. It was hard to find the words to describe them so I picked up a pen and started to draw the shapes of the numbers they asked about on a white board. The scientists were stunned. They had not anticipated that my experiences were as complex as they now appeared, nor that I would be able to demonstrate them in such detail.

  The scientists’ reaction took everyone by surprise. They asked the director if they could have more time to study some of my specific abilities and my visual experiences of numbers. The director made a call to the producer in London who agreed.

  The following day, with the cameras rolling, I was asked to go back over my descriptions and drawings of different numbers from the previous day. I walked over to the white board and gradually covered it with drawings and illustrations of how I saw various numbers and calculated sums in my head using my synaesthetic shapes. I was even asked to model some of the numbers in play-dough.

  Then I was asked to study a computer screen filled with digits from the number pi while my fingers were wired up to a galvanic skin response meter. The scientists had secretly substituted sixes for nines at random points in the sequence and were interested to see whether the changes would trigger anything on the meter’s reading. As I looked at the numbers on the screen I started to feel uncomfortable and grimaced a lot, because I could see parts of my numerical landscapes were broken up as though they had been vandalised. The galvanic meter measured significant fluctuations, indicating that I did have a physiological response to the numbers being altered. The scientists, especially Shai, were fascinated.

  Sometimes people ask me if I mind being a guinea pig for the scientists. I have no problem with it because I know that I am helping them to understand the human brain better, which is something that will benefit everyone. It is also gratifying for me to learn more about myself, and the way in which my mind works.

  As my time with the scientists drew rapidly to a close on what was now an even tighter schedule than before, Shai asked if he could drive me over to the nearby cliffs to look out at the sea and watch the gliders floating in the sky above. He was keen to spend some time with me away from the crew and cameras. We walked together along the cliffs and he asked about my feelings for different numbers, making notes with a pad and pen he had brought along specially. My answers seemed to excite him even more. ‘Do you know, you’re a once in a lifetime opportunity for scientists,’ he said matter-of-factly, but I did not know how to answer. I liked Shai and promised to stay in touch, which we do to this day by email.

  Our next stop was Las Vegas, Nevada’s ‘City of Dreams’ and the undisputed epicentre of the gambling world. The production had been keen to demonstrate some of my abilities in a ‘light-hearted’ televisual approach, and this would be that stage, taking a page out of the famous sequence from Rain Man.

  I had mixed feelings about this proposed sequence in the programme. The last thing I wanted to do was to trivialise my abilities or reinforce the erroneous stereotype that all autistic people were like the Rain Man character. At the same time, I understood that the programme needed to have some fun and visual sequences to cut between the more serious scientific ones. I enjoyed playing cards with friends but had never stepped inside a casino before in my life. Curiosity was enough to help sway me.

  The heat in the Nevada air was incredible, like having a hair dryer turned up to maximum and continuously blown straight at you. Even dressed in a light cotton t-shirt and shorts, my body was quickly soaked in sweat as we waited for the hire car to take us on to the next hotel. The journey was thankfully swift and we were all grateful for the hotel lobby’s air conditioning. Driving past the massive, gaudy buildings had been a nauseating experience and the sense of relief was palpable.

  The sight that met us on our arrival at the hotel’s reception quickly mitigated any excitement we might have felt. The producer, having found it remarkably difficult to find a casino willing to allow television cameras in to film, had in the end settled for an establishment downtown. It was much smaller than its more famous casino cousins, and had enthusiastically embraced the idea and even provided our rooms free of charge. Our initial impression, however, was not good. The carpet was dirty and there was a persistent, stale smell throughout the lobby. It did not help that it took a long time, more than an hour, for the staff to organise our rooms.

  However, once given our keys we found the rooms surprisingly spacious and comfortable. As night fell, I was taken down to the car and filmed as we drove along Vegas’s famous strip, bleached from all directions by dazzling casino lights. I clasped my hands tightly together and felt my body becoming tense and rigid, uncomfortable at being surrounded by so many stimulating sensations. Fortunately the drive did not last long. We ate together at a nearby restaurant before going early to bed.

  Next morning, the crew were busy for a long time setting up in a quiet section of the blackjack tables’ area before coming to collect me. The casino’s management had organised a large quantity of ‘play money’ chips for us to use for the sequence. I met the casino’s owner and was introduced to the dealer, who quickly explained the rules of the game to me.

  Blackjack is one of the most popular of the gambling card games; it is also known as ‘vingt-et-un’ or ‘twenty-one’. The object of the game is to bet on each hand as to whether the player’s cards will beat the dealer’s hand without exceeding twenty-one. An ace can count as either one or eleven, while face cards (jacks, queens, kings) score ten.

  At the start of each hand, initial bets are placed and the dealer deals two cards to each player and himself. One of the two dealer’s cards is left face down. A face card plus an ace is called a ‘blackjack’ and results in an immediate win for the holder. Otherwise, the dealer gives each player the option of asking for more cards (‘hitting’) or staying with his current total (‘standing’ or ‘holding’). If a player goes over twenty-one (‘busts’) he loses. Following the decisions of the players, the dealer reveals the hidden card and decides whether or not to draw additional cards. If he has a score lower than seventeen, he must draw a further card or cards until reaching a minimum total value of seventeen. If the dealer busts, all the remaining players win.

  The practice of card counting is well-known in blackjack and consists of the player mentally tracking the sequence of played cards in an attempt to gain a small advantage over the dealer, increasing a bet when the count is good (for example, when the remaining decks contain many face cards) and decreasing when it is bad. In its simplest form, card counting involves assigning a positive or negative value to each card; low-value cards, such as 2 and 3, are given a positive value, while tens are given a negative value. The counter then mentally keeps a running tally of the point values as each card is dealt and makes regular adjustments to the overall count, taking into account the approximate number of cards still left to be dealt.

  Card counting is not easy and even highly skilled practitioners only gain around 1% by using this method. Casinos will often ban those they suspect of card counting from their tables. Our table used an eight-deck shoe, meaning that there were 416 cards in play, a number large enough to minimise any possible counting advantage.

  Casinos are noisy and distracting environments in which to play and one of the biggest challenges for me was trying to concentrate. As I sat on my stool opposite the dealer I focused on the decks of cards, watching intently as they were individually opened, shuffled and stacked ahead of the start of the game. The cameras around me attracted onlookers and I quickly had a crowd encircle me as I played.

  I was to play for a pre-set period of time. The casino had specially reserved the table so that I was the only player. It was the dealer versus me. Wanting to develop a feel for the game, I started by making simple judgements based on the cards displayed in each hand: I would ‘stand’ if dealt a 10 and 8 and ‘hit’ if given a 3 and 9 (except where the dealer showed
a 4, 5 or 6, in which case I stood), a technique known as ‘basic strategy’.

  Even when the player uses basic strategy optimally, the dealer still has a statistical advantage. Over time my stack of chips became increasingly depleted. My feel for how the cards were playing, however, was a lot better than at the start; I was making my decisions more quickly and feeling more comfortable at the table. I made a snap decision to play instinctively, going on how I was experiencing the flow of numbers in my head as a rolling visual landscape with peaks and troughs. When my mental numerical landscape peaked, I would bet more aggressively than when it ebbed.

  A change occurred; I began to win more and more individual hands. I relaxed and began to enjoy the game much more than I had been. At a key point I was dealt a pair of 7s with the dealer showing a 10. Basic strategy says to hit. Instead I went with my instinct and split the pair, doubling my original bet. The dealer drew a third card, which was also a 7. I asked if I could split this 7. The dealer was surprised – this is extremely unusual play against a dealer’s 10. The card was split and I now had three hands of 7, my original bet trebled, against a 10. The audience of onlookers behind me were audibly tutting. One man loudly remarked: ‘What’s he doing splitting 7s against a 10?’ The dealer proceeded to deal out further cards on each of the three 7s – the first totalled twenty-one. Then more cards for the second-hand: another twenty-one. Finally came the third of the 7s, and once again a winning total of twenty-one. Three consecutive twenty-ones in a single hand against the dealer. In one fell blow I had made up my losses and beaten the house.

  I was still glad to leave Las Vegas. It was too hot, too crowded, with too many flashing lights. The only time I had felt comfortable was among the cards. I was feeling increasingly homesick and after returning to the hotel phoned Neil from my room, bursting into tears at the sound of his voice. He told me I was doing fine and should carry on. He was proud of me. I was not to know then that the most important and special episode in the entire trip was just ahead of me.