Jill Bolte Taylor describes something I called ‘my right brain experience’ after a serious motor cycle in her ‘TED Talk’ video. The sense of quiet, inner bliss, pain, noise, inability to recognise sounds, parallel vs serial came flooding back to me as I watched.
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
She is a neuroanatomist who suffered a stroke several years ago.
I am a geek who fell off a motorcycle exactly 11 years ago.
My right brain immediately recognised patterns and connections with the most intricate details of her story. I am going to have to re-listen several times, with a notepad and pencil, in order to bring you a left brain, serialised account of what I experienced today. I might even pluck up the courage to open my journal of notes I made while in extreme pain. That account will be a pale shadow of the profound experience I just had. This little video clip is something I made while recovering that captures my right brain experience in images and sounds.
Jill’s call to action is for each of us to spend more time in our right hemisphere - something I have been doing for the past three years. An idea worth spreading indeed!
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