A POWERFUL STROKE OF INSIGHT

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions shut down one by one. Dr. Taylor’s is a truly astonishing story.
One morning, a blood vessel in Dr. Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions – motion, speech, and self-awareness - shut down one by one. Amazed to find herself alive, Dr. Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right brain. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career." Jill Bolte Taylor

A POWERFUL STROKE OF INSIGHT
As transcribed nearly verbatim and without permission from the video found at the website: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

I drew up this study of the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia. And as a sister, and later as a scientist, I wanted to understand why is it that I can take my dreams, I can connect them to my reality, and I can make my dreams come true. What is it about my brothers brain, and his schizophrenia, that he cannot connect his dreams to a common and shared reality, so they instead become delusions? So I dedicated my career to research into the severe mental illnesses, and I moved from my home state of Indiana to Boston, where I was working in the lab of Dr. Francine Bennett, in the Harvard Department of Psychiatry. And in the Lab, we were asking the question, what are the biological differences between the brains of individuals who would be diagnosed as ‘normal control’, as compared with the brains of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or bipolar disorder? So we were essentially mapping the micro-circuitry of the brain - which cells are communicating with which cells, with which chemicals, and then in what quantities of those chemicals. So there was a lot of meaning in my life because I was performing this type of research during the day, but then in the evenings and on the weekends, I traveled as an advocate for NAOMI, the National Alliance On Mental Illness. But on the morning of December 10, 1996 I woke up to discover that I had a brain disorder of my own. A blood vessel exploded in the left half of my brain. And in the course of four hours, I watched my brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process all information. On the morning of the hemorrhage I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. I essentially became an infant in a woman’s body.
If you’ve ever seen a human brain - it’s obvious that the two hemispheres are completely separate from one another. And I have brought for you a real human brain. (Audience sighs heavily as assistant brings on stage an intact human brain...) (Displaying brain) So this is a real human brain. This is the front of the brain. The back of the brain with the spinal cord hanging down. And this is how it would be positioned inside of my head. And when you look at the brain, it’s obvious that the two cerebral cortices are completely separate from one another. For those of you who understand computers, our right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor, while our left hemisphere functions like a serial processor. The two hemispheres do communicate with one another through the corpus callosum, which is made up of some three hundred million axonal fibers, but other than that, the two hemispheres are completely separate. Because they process information differently, each of our hemispheres think about different things, they care about different things, and dare I say, they have very different personalities. (Returning brain to assistant) Excuse Me - Thank You - It’s been a joy - audience laughs)
Our right human hemisphere is all about This Present Moment. It’s all about Right Here, Right Now. Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures and it learns kinetically through the movement of our bodies. Information in the form of energy streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems, and then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like, and tastes like, what it feels like, and what it sounds like. I am an energy being, connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings, connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family.
And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment, we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful.
My left hemisphere, our left hemisphere, is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past, and it’s all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment, and start picking out details, details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information, associates it with everything in the past we’ve ever learned, and projects into the future all of our possibilities.
And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It’s that ongoing brain chatter that connects me and my internal world to my external world. It’s that little voice that says to me "Hey, you gotta remember to pick up bananas on you’re way home. I need them in the morning." It’s that calculating intelligence that knows, that reminds me when I have to do my laundry. But perhaps most important, it’s that little voice that says to me, "I am", "I Am.." And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me, "I AM," I become separate. I become a single, solid individual, separate from the energy flow around me, and separate from you. And this is the portion of my brain that I lost on the morning of my stroke.
On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a pounding pain, behind my left eye. And it was the kind of pain, caustic pain that you get when you bite into ice cream. And it just gripped me - - and then it released me. And then it just gripped me - - and then it released me. It was very unusual for me to ever experience any kind of pain, so I thought, "OK, I’ll just start my normal routine." So I got up and jumped onto my Cardio Glider, which is a full body, full exercise machine. And I’m jammin’ away on this thing, and I’m realizing that my hands look like primitive claws, grasping onto the bar. And I thought, that’s very peculiar and I looked down at my body and I thought, "Wow, I’m a weird looking thing."
And it was though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I’m the person on the machine having the experience to some esoteric space where I am witnessing myself having this experience. Now, it was all very peculiar, and my headache was just getting worse, so I get off the machine, and I’m walking across my living room floor and I realize that everything inside of my body has - slowed - way - - - down. And every step is very rigid and very deliberate. There’s no fluidity to my pace and there’s, - there’s constriction in my area of perception so I’m just focused on internal systems. And I’m standing in my bathroom getting ready to step into the shower and I could actually hear the dialogue inside of my body. I had a little voice saying, "Ok, You muscles, you gotta contract. And You muscles, you relax." And then I lost my balance and I’m propped up against the - the wall. And I looked down at my arm, and I realized that I could no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can’t define where I begin - and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and the molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I’m asking myself, "What Is Wrong With Me? What Is Going On?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter, went totally silent - just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button. Total silence. And at first, I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of the energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at One with All the Energy That Was and it was Beautiful there. And then, all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online and it says to me, "Hey, We Got A Problem. We Got A Problem. And We’ve Got To Get Some Help". And I’m going, "Oh, I Got A Problem - I’ve Got A Problem.
So I thought, "OK! OK, so I’ve Got A Problem." But then I immediately drifted right back out into the consciousness and I affectionately refer to this space as LaLa Land.
But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter that connects you to the external world. So here I am in this space, and my job and any stress related to my job, it was gone. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine, all of the relationships in the external world and any stressors related to any of those, they were gone. I felt this sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose thirty seven years of emotional baggage. OH - I felt Euphoria - EUPHORIA... IT TWAS BEAUTIFUL THERE. And again, my left hemisphere comes on line and it says, "Hey, You’ve Got To Pay Attention. We’ve Got To Get Help!" And I’m thinking, "I’ve Got To Get Help. I’ve Got To Focus!" So I get out of the shower and I mechanically dress and I’m walking around my apartment and I’m thinking, "I’ve got to get to work. I’ve Got To Get To Work. Can I drive? Can I Drive? And in that moment my right arm went totally paralyzed by my side. And then I realized, "OH, MY GOSH, I’M HAVING A STROKE!!! I’M HAVING A STROKE!!!"
Then the next thing my brain says to me is "WOW - THIS IS SO COOL!!(Audience laughs) THIS IS SO COOL!) How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out? (Audience laughs) And then it crosses my mind, "But I’m A Very Busy Woman. I Don’t Have Time For A Stroke."... So like, "OK, I can’t stop the stroke from happening so I’ll Do This - - - for a week or two, and then I’ll get back to my routine."
Ok, so I’ve got to call help. I’ve got to call work.. I couldn’t remember the number at work, so I remembered in my office I had a business card with my number on it. So I go in my business room and pull out a three inch stack of business cards. And I’m looking at the card on top, and even though I can see clearly in my minds eye what my business card looked like, I couldn’t tell if this was my card or not because all I could see was pixels and the pixels of the words blended with the pixels of the background and the pixels of the symbols and I just couldn’t tell. And then I would wait for what I call A Wave Of Clarity. And in that moment I would be able to reattach to normal reality. And I could tell - "That’s not the card - That’s not the card - That’s not the card." It took me 45 minutes to get one inch down inside of that stack of cards.
In the meantime, for 45 minutes, the hemorrhage is getting bigger in my left hemisphere. I do not understand numbers, I do not understand the telephone, but it’s the only plan I have, so I take the phone pad and I put it right here. I take the business card, I put it right here, and I’m matching the shape of the squiggles on the card to the shape of the squiggles on the phone pad. But then I would drift back out into LaLa Land and not remember when I come back if I’d already dialed those numbers. So I had to wield my paralyzed arm like a stump and cover the numbers as I went along and push down so that as I’d come back to normal reality I would be able to tell, ‘Yes, I’ve already dialed that number.’ Eventually, the whole number gets dialed and I’m listening to the phone and my colleague picks up the phone and he says to me, "WooWoo, WooWooWoo.." And I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, he sounds like a Golden Retriever." (Laughter) And so I say to him, clear in my mind, I say to him"  This is Jill. I need help!" And what comes out of my voice is "WooWooo, WooWooWoo!" and I’m thinking, "Oh My Gosh, I sound like a Golden Retriever!" So I couldn’t know, I didn’t know that I couldn’t speak or understand language until I tried. So he recognizes that I need help, and he gets me help and a little while later, I’m riding in an ambulance from one hospital, across Boston to Mass. General Hospital, and I curl up into a little fetal ball and just like a balloon, with the last, last bit of air just (poof) just right out of the balloon, I just - felt my energy lift and just - I felt my spirit surrender.
In that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life and either the doctors rescued my body and give me a second chance at life or this was perhaps my moment of transition. When I awoke later that afternoon I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. When I felt my spirit surrender, I said ‘Goodbye’ to my life and my mind was now suspended between two very opposite claims of Reality. Stimulation coming in through my sensory systems
felt like pure pain . Light burned my brain like wildfire and sounds were so loud and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out from the background noise and I just wanted to escape. Because I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free like a great whale, gliding through a sea of silent euphoria. NIRVANA ! ! I Found Nirvana! And I remember thinking there was no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body. But then I realized ’But, I’m still alive. I’m Still Alive.’ ‘And I Have Found Nirvana.’ ‘And - And if I have found Nirvana and I am still alive, then Everyone who is alive Can Find Nirvana’.
And I pictured a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at anytime. And that they could purposely Choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres, and Find This Peace. And then I realized, what a tremendous gift this experience could be. What - What a Stroke Of Insight This Could Be to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to recover.
Two and a half weeks after the hemorrhage, the surgeons went in and they removed a blood clot the size of a golf ball that was pushing on my language centers. (Showing Picture) Here I am with my Momma, who is a true angel in my life. It took me eight years to completely recover.
So, Who Are We ? ? We Are The Life Force Power Of The Universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds and We Have The Power To Choose Moment By Moment Who And How We Want To Be In The World. Right Here, Right Now I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where We Are, I Am, The Life Force Power Of The Universe. I am the Life Force Power of the fifty trillion beautiful molecular genius’s that make up my form, at One With All That Is.
Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuralamagnus - -
These are the We inside of me.
Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And When?
I believe 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 and the more peaceful our planet will be.
And I thought THAT was an idea worth spreading............!!!

Lecture ends with a standing ovation and audience cheering loudly.

Now that is a lesson worth learning. We are, indeed, One Human Family. And while we are all different, we are also all the same, remnants of individual humanity torn from the very same cloth, a part of the All-pervading Unity of the Universe. We are the current lead carriers of an advancing Evolution. And if we choose to allow it, we can become at One with the Life Force Power Of The Universe. And we have the power, right here, right now to choose to step to the right of our left hemisphere - to step into the consciousness of our right hemispheres and choose moment by moment who and how we want to be in this world that we are creating. So it is really up to me, and up to you, and up to every individual to choose for ourselves. Heaven and Hell are here right now. I know where I prefer to live. Life is too short to choose anything else.