In 1996, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatatomist, woke up with a splitting headache. As she was going through her morning routine, Jill soon realized that she was experiencing a stroke. One-by-one her brain functions shut down – self-awareness, motion, memory, speech.
Today, Jill believes that what she experienced through her stroke, living in her right brain for a morning, has given her as much insight into the mind as her entire academic career.
In the incredible talk below, Jill explains the difference between the right and left brain – how they’re essentially two separate entities that think and care about different things. Each brain hemisphere has a distinct personality.
The left brain is the serial processor – linear and methodical, thinking about the past and the future. The left brain picks out details from the world around us, categorizes them and plans for the future. It’s the calculated chatter in our heads. The left brain also allows us to perceive ourselves as individuals distinct from the energy flow around us.
The right brain is different. It’s the parallel processor existing in the present moment working with pictures and movement. The right brain is all about connectivity and existing in a state of flow with the world around us.
For one morning Jill lived in her right brain and it changed her life. For Jill, that morning was “beautiful,” “peaceful,” and “euphoric.” She experienced a state of flow and connectivity that few people ever get to experience.
Jill now believes that “the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world.”
Please view the video below and share your thoughts.
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Respected Sir,
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DIWAKER POOJARY
I wishes you happy new year 2009
What an amazing lecture… a brilliant opportunity to experience first hand from a very credible source, the magnificence and power we have in understanding our own brains and in creating our own realities> I would love to hear more!
Wow! Jill,
You have put into words the things I had experienced during a minor (as yet un-documented and uninsured) stoke.
That morning I was hurting and having trouble getting ready to leave the house and took my SSRI, newly prescribed for my fibromyalgia.
Next I knew, I was in the car driving (I was on my way to play for the Sunday am service when the thing happened). My car “knows the way”,I am well practiced at driving subliminally, so I did not have an accident. I suddenly, became aware that I was???, somewhere???, not expected???, unidentified???. There was no known reason for my being there…where? I looked around the car (I did not recall the sense of owning it) and discovered my music on the seat — I must be on my way to church. I did not know where I was, what road I was on, town I was entering or where a church might be or what it should even look like.
I had the presence to pull over…I remembered a friend told me to BREATHE! I did! Soon (but not really) I realized what town I was in, but not where I was in that town. I thought I might recognize the church building if I drove a little more. It took awhile, but I do not know how long. I found it. I parked and went inside. I did not realize the service was nearly over. I sat down at my instrument…the pastor nodded to me…I put my hands on the keys…I could not control them or make sense of the dots and digits on the music page. I felt I could play anything, after all, I had been doing this all my life. I told myself my muscle memory would play the correct notes, so keep on playing. I was conscious of sounds coming out of the speakers, but I could not identify them (I thought perhaps they were some newer strange hymn tunes). Evidently , neither could the congregation, they slowly stopped singing and stared at me. The Pastor came over to speak to me. I could not understand him, nor reply to him. I do not remember going home, or the rest of the day. I did go to school and teach the following day, with no recollection of the event.
The next Sunday, I was invited not to play, AND I was invited to the front of the church and sumarily “retired” with a plack that said “Thankyou”!
I was mortified, and baffled.
This is 6 years later and I am just beginning to understand what happened to me. I am still, insurance poor — no recurrance of symptoms, never having been “checked” for this, still fearful of playing in public, and much more careful of my body.
Now, I know I am not daft, and not alone in my experience. Probably, unjustly “let go!”
Thanks for the podium and the chance to share!
JO
CORRECTION READ HER OWN BOOK MY STROKE OF INSIGHT PLEASE »> SHE ACTUALLY “LIVED” IN HER “RIGHT BRAIN” FOR COSIDERABLY LONGER THAN A DAY SHE VERY CLEARLY RELATES HER AWARENESS OF THE DIFFERENT STATES OF BEING .
knocked out
I think western man has been conditioned to give priority to the logical,sequential and rationalizing part of the brain but has forgotten how to switch it off and let the intuitive side take over.Is meditation, prayer the only way to do this?Being close to nature is what seems to work best for me!
It’s refreshing to hear a neuroscientist speak about spirit and universal energy.
Great post, thank you!
Amazing!
I can NOW choose to live out my right brain? Thank you for sharing this idea! I would love to hear more!
Jill:
You are a beautiful person.
Thanks for letting us being part of you!
Love;
Wow! Thank you Jill.
An amazing, lucid talk especially from a scientists mouth makes establish firm faith in the universe’s energy powers. I hope and pray that more and more of us get enlightened and contribute towards self peace and world peace by expanding within the universe.
Jill, very amazing. And, so much sounds like what I personally experienced years ago when I ingested “entheogens”, such as the one discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1943.
In process of writing this note, I discovered not only the Hofmann Foundation website (hofmann-dot-org) but also a transcript of a talk that possibly relates to your talk and describes what I refer to above. This talk is at http://www.hofmann.org/papers/stolaroff_3.htm
Thank you for sharing your experience. So glad you are now fully well and healthy.
Aloha.
Hi Jill,
As I started watching your video, what struck me first was that YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL !! And yes, your narration was such a genuine, natural flow that I could almost feel through your experience, just by watching it.You seemed to be living your experience all over again as you narrated !!
I can’t help but ask you the questions that have cropped up in my mind: I’d highly appreciate your reply in my e mail mentioned above:
1.During the period of the stroke, you don’t seem to have been completely cut off with your left hemisphere.Otherwise, how could you recollect the experience so vividly & relive it as you narrated?
In other words,the parallel processor in the right seems to have passed on the information about your experience to your linear processor in the left for saving the memory for posterity. Am I right? If this were not so, your experience could have remained a mysterious illusion or hallucination for you.Right?
2.How can one activate the inner circuitry of the right hemisphere & simultaneously suppress the activities of the left circuits strongly enough, to be able to experience the kind of euphoria that you experienced? Or is that what happens when you are in alpha level of the mind when you meditate, long enough?
3.During the course of your treatment for the stroke, surely, you must have been put through brain scanning.Any interesting observations you came across, especially as a neuro anatomist? Were your brain waves at the alpha or theta level as you lived with your right hemisphere?
4.My understanding of the brain functions suggests that the left parts of the body are controlled by the right hemisphere.So, will it be easier for the natural left handers to connect to the inner circuitry of the right?
Take care.
Best wishes,
Srinivas
I was so touched listening this extraordinaire woman..I was in a coma for 6 days; 6 days after 9/11
I did experince that sense of oneness when I regain conscience..I was floating feeling the energy when a voice was calling my name.Reading lots of Near Death Experince..white light etc..This time hearing a neureologist explaining what I felt was ..still emotional ..after listening for the 4th time..
even know this present moment nothing else count but the now
x
please be in the present its the only place
Thank you Jill
I can relate to that „been in a coma for 6 days…the year of 9/11 it was 6 days after…I was enrgy , no boundries/ euphorique…but voices keept calling me..such a lovely place..Now I feel full of love