[My Stroke of Insight] Yet more left-hemisphere thoughts on the left-right dichotomy

I have had some very interesting feedback from different friends, readers and my mom on the subject of the left-right hemispheres of the brain. And as I need to do a few papers on the Human Brain for my doctorate, my reading about all this is getting deeper (or at least wider).

Synchronistically, my mother spoke to me about an incredible woman and her story of left-brain stroke and the incredible euphoria she experienced for the several weeks that her left brain was out of service. Apparently she almost regretted getting her left-brain back and describes living with only the right hemisphere active as a kind of nirvana, a growing sense of peace that sounds much like the nirvana described by the Enlightened who have attempted to describe the undescribable in left-brain language (nirvana being, as we now know, a right-brained 'phenomenon'). Interesting (dare I say cute) sidenote, the woman remembered experiencing a feeling of being enveloped by perfect love while she lay in her hospital bed. Only after she wrote about this did her own mother tell her that while she was recovering but unable to recognize anyone, she would lie in her hospital bed next to her and hug her for hours...

The synchronicity I mention comes from another friend (you know who you are) who sent me a similar description the next day with a link to the following article on Jill Bolte Taylor, the woman my mother was telling me about (although she could not remember her name). Cool coincidence in any case. Anyhoo, said friend, also sent me this excerpt from JBT's book, My Stroke of Insight, which kind of brings home the subject of the last three post entries quite well while explaining our need for the left brains 'chatter' to function in this world:

One of the jobs of our left hemisphere language centers is to define our self by saying “I am.”  Through the use of brain chatter, your brain repeats over and over again the details of your life so you can remember them. It is the home of the ego center, which provides you with an internal awareness of what your name is, what your credentials are, and where you live.  Without these cells performing their job, you would forget who you are and lose track of your life and your identity.

Together with the following quote, this time from the above-mentioned article, Ms. Taylor describes the feeling as she was having the stroke:

As the language centers in my left hemisphere grew increasingly silent, my consciousness soared into an all-knowingness, a "being at one" with the universe, if you will. In a compelling sort of way, it felt like the good road home and I liked it. 

Pretty incredible!

My further thinking on this is that it doesn't seem elegant to me that we should be searching to neutralize the left brain and its chatter to achieve true and lasting 'nirvana', joy, bliss, whatever (and I doubt we would want to always be there even if we could). Based on what we know of the Universe, it would seem to make more sense that we need to find a way to dissipate the duality of the two hemispheres and allow the left to keep us grounded and allow the right to allow us to feel higher emotions, i.e. find a synthesis of the two rather than a promotion of the one over the other. Unity (or advaita (non-duality)) rather than duality... where have I heard that spiritual theme before???

More thoughts on the left-right brain dichotomy

Well, I keep on thinking on the difference between the left and right hemispheres of the brain and the implications it has in spirituality, in observation, in regards to ego, in regards to understanding things and I find it all quite fascinating.

In all of the power of now literature, whether it be by Eckhart Tolle or anyone else, there is always this injunction to be in the now. One example that is often given is the awe we experience when faced with a wondrous landscape that nature offers us. Staying with that feeling of awe is usually held up as an example of "being in the now" which is the ultimate spiritual objective (if you buy into the literature, but also because it does feel good to be in that zone/feeling/state of mind...). So when does it all go to bits this wonderful feeling of being one with nature, the universe and everything? When you name it. That is, when you start to 'speak', even without words, when you describe it, when you say to yourself or someone 'it is so beautiful'... But putting this into the perspective of my last blog post, it is all really, and simply, a question of the left hemisphere speaking up to interrupt the blissful observation of the right hemisphere. Like the left is talking to the right while the latter is saying 'shut up will ya, I'm trying to watch'...

Actually, I had an idea about left-right that maybe in the Bible, in Genesis, there would be a mention of Adam observing first and naming all of the animals later but it was a dead end. However, if you will allow me the digression, I found it funny to reread the passage where God asks Adam, did you eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? And Adam says, well yeah, but it's the woman you gave me who incited me to nibble. And then the woman says, well yeah, but it was the snake who incited me to eat it. Unfortunately for the snake he had no one to pass the blame along to and ended up legless and destined to slither forever in the dust. Very childish behavior on the part of our uber-parents, very 'it wasn't me' or 'he started it'...

Anyway, back to the Power of Now, which I just reached for following paragraph one's mention of it and here are a few nuggets that I found that I want to share with you.

The first is a basic premise of the book (a worldwide bestseller - assuming that counts as a positive), or rather of the author, is that "not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction..." (page 14 of the paperback edition), pointing out that Descartes' famous quip "I think, therefore I am" had it all wrong. For Tolle, to "equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking" is a major error - "the most basic error". Bringing in the left-right argument again, allows us to rethink the 'problem' a bit, for example, understanding that there is more to the mind than the chattiness that goes on in, and is the result of, our left hemisphere.

Later in the book (page 41) Tolle admonishes us (in the face of pain or beauty or whatever) "don't let the feeling turn into thinking". Once again, using the two hemisphere framework, it seems like we need to remain in observation with the right hemisphere (the silent brain that perceives but does not speak) and not allow the left hemisphere to start naming and rationalizing (or to re-use the metaphor, talking in the middle of the film that we are watching).

Being in the now, in a state of timelessness, is something that Tolle suggests we do (more often). And it is one of the characteristics of the right brain, while the left hemisphere counts, checks the watch, wonders how much time has gone by, etc. It really makes me think that the Zen (or Zen Buddhist) paradigm is about being 'right-minded', but literally! While I still don't know how to do that, it does make it a bit more easy to understand the 'requirements' and/or approach...

To finish this post, I want to share with you a wonderful little vignette that Watzlawick quotes in the book that got me going on this whole left-right theme, The Language of Change. It has nothing to do with anything, and I think he knew that too when he put it in his book, like I'm doing with this blog, but it is a great parable by Chuang Tzu that should help us all in 'anger management' when 'stuff' happens...

Suppose a boat is crossing a river, and another, empty boat is about to collide with it. Even an irritable man would not lose his temper. But suppose there is someone in the second boat. Then the occupant of the first would shout for him to keeep clear. And if the other did not hear the first time, nor even when called to three times, bad language would inevitably follow. In the first case, there was no anger, in the second there was; because in the first case the boat was empty, and in the second it was occupied. And so it is with man. If he could only roam empty through life, who would be able to injure him?

Of course, my anger management idea, and my final thought for now, is 'consider all those boats to be empty..."

Which side is the ego on?

I am now reading a book which is not really spiritual, at least at first glance, which has succeeded in making me think about quite a number of spiritual implications of what the author is talking about. Apparently this is not completely unintentional either, as the author does make the occasional references to religion, mysticism, Buddhism and Zen. But that is not the subject of the book by any stretch.

The book is The Language of Change Elements of Therapeutic Communication by Paul Watzlawick. Here (so that you understand that the spiritual angle I am finding is after all a bit of a stretch) is the official book description:

In this groundbreaking book, a world authority on human communication and communication therapy points out a basic contradiction in the way therapists use language. Although communications emerging in therapy are ascribed to the mind's unconscious, dark side, they are habitually translated in clinical dialogue into the supposedly therapeutic language of reason and consciousness. But, Dr. Watzlawick argues, it is precisely this bizarre language of the unconscious which holds the key to those realms where alone therapeutic change can take place.

Basically, Watzlawick's approach is to say that there are two sides of the brain (I know 'big scoop'! but bear with me). The left hemisphere which is the 'digital' side, the side responsible for counting, logic, language, grammar, syntax, semantics, reading, writing, speaking and, more generally, directed thinking. The right hemisphere is the 'analog' side, the side responsible for associations, dreams, fantasies, perception, intuition, Gestalt, recognizing faces, timelessness, concepts, word games, puns and, more generally, undirected thinking.

According to the author, the right hemisphere perceives with the left hand, left eye, left nostril, left ear. And vice versa. His therapeutic approach, and I am simpilfying greatly, is about getting the left hemisphere out of the way so that he can communicate with the right hemisphere...

In the middle of the brain is the corpus callosum, responsible for inter-hemispheric communication.

What is interesting, too, is that the left hemisphere is also known as the 'verbal' brain and the right hemisphere is also called the 'silent' brain.

Now you may be asking, and rightfully so, "Okay Alon, that is almost interesting, but what is the connection between this quick overview of anatomy and functionality and spirituality?" And you would be right to do so. So let me try and explain at least a few of the associations this raised for me...

First off is the question that is the title of this blog entry, so which side of the brain is the ego on? Since we are told that the ego is our own personal and internal nemesis, hindering us in our ability to see things as they are; since we are told that ego is the little bugger that will not allow us to meditate quietly and keeps on insisting on chatting away as the ego fears silence; as we are told that it is ego that insists on rationalizing and using logic even in areas of faith that defy to a certain degree cerebral reasoning... it seems like ego sounds a lot like Watzlawick's description of the left hemisphere.

But then I began to think about the corpus callosum, sitting so strategically in between the two hemispheres. If I were the ego and wanted to wreak havoc as the ego is purported to wont to do, I would probably sit there. If it is playing a positive role, I see the corpus callosum bridging the two hemispheres. However, the corpus callosum also controls the translation between the two hemispheres, two hemispheres that do not speak the same language and/or speak a similar language in different ways.

How easy would it be then to do a "Lost in Translation" type of translation in which only a minimum of information is communicated?! Or how easy would it be to translate 'slightly off' in order to cause some confusion or 'incommunication'? If the ego is really such a trouble maker, it almost seems too easy.

Further, reading this book, I realized that the duality that Buddhism, Zen, Hinduism and most Eastern spirituality sees as something that is supposed to be transcended so that we can reach unity, see ourselves as one, and merge with the universe... is SO biological. We are trying to overcome our own brain structure which is totally dual. Which might imply that enlightenment is about getting the two hemispheres to work together, or to bridge the two hemispheres so that they work as one, or maybe to think from the corpus callosum rather than either hemisphere or ???

Interestingly many descriptions of enlightenment and meditation, and something mentioned in Eat, Pray, Love (I discussed in a previous blog entry) is the figurative 'blue pearl' which resides somewhere in the middle, or the middle-bottom, of the brain and seems to be the source of the feeling of unique euphoria linked to enlightenment and the feeling of being one with the universe.

Also, since it would seem that, wherever we are spiritually, it would be interesting to connect more and more often to the right side of the brain, the side which understands things intuitively, that sees the bigger picture, that left side of the body meditation techniques could be used. Close your right eye, block your right nostril, put an ear plug in your right ear and then try meditating. I don't meditate very often but the next time I do I will try it. If I come up with anything interesting I will let you know, here.

Finally, if, as many believe, we have chosen to come to earth and live as humans, and having done so we chose to forget our 'godliness', maybe that 'trick' was pulled off by not giving us access to knowledge we already have (you have to know in order to forget), knowledge that is waiting for us in the right hemisphere that the left hemisphere is 'protecting' us from...

But since I came up with this with the left side of my brain, how much credence should we give that idea?