My Stroke of Insight

I just finished reading "My Stroke of Insight" by Jill Bolte Taylor. We have discussed this a bit in the past, mostly around her immensely popular TED talk:

www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_po...roke_of_insight.html

This book is basically a longer form of that talk. For those that don't know, JBT is a brain researcher/neuroanatomist who had the "good fortune" to have a stroke that she was able to observe (and later recall) the details as they unfolded. To her, and the reader, it was fascinating to watch how her brain functions rapidly gave out as the stroke progressed, and equally fascinating to watch as her brain retrained itself over the follow 7+ years.

While all of that is cool, from my perspective (and many here, I am sure) the really significant part of her story is how strongly her experiences overlap with Buddhist practice. Specifically, her stroke affected her left hemisphere, which functions to provide analytics, order, speech, time, ego, etc..., and by temporarily shutting that side of her brain down, she was, essentially, exposed to Nirvana. In her words:

JBT wrote: I realized that the blessing I had had from this experience was the knowledge that deep internal peace is accessible to anyone at any time. I believe the experience of Nirvana exists in the consciousness of our right hemisphere, and that at any moment, we can choose to hook into that part of the brain....My stroke of insight would be: peach is only a thought away, and all we have to do to access it is silence the voice of our dominating left mind.

She found that when her left brain was offline, she was experiencing everything in the moment, fully, completely, but without any narrative to distort it, nor time to stitch it together. As her left brain started to repair itself, she continued to be able to tap into this at will, but found the deep silence she also initially experienced stopped once her speech centre reactivated.

JBT wrote: From a neuroanatomical perspective, I gained access to the experience of deep inner peace in the consciousness of my right mind when the language and orientation association areas in the left hemisphere of my brain became nonfunctional.

Also interesting was her process of rehabilitation, which was very laborious as she had to retrain her brain extensively. But another of her insights was her discovery of how everything felt in the body, and the fact that some emotions simply felt bad. Consequently, as she relearned various "programs" in her brain, she could choose to *not* relearn stuff that made her feel bad, such as reactions to anger or ego. She realized that certain emotional responses, triggered by chemical processes wired into our bodies, were inevitable, but that the chemicals were fairly rapidly processed by the body. It was the mind, therefore, that chose to hang on to certain responses and stew in them:

JBT wrote: Once triggered, the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience. Within 90 seconds from the initial trigger, the chemical component of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over. If, however, I remain angry after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have chosen to let that circuit continue to run. Moment by moment, I make the choice to either hook into my neurocircuitry or move back into the present moment, allowing that reaction to melt away as fleeting physiology.

JBT wrote: These passionate thoughts and feelings have the potential to jump instantly into my mind, but again, after their 90 seconds have come and gone, I have the power to consciously choose which emotional and physiological loops I want to hook into. I believe it is vital to our health that we pay very close attention to how much time we spend hooked into the circuitry of anger, or the depths of despair. Getting caught up in these emotionally charged loops for long periods of time can have devastating consequences on our physical and mental well-being because of the power they have over our emotional and physiological circuitry. However, with that said, it is equally important that we honor these emotions when they surge through us. When I am moved by my automatic circuitry, I thank my cells for their capacity to experience that emotion, and then I make the choice to return my thoughts to the present moment.

Which leads her to this:

JBT wrote: The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run its course for 90 seconds.

Because of my propensity to find the scientific basis behind what we are practicing, this book really rang my bells. It was getting a bit emphatic towards the end, so it started to wear on me somewhat, but it is a quick read and worth the effort, IMO.

JBT wrote: Based upon my experience with losing my left mind, I whole-heartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain. This circuitry is constantly running and always available for us to hook into.

I would love to have more observations, not just this one example. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reality of human brain functioning is more complicated and subtle than Jill Bolte Taylor presents it. It's also really not possible to compare awakening and her experience. Too bad her "good fortune" did not include being awake in the spiritual sense so that she could compare and contrast

It is, however, a great story!

Hmm, I was not aware that "brain lateralization" was something that was "debunked". Even now, with fMRI stuff showing brain functions allocated to certain localized regions, doesn't it seem very likely that different parts of our experience are controlled by different parts of the brain? If you accept that, then without having to buy into "right brain, artsy, left brain, logical", it is not hard to accept her experience. And I think it is important to note that this is about as experiential as it gets. She observed these things (unless you discount her recall), and her physicians observed where the stroke was. So doesn't that implicitly validate that certain functions appear to be controlled by certain locations?

To Chris' point, yes, this is one data point. An exceedingly rare data point. But I think that it is these rare glimpses that push research in any domain. For consciousness explorers, this is kind of tantalizing, and my practice take-home is that there is something accessible to all and we just need to figure out a repeatable way to get there.

Since one of her damaged areas was speech and language, you would become enlightened and never be able to tell anyone about it!

And on the left/right topic, and whether or not that is something debunked, here is JBT in a one year old TED talk directed at teenagers:

Even now, with fMRI stuff showing brain functions allocated to certain localized regions, doesn't it seem very likely that different parts of our experience are controlled by different parts of the brain?

Tom, after sitting through the Dave Vago/Shinzen Young two hour long interactive session about fMRI scanning and related matters last August at BG2013, I'm not at all sure that the fMRI scanner measures what we have assumed it measures. Vago and Shinzen said in very clear terms that they created stories about their results after the fact - stories that they hoped were accurate 'cause otherwise they couldn't report results that would be "sensible" and help them in getting more funding. fMRI measures blood flow, so assuming blood flow is an accurate measure of brain activity, and assuming the areas they scan are the areas they should be scanning, and assuming they're not missing other areas involved in the brain activity they think they're measuring.... well, a long chain of assumptions is what I remember hearing.

My personal take: The brain evolved. It was not engineered, so it's very likely to be messy, inefficient and may have functionality spread all over the place as various mental capabilities either came into existence, or left us.

My personal take on the JBT thing is this -- it is heartening to hear her story because it suggests that there are some biological, chemical, electrical or neurological processes that could represent the things I do and experience in my practice. That somehow, maybe someday, the things I know and do will be explained in detail and thus be validated and replicated in ways beyond personal anecdotes.

If meditation is damaging our brains then all human beings should be so lucky