In 1994, an orthopaedic surgeon using a payphone in upstate New York noticed a thunderstorm in the distance. He later recalled seeing a blinding flash of light from the phone, flying backwards and being revived by a nurse.
In the months following the lightning strike his recovery was slow, but eventually seemed to be complete. What nobody could have foreseen was that this man, with minimal prior interest in classical music, would develop a passion for Chopin and an unstoppable desire to become a composer himself. Over the next decade a torrent of music poured out of him.
The story sounds like science fiction. But it is a case study retold in the 2007 book Musicophilia by British neurologist Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015.