He Had A Photographic Memory And Claimed That He Had Visions

Tesla reputedly had a photographic memory and memorized entire volumes, in addition to reading a wide variety of literature. He was a polyglot, speaking Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin in addition to eight other languages. In his autobiography, Tesla described how he had specific inspirations. Tesla experienced numerous illnesses throughout his early years. He would see visions frequently, along with blinding flashes of light. The visions frequently related to concepts or words he had previously encountered; other times, they offered the answer to a specific issue he had been facing. He could picture something in lifelike detail just by hearing its name.

Before beginning the construction phase, Tesla meticulously and fully imagined his inventions in his mind, using a method frequently referred to as picture thinking. He usually worked from memory rather than creating drawings by hand. Tesla had regular flashbacks of things that had transpired earlier in his life starting in his boyhood.