This New York Times article describes the technique of transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS which can cause subjects to "suddenly exhibit savant intelligence -- those isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most often appear in autistic people."
They have the author of the article draw a couple of cats before they pop the electrodes on his head, and the guy CAN'T draw. I mean, he's better than I am, but that's basically it. After 10 minutes of TMS, his drawings could be straight out of a New Yorker cartoon!!
Have you ever felt like you were capable of much more than actually comes out of you? Like your brain is swimming in a fog that's covering your true inner brilliance? This seems like pretty good evidence to me that we all exist in this state. Some counterarguments are presented, but they seem more like skeptical dismissal than refutations of the actual evidence.
We all know that we don't really understand the human brain at all, but this is some totally next-level shit. Would you test this out if you got the chance? What would you want to try to do while with the electrodes on your head? I'd love to be able to strap in when I'm musically blocked and just record while I play transcranial magnetically stimulated piano and then work with the resuts for the next month or so. (Or would I? It would probably be dangerous and addictive as hell.) Thoughts?