Name: Tommy McHugh
Disorder: Sudden artistic output following brain damage
鈥淚 was sitting on the toilet. I suddenly felt an explosion in the left side of my head and ended up on the floor. I think the only thing that kept me conscious was that I didn鈥檛 want to be found with my pants down. Then the other side of my head went bang! I woke up in hospital and looked out of the window to see the tree was sprouting numbers. 3, 6, 9. Then I started talking in rhyme鈥︹��
Ten days after having a subarachnoid haemorrhage 鈥� a stroke caused by bleeding in and around the brain 鈥� Tommy McHugh, an ex-con who鈥檇 been in his fair share of scraps, became a new man, with a personality that nobody recognised.
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When he was a young man, Tommy did time in prison. But after his stroke at age 51, everything changed. 鈥淚 could taste the femininity inside of myself,鈥� he said. 鈥淢y head was full of rhymes and images and pictures.鈥�
Not only did he feel a sudden urge to write poetry, but he also began to paint and draw obsessively for up to 19 hours a day. He was never artistic before 鈥� in fact, he joked that he鈥檇 never even been in an art gallery 鈥渆xcept to maybe steal something鈥�.
Desperate to find out what was going on, Tommy wrote to several neuroscientists and end up working closely with at Harvard Medical School and at University College London.
Going Zen
Flaherty says the haemorrhage sent blood squirting around the brain surface, affecting a lot of areas. It left Tommy unusually emotional and unable to hurt anyone, 鈥渓ike Zen monks sweeping steps before they walk,鈥� says Flaherty. 鈥淓verything strikes him as beautiful and cosmically meaningful.鈥�
Scanning Tommy鈥檚 brain was impossible after an operation to treat the stroke damage left him with a piece of metal in his head. Instead, Lythgoe performed a neuropsychological evaluation. Tommy鈥檚 IQ was in the normal range. However, he showed verbal disinhibition 鈥� he tended to talk a lot 鈥� and had difficulty with tests that required him to switch between different cognitive tasks. All of which suggested problems with the frontal lobes.
The frontal lobes play a vital role in abstract thought and creativity. They are constantly bombarded with raw sensory data from the world around us, most of which is deemed irrelevant by the brain and screened from conscious awareness. using magnetic pulses can make people more creative, .
鈥淭hat鈥檚 what Tommy鈥檚 mind does all the time,鈥� says Lythgoe. Everything he heard and saw triggered a stream of associations that he found difficult to stop. Tommy saw it as having a brain that shows him 鈥渆ndless, endless corridors鈥�. He said his paintings represented a snapshot of a millisecond in his brain.
鈥淚鈥檒l paint three or six or nine pictures at a time. I see those numbers in my head all the time. Canvases became too costly, so I started painting the ceilings and the wallpaper and the floor. I can鈥檛 stop painting and sculpting. Give me a mountain and I鈥檒l turn it into a profile. If you give me a bare tree I鈥檒l change it, so when spring come all the leaves will create the face, the mouth, the lips. Without hurting the tree.鈥�
Offering advice for others with brain damage, he said that people who have had strokes need to learn not to think of themselves as ill, with the dangers of depression that can bring. 鈥淪ome repairs to the brain are constructive, some are negative. One has to learn to develop one鈥檚 damaged brain, adapt and start to live again. You can either sit on your bum or look in the mirror and say 鈥業鈥檓 alive鈥�.鈥�
He wouldn鈥檛 even have wanted his old mind back: 鈥淭he most wonderful thing that happened to Tommy McHugh,鈥� he laughed, 鈥渋s having a stroke while doing a poo.鈥�
He wouldn鈥檛 have changed a thing. 鈥淢y two strokes have given me 11 years of a magnificent adventure that nobody could have expected.鈥�
Tommy McHugh passed away on 19 September 2012, having spoken to New 杏吧原创 several times that year. can be viewed on his website.
