Meet Kim Peek: the incredible case of the man who could memorize everything

The famous Kim Peek was a person with the ability to memorize absolutely everything he saw.

On the day of his death, Kim Peek spent the entire morning opening Christmas cards with his father Francishis father, who was also his close friend. Kim was not suffering from any illness, nothing seemed to foretell that his life would end forever. He had been with his family preparing the gifts for such an important date.

That same December 19, Kim collapsed to the ground with a Heart attack.

Kim Peek: the case of the savant with a superhuman memory

Kim Peek, a man whose mind had astonished the world, passed away.whose story was the subject of a major motion picture.

His abilities were so absolutely improbable that even NASA, as well as several universities in the U.S.A. studied in depth where such abilities came from. He had just turned 58 years old.

Birth

She was born in 1951. On the same day of her birth, the doctors who delivered her baby informed her parents that Kim suffered from severe mental retardationThey recommended that Kim be placed in a facility where he could be cared for. However, Kim's parents were not happy with that idea.

He was diagnosed with macrocephalyHe was diagnosed with macrocephaly, that is, a skull of abnormally large proportions, and his brain had no corpus callosum, the tissue that connects the two hemispheres of the brain and allows the exchange of information between cells. It is speculated that lacking the corpus callosum, his neurons were creating their tissues without restraint, joining together and forming a compact mass of connections capable of retaining up to 98% of everything he saw or heard..

Francis Peek, her father, used to say that, at the young age of a year and a half, Kim was able to memorize every book she was told about. They would move Kim's finger over each sentence as they pronounced the sounds for Kim to learn. In this way, they noticed how Kim could remember a book after reading it only once. When he finished reading a book, Kim would turn it face down, as if the book was no longer needed at all. That habit remained with him throughout his life.

A difficult childhood

At the age of three, Kim asked his mother what the word "confidential" meant. His mother, in order to encourage Kim, replied that he could look it up in the dictionary. From there she learned to locate the words in alphabetical order and then read each of the meanings. During his lifetime, he read and memorized a total of nine thousand books.. It was estimated that he could read two pages in 8 to 10 seconds, since he used his left eye to read the left page, while his right eye read the right page.

He was unable to walk until he was 4 years old. Even then he was captivated by numbers and arithmetic, he used to read telephone directories and entertained himself by adding up whole columns of telephone numbers, and he did the same with the digits of car license plates.

Adulthood, working life and fame

Starting in 1969, Kim worked in a special workshop for disabled adults. Simply with his mind, without calculators or computers, he was able to do all the company's bookkeeping. However, his motor and coordination difficulties gradually weighed down his life. His father had to help him with everyday tasks such as buttoning his shirt buttons, tying his shoelaces, and so on. And although he had the ability to memorize almost with absolute accuracy any text he read, he could not interpret or draw conclusions from his readings.

In his book The Real Rain Man, Francis Peek described his son in these terms: "Kim is not autistic. In fact, his personality is warm and caring. Kim genuinely cares about people and likes to share his unique abilities with them. Her encyclopedic knowledge includes disciplines such as history, biographies, geography, sports, engineering, film.... He also has an in-depth knowledge of The Bible, the history of the Mormon Church, the calendar (he can guess dates), literature.... He can identify almost any classical music composition, as well as the dates and place of birth and death of the composer. In addition, it keeps up with current events around the world and in the U.S."

Kim Peek, Dustin Hoffman and the unforgettable "Rain Man".

Many people will have seen the movie "Rain Man," which came out in 1988 starring Dustin Hoffman y Tom Cruise starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. It was awarded four statuettes at the Oscars. However, few people know that the character of Raymond Babbit (Dustin Hoffman) was actually inspired by Kim Peek.

It is a curious story: the writer Barry Morrow had finished, a few years earlier, a script for the film "Bill", about a mentally retarded man played by the well-known actor Mickey Rooney. In this film, the human side of mentally retarded people was shown, breaking away from certain clichés.

For his good work, Morrow was invited in 1984 to a conference of the Communications Committee of the ACR, in the state of Texas. Francis Peek, Kim's father, was chairman of the committee. Kim Peek and Morrow met, and spent several hours chatting. Kim blew Morrow away with his deep knowledge of every author and book imaginable, citing numerous sports statistics, and "guessing the day of the week I was born, my birthday, and the day of my 65th birthday," Morrow recounted.

They also argued about the Civil War, the American Revolution, major world wars.... Morrow ended up writing a screenplay inspired by Kim Peek, "Rain Man," which ultimately turned out to be a great movie.

The mythical film about his life

In his preparation for the interpretation of Raymond BabbitRaymond Babbit, the famous actor Dustin Hoffman met Kim and Francis Peek. They exchanged impressions about the British monarchy, The Bible, sports, dates, geographical points, movies, literature....

Hoffman uttered some unforgettable words when he referred to Kim's talent, when he said "Maybe I am the star, but you Kim are the sky". In accepting the statuette for best actor for his performance in "Rain Man," Hoffman mentioned during his speech, "I especially want to thank Kim Peek for making Rain Man a reality."

Since the film's great impact, Kim Peek's life has changed. She attracted the attention of journalists and television networks.. He began to hold live conferences in which he interacted with the public. It is estimated that he met with two million people, who were amazed by his skills.

He was the subject of several documentaries and reports for Discovery Channel, CNN, TLC and National Geographic, among others. His father, Francis, said that thanks to all the attention Kim received, he grew as a person, gaining self-confidence. Before the public recognition, he rarely looked into the eyes of his interlocutors. But fame helped him learn to interact and enjoy sharing with other people.