Stroke of insight Jill Bolte Taylor

[Music]

I grew up to study the brain because I

have a brother who has been diagnosed

with a 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 brother’s brain

and his schizophrenia that he cannot

connect his dreams to a common and

shared reality so they instead become

delusion 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 Venice 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 and on the weekends I

traveled as an advocate for Nami 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

thank you sir 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 300 million

axonal fibers but other than that the

two hemispheres are completely separate

because they process information

differently each of our hemisphere think

about different things they care about

different things and dare I say they

have very different personalities excuse

me thank you it’s been a joy

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

kinesthetically 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

in my internal world to my external

world it’s that little voice that says

to me hey you got to remember to pick up

a Nana’s on your 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 a 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 a 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 and it was very

unusual for me to ever experience any

kind of pain so I thought okay I’ll just

start my normal routine so I got up and

I jumped onto my cardia glider which is

a full body full exercise machine and

I’m jamming 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

whoa I’m a weird-looking thing and it

was as 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’m witnessing

myself having this experience there 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 realized 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 this 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 heard a little voice saying okay

you muscles you got a contract and you

muscles you relaxed and now I lost my

balance

propped up against the the wall and I

look down at my arm and I realized that

I can 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 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 shattered 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 had a problem we got a

problem we gotta get some help but I’m

going oh I got a problem I got a problem

so it’s like okay

okay I got a problem but then I

immediately drifted right back out into

the consciousness and I fictionally

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 mice 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 and I felt this

sense of peacefulness and imagine what

it would feel like to lose 37 years of

emotional baggage

oh I felt euphoria euphoria it was

beautiful there and then again my left

hemisphere comes online 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 gotta focus so I get out of

the shower and I mechanically dress and

I’m walking around my apartment and I’m

thinking I got to get to work I got to

get to work

can I Drive can I Drive and in that

moment my right arm went totally

paralyzed by my side did I realize oh my

gosh am I having a stroke

I’m having a stroke and then the next

thing my brain says to me is wow this is

so cool

this is so cool how many brain

scientists have the opportunity to study

their own brain from the inside out

and then it crosses my mind but I’m a

very busy woman

time for a strong

it’s like okay 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 okay so I got a call help I got

a 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 him so I go into my business

room I pull out a three inch stack of

business cards and I’m looking at the

card on top and even though I could see

clearly in my mind’s eye what my

business card looked like I couldn’t

tell if this was my card or not because

all I could see were 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 mean time for 45 minutes the

hemorrhage is getting bigger in my left

hemisphere I do not understand numbers I

do not understand a telephone but it’s

the only plan I have so I take the foam

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 foam pad but then I

would drift back out into lala land and

not remember if when I come back and 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 pushed them so that as I would

come back to normal reality I’d be able

to tell yes I’ve already dialed that

number eventually the whole number gets

dialed and I’m listening to the song and

my colleague picks up the phone and he

says to me whoa

and I think that myself oh my gosh he

sounds like a golden retriever

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 I

think 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 and he gets me

help and a little while later I’m 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 of just just right out

of the balloon I just felt my energy

lift and just I felt my spirit surrender

and in that moment I knew that I was no

longer the choreographer of my life and

either the doctors rescue my body and

give me a second chance at life or this

was perhaps my moment of transition when

I woke 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

planes 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

I remember thinking there’s 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’m 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 any time 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 Here I am with my

momma who’s 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 the 50 trillion

beautiful molecular geniuses that make

up my form and 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

neuroanatomist

these are the wee 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

[Applause]