Brain Train April 2026

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Main Stage of our Storytelling Festival. I am your friendly Brain Conductor, megaphone in hand, ready to cue the spotlight. This month we are celebrating something powerful, your voice. Every person carries stories inside them. For many people with dyslexia, those stories are often vivid, imaginative, and full of unexpected connections. Dyslexia research often points to strong creative thinking, big picture imagination, and the ability to see patterns others might miss. That is a storyteller’s dream. Maybe you imagine funny characters, strange creatures, dramatic adventures, or everyday moments that suddenly feel magical. That spark matters. Stories are not only written in long paragraphs. They can begin as doodles, spoken ideas, comic panels, voice notes, or quick sketches in the margin of a notebook. If…

Have you ever noticed how your mind turns everyday moments into stories without even trying? A rainy afternoon becomes an adventure. A funny conversation becomes a tale you cannot wait to tell a friend. This natural ability is called narrative reasoning, and it is how the human brain makes sense of the world. We remember events better when they are part of a story with characters, emotions, and a beginning, middle, and ending. For many people with dyslexia, this storytelling ability can be especially strong. Reading long passages might sometimes feel like a bumpy road, and that is completely okay. Inside your mind, the destination is often a huge landscape of ideas, images, and possibilities. Dyslexic thinking often works in pictures and big connections rather than step by step text.…

When readers step into the wizarding world of Harry Potter, it often feels as if the place has always existed somewhere beyond our ordinary lives. The moving staircases of Hogwarts, the busy shops of Diagon Alley, the quiet mystery of the Forbidden Forest, they all feel real because they were imagined so deeply long before they were written down. This incredible world came from the mind of J.K. Rowling, one of the most famous storytellers of modern times. Rowling once shared that the idea for Harry Potter appeared during a train journey in the early nineteen nineties. She began picturing a boy who did not know he was a wizard. Soon the world around him began to grow inside her imagination. She could see the school, the teachers, the spells,…

Pete Docter is one of the creative minds behind some of the most loved animated films in the world. As the chief creative officer at Pixar and the director of films like Inside Out and Up, he has helped shape stories that reach audiences of all ages. What many people do not know is that Pete Docter is dyslexic. When he was younger, reading large amounts of text could feel slow and challenging. But he had another strength that became his superpower. He thought in pictures, emotions, and moving scenes. Instead of focusing on long pages of words, he imagined how a moment would look and feel. This visual storytelling ability became the heart of his work in animation and film. In movies like Inside Out, complex ideas about emotions…

If you walked into Lila’s room on a Saturday afternoon, you might think a tiny movie studio had quietly appeared there. Small clay characters stand on a cardboard stage, toy dinosaurs wait for their scene, and a phone rests carefully on a stack of books pointing at the action. Lila, who is eleven, loves making stop motion animation films. Instead of writing long scripts, she tells her stories through pictures, sound, and movement. She laughs and says, “Writing a lot of words feels slow for my brain, but when I see the story in pictures, it just clicks.” Stop motion animation works by taking many photos of small movements and then playing them quickly so the objects appear to move on their own. Many people with dyslexia enjoy this kind…

Every great story begins with a spark, a tiny idea that pops into your mind and refuses to leave. Maybe it is a funny character, a mysterious place, or a moment that made you laugh out loud. In this section, we invite you to become the author, the artist, and even the director of your own creative world. Dyslexia creativity often shines through imagination, visual thinking, and storytelling that feels alive and colorful. Your story does not need perfect spelling or fancy sentences to matter. What it needs is your voice. Some people love writing stories in a notebook. Others prefer drawing comic scenes, recording voice notes, or building characters from clay and toys. All of these are real forms of creative storytelling. If you are not sure where to…