I am reading a fascinating book entitled My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Taylor. Jill was working as a brain scientist at Harvard, when she awoke one morning to the terrible pain of a stroke. She was hemmorrhaging blood on the left side of her brain. The book is about that experience and her recovery.
Jill explains some things about the left and right sides of our brains. The left brain houses our linguistic abilities, our calculating abilities, our analytical judgment. When Jill lost those functions, they were replaced by an incredible inner peace, euphoria, and bliss (she also uses the terms "grace" and "Nirvana.") She had no verbal cues, but also no lifetime of emotional baggage. The right side of our brains gives us our ability to understand big picture concepts and ideas. Normally there is a constant interaction between our left and right hemispheres. Jill lost that.
Did you know that each of us has approximately 50 trillion cells in our bodies? That most of us have nearly identical brains? It is the 0.01 percent in which we are different, that creates all the fun in the world. Viva la difference! That all living things, including plants, animals and humans share a common DNA? (and, I might add, a common Creator)!
Speaking of our Creator, I found it interesting that Ms. Taylor referred to the "Great Spirit." With only her right brain functioning, she felt "at one with the universe," and a "glorious bliss." Could the right brain be the place where our soul is housed?
3 comments:
Fascinating stuff. Wonder where our souls are located? Our bodies inhouse our spirit could it be the whole shebang?
Terri,
I am glad you agree. I am really intrigued by this possibility of the soul being housed in our right hemisphere.
It's neuropsychiatry, not spiritual. Has nothing to do with the "soul". Just the newest version of "take LSD and see God" stuff that was around in the 1960's. A good jolt of Meth or cocaine does the same thing, as does mental illnesses such as acute mania or psychotic ideation.
And as a doc who has worked in some of the worst pestholes in the world, I have little patience with rich yuppies and their narcissitic spiritual experiences.
when I see her floating around working with street kids in the Philippines, I'll change my mind. But until then, it's bunk.
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