Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. is a Harvard-trained and published neuroanatomist who teaches at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Bloomington, Indiana. She is the author of the extraordinary book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey which tells the story of a stroke which essentially knocked out her left hemisphere and enhanced the functioning of her right hemisphere. In this right-hemisphere state she seemed to experience something akin to enlightenment. I learned of Dr. Jill through an incredible video presentation she gave at a recent TED Conference in Monterey, California. Dr. Jill has dedicated her career to the advancement of postmortem research into the human brain and to the education of the public about the fragile, yet resilient, nature of this incredible organ. Because of the long-term shortage of brain tissue donated for research into the severe mental illnesses, she travels throughout the country. By sharing her science and her unique personal journey, she communicates a message of hope, education, and celebration.
4 Comments
wow interesting show.
it really would be interesting to find out if she
can access this state of mind at will…and if so if shes been scanned when experiencing her mystic states?.
there is actually a NOVA video titled Secrets of the Mind about a neuroscientist from UCSD, Ramachandran, who investigates a subject who experiences mystic states when he has seizures.
Another wonderful podcast, but it left me with some questions.
1. I wonder about all those poor people who have strokes in the right hemisphere of their brains. Do they end up trapped in a hellish nightmarish realm of criticism and judgment and heightened sensitivities to good and evil? All the things that Dr. Taylor was happy to leave behind? Being a materialist myself I would wonder if that is where the idea of Hell comes from.
2. It is sad that the good Dr. had not had the appropriate experiences that would have allowed her to comment as to whether her experiences of bliss mirrored or mimicked similar experiences said to be induced by psychedelic or psychoactive drugs. (Or else sad that such revelations might be culturally and legally frowned upon.)
3. Her description of her willful recovery also raises questions as to who might receive adequate medical care after such an event…if a Harvard-trained and published neuroanatomist has to suffer physicians who aren’t engaged and aren’t truly invested in helping their patients, what hope is there for the rest of us in this increasingly expensive and privatized world of US healthcare?
A (relatively) short comment!
Cheers and thanks!
I think Dr. Taylor is helping to blaze the way for future inquiry into brain science. My question would be, she said she decided to return to the ‘normal world’, that it was a choice. So even with the left hemisphere nonfunctional, the right hemisphere was able to make that decision?
Late in responding, but I think that her left hemisphere was not completely out for the full duration of her recovery, which in the TED video (if you haven’t seen it, its at http://www.ted.com), she said took 8 years. So I think she had plenty of time and left-brain function to make some left-brained decisions. Also, seems that it was a decsion much influenced by the right hemisphere - I would suppose that right brains can make some decisions too.