Mar 27 2008
The “child like” right brain
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
So, a couple days ago a friend of mine sent me a video to view. The video is a video of a neuroanatomist by the name of Jill Bolte who had a “left brain” stroke. As she describes in her video, the effects of the stroke were rather dramatic shutting down her left brain in a pre-emptory fashion leaving her, as she describes throughout the course of her video presentation, in the “la la land” of the right hemisphere.
Her descriptions of lateralized brain function are interesting. According to Dr. Bolte, the right hemisphere “thinks in pictures” and “learns through movement.” It is kinesthetic, emotional, and, if you go by her descriptions, childlike in its apprehension of the physical realities of this world. I can certainly agree with that, but perhaps infantile would be a better description. Despite the fact that she is having a stroke, this “child brain” within her seems unable to conceptualize the danger and unable to take appropriate steps that might prevent the termination of Dr. B’s physical existence. Terrible. And perhaps frightening to anybody looking on. The incompetence of the right brain in this case is positively biblical in proportion.
Thank God for the left brain though. Without what was left of her left brain during the stroke, without the detail oriented, linear, categorizing, rationality of the left brain, Dr. Bolte would most certainly be dead. The right brain couldn’t even get through a stack of phone numbers it was so incompetent in this 3D reality.
At the end of the presentation Dr. B. is weeping. “It is beautiful there” she cries, recollecting the beauty of the reality she has left, and speaks in mystical terms about the wonderful Nirvana that everyone can attain, she says, if they just “choose” to be there in the moment.
I got to be honest with you. I grimaced as I sat through this. For me this narrative outlines several problems that we, as scientists and individuals interested in spirituality and spiritual expression, have to overcome if we are to properly understand all the “shifting” that is going on in this world. Allow me to outline these problems.
Problem one relates to the good doctors understanding of the right brain and it’s action. going into too much theoretical detail about the right brain, how it connects to the Fabric of Consciousness, and how it’s related to left brain, let me just say that the image of the right brain that the good doctor gives us is an image of an immature right brain. It is an image of child’s first conscious experiences in this world. It should be obvious from her description. The oceanic feeling (interestingly enough, something that is typical of the perinatal experiences of the immature fetal system (Grof, 1976′ 1985)), the inability to function in the world, difficulty attending to the requirements of survival, all these things which she experienced as her left brain functions collapsed are the reactions of infantile child. My four year exhibits more “right brain” maturity this.
Think about it.
We live in a left brain dominated world. We live in a world which, as I outline elsewhere, is antagonistic and hostile to right brain experience. Not only do we traumatize the sensitive right brain, but we give it no room to develop. We emphasize linear/practical thinking in our socialization process, devalue the holistic, artistic, metaphoric, sensibilities of the right brain (as the good doctor does when she calls the processing capabilities of the right hemisphere “la la land.”) and generally provide no space for the practical exploration and development of right brain capacities. We, as a world, are hostile to right brain experiences and although it is improving, I still remember a time when kids where slapped if they used their left hand to right with.
You can see the truth of what I’m saying here when you critically examine the narrative account of the good Dr. B. Arguably, Dr. B. is the professional epitome of left brain hyper-dominance and it shows in her atrophied right brain’s incapacity to manage, at an adult level, the trauma that she is experiencing.
The question we need to be asking is, is this incapacity natural? Does her description of her child like right brain represent the epitome of right brain potential?
No.
It is simply the result of her own undeveloped right hemisphere. Which brings me to the second problem which is scientists talking about spirit. If you open your intuition here you’ll see, there’s a big problem. As I argue elsewhere, the planet is currently going through a “great awakening.” This great awakening comes down, basically, to a full activation of the Crown Chakra. Since most of us already have activated left hemispheres, this means, practically, that our experiences of awakening will initially put us in touch with an immature right brain. Not so much a problem I suppose if there is good guidance around to help you properly interpret (for your hyper developed left brain) what you are experiencing and provide good guidance on developing and maturing the right hemisphere, but it definitely is a problem when we start listening to “single experience” scientists who present an immature spiritual sensibility as if it is the full potential of right brain processing.
It’s a big problem.
I mean, what psychologist in their right mind would look at a new born infant for an assessment of the potential of a properly matured, healthy adult body. Answer? No psychologist. If you want to know what a healthy adult body is capable of, you don’t point to the infant as exemplar. Unless you don’t know any better, that’s just ridiculous. Yet, this is exactly what Dr. B. is doing. Holding a dead brain as a symbol of her expertise (a fascinating little subliminal message of authority sent straight into the “picture processing centers” of the naive right brains of her audience members), she then points to her infantile right brain and says, this is what you are.
But trust me on this. This is not what you are. The bottom line is, her narrative does not represent the full potential of right brain processing and it’s important to recognize this. Otherwise, you’ll find yourselves locked in a childlike apprehension of the possibilities of spiritual awakening (and of reality for that matter) and that’s no good for many reasons, which I won’t go into here. In your own awakening work, you want to move beyond these simplistic representations in order to expand and mature the capacities of your right brain. You don’t take as a given, or as exemplar, the immature god-child. Progress in spiritual awakening will require right brain therapy and development. Not hard, but quite essential, especially if you want to re-enter “nirvana.” Unlike what the good Dr. says (and in complete denial of the empirical reality of her own experience), it’s not a simple matter of choice. As long as the right brain remains weak, accessing it will require some form of left brain suppression which, if I’m being honest, makes about as much sense as treppaning, i.e., poking a hole in the left hemisphere just so you can experience the inner god-child of the right once again. Interesting approach, but ultimately counterproductive!
And it’s not just a question of developing the right brain. There is a question of safety here. In her experience Dr. B. was quite lucky. The initial awakening of the god-child was not traumatic. But it could have been. As I said earlier, this world is hostile to that inner god-child and it only takes a little bit of time for the god-child (which has, even in undeveloped form, a level of insight quite beyond anything even the fully developed left brain is capable of) to become aware of the hostility and when it does, it will react like any threatened child will. With fear, regression, withdrawal, trauma and lack of comprehension. Of course the left brain will observe this, encode the experience, and say to itself (with more or less force) “I’m not letting that happen again.” At which point it will begin to build a wall to protect it self (because it sees “itself” as the sum total of the organism). If this goes on to long, the wall will become basically insurmountable under normal conditions and will require, as is clearly exemplified by the Dr. B. case study, that the left brain be shut down temporarily. In this context, Dr. B.’s advice to “just choose” can be seen clearly for what it is. Naive, uninformed, and potentially damaging to the possibility of strengthening the processing capabilities of the right brain (i.e., fully waking up).
So the point of all this?
Well, there’s a couple of points. Point one. If you are scientist investigating spiritual phenomenon, right brain thinking, the ground of being, spiritual awakening, or whatever, please consider that you may be looking at immature examples of spiritual potential. Based on what I’ve been saying here, even the so called Peak Experiences and mystical experiences (often entheogen induced) often investigated by psychologists may merely be immature expressions of an undeveloped spiritual connection. Please do not present these immature experiences as exemplars of what a fully developed Physical Unit, (i.e., body and mind) is capable of in the realm of spiritual expression.
Point two, be critical. If you are a spiritual seeker, try and recognize when you are dealing with an immature account, or with a “teacher” who remains “spiritually naive” about the “higher realities.” I’m not saying don’t listen to people. They may have good information for you. But by the same token, they may also be limiting your understanding, appreciation, and forward movement because of their own naivety and their own misinformed presumption to spiritual wisdom. At least consider the possibility
Finally, I’d like to make a comment about dualistic thinking. In science, in this world, we have this tendency to think of everything in terms of this and that. Left and right, up and down, good and bad, black and white. We live in a world of difference, we are told. But do we really? Detail oriented categorization of the world is a something the left brain does but does this represent reality? No. This represents and image of reality imposed on the “ground of experience” as a result of unbalanced development of the Crown Chakra. The “right brain” doesn’t see things that way and neither would the left brain if the right brain had a stronger influence . If the right brain wasn’t so atrophied, we would not see the world as figure, ground or as discrete particle. We would see the world more for what it is, a wave function, a swirling hot pot of energy that we exist in in an eternal now and over which we have total conscious control. Foreign thinking to the unbalanced left, but just common sense to a developed right brain.
Getting back to the discussion of the good Dr. B. We must remind ourselves of the corpus callosum and the potential for proper hemispheric balance. Proper communication between hemispheres is not given. Like the facilities of reading, writing, and rythmetic, the capacities of the right brain need nourishment. Unfortunately, they normally don’t get it. We currently live in what I might like to call a dictatorship of the left brain. Powerful, capable, linear, in control, the left brain dominates our perception of reality and easily suppresses the processing and information provided by the right brain. There is no communication, there is no balance and as a result, the right brain is shut out of experience. Being shut out, it never develops. Like a child lost in a time warp, confined to the grayness of Sheol, the god child inside sits and waits, undeveloped, uninformed, unformed, and immature, waiting for some kind of trauma to the shut the left brain down so that it may share, however briefly, it’s unique perspective and power. Under these conditions, is it any wonder that our apprehension of wider realities is confined to moments of physical and psychological trauma, to Near Death Experiences, to entheogen induced enhancements?
Is there any wonder that most common thing the naive individual says when they confront these wider perceptions, “we have no words?” Of course we have no words. How can an infant describe to an adult it’s experience. It has no words! But does this mean it cannot develop the words? Does this mean the experiences of the right brain are destined to be indescribable, noetic, and untouchable by the linear left brain.
Well, as a practicing mystic and someone who spent a lot of time developing the right brain by answer is an unequivocal no. You can develop the right brain. You can connect it, as an equal, to the left brain, and you can move forward with a sophisticated analysis and science grounded not in a dictatorial brain but in a balanced left/right that will lead, if I may be forgiven for the prosaic conclusion, to an entirely new world of scientific knowledge of the created cosmos.
Note
“Time tube” image from my Book of Life: Ascension and the Divine World Order
Further Reading
Sharp, Michael (2006). The Book of Light: The Nature of God, the Structure of Consciousness, and the Universe Within You.
Sharp, Michael (2007). My Mystical Big Toe: A Strong Theory of Consciousness and Creation
Sharp, Michael (2008). Entheogens. The SpiritWiki: http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens [Accessed: March 17, 2008]
References
Grof, Stanislav (1985). Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. New York. SUNY Press.
Grof, Stanislav (1976). Realms of the Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press.
Wow, (that’s Mom upside down, ; ))
I was so excited about this video, mostly the ending and her description of happiness and peace and if ONLY we could all just turn on the right brain.
You are totally right about how the reader, (me for example), allows her word to be fact because she has a title and a nasally sounding voice to boot! I appreciate your slant on it and I wouldn’t have even thought of her perception in that angle. This is what I got from the whole shibang is that I am mostly right brain, however I discount it becuase in my society my overpowering right brain is considered immature or uneducated.
What I did get from the vid on my own and I would like your input on this is that the psychic connection or intuition happens when the right brain is working with the left brain. For example, when I am getting a flash of intuition or ‘psychic information’ my left brain goes into action as far as going over and over memory. I don’t think I descibed that so well. ok lets say, someone says something to me and my gut or my solar plexis gives a pull, this sort of gives my left brain ( or what I have called it prior to this video, an obsessive reaction) the need to go over and over information until I have made connections or connected some facts. When I get to the answer its like the right brain shakes hands with the left brain and says that’s it that’s the piece of information that we need to express.
And I have noticed when I hear psychic information it comes from the back of the right side of my brain. I know I don’t have to reassure you that I do not hear voices in the schizophrenic sense. I know that you understand this gift because you have it and have experienced it too.
I loved your explanation of the left brain stroke!
Here’s to spinning right!
colleen
I have to disagree. Dr. Boltes talk on her experience was mesmerizing. Does it matter how developed spiritually she is? Who cares whether she observed it as an infant due to her undeveloped right brain. She OBSERVED it. This is clearly the message here.
Regardless of whether she was in the final stage or the first stages of consciousness, the message here is that she EXPEREINCED it . She was there; and it brought not only tears to her eyes but to most people who watched it and truly felt it.
As a doctor, a practical, scientific person who studies the physical brain, for her to suddenly have this ineffable experience of “la la land” is a miracle in itself. Obviously it’s going to be new for her, as it is for so many people awakening at the moment, but who cares…? It’s the first stage, it’s the first step into consciousness and awakening and this is the most beautiful part of it….
We should be thankful for each and every glimpse into this new world….
Thank you Jill.
~~Namaste~~
Hi Jill
As a doctor and practical scientific person, she should know better than to present naive views of the world with the authority of her science behind her. For me, her account is like a psychologist trying to tell people the best way to build bridges. Not very wise.
There is also a question of proper spiritual development here. When she presents her view that her experience is an accurate representation of a mature expression of spirit consciousness, then it sends the VERY wrong message that this is all there is to spiritual development. The message is, “this is the nature of spirituality” and “once you’ve experienced the ‘nirvana’ of child like spiritual apprehension, you’re enlightened and that’s all there is to it. ” She seems loud and clear about this message. She certainly things that she found the epitome of spiritual experience.
Unfortunately, that’s very much not the case and, as someone who claims expertise in this area, feel it’s a dangerous message to send to people because rather than initiating a process of necessary preparation for experiencing the real power of consciousness (which is not represented at all in her pathologically rooted account), it leaves people sitting and smiling with what amounts to an erroneous apprehension of higher spiritual consciousness.
I would even argue that her account does more damage than good.
The problem I have isn’t with her experience itself, which is valid, but with the invocation of scientific authority (she holds that dead brain, presents her academic credentials, etc.) and the way that invocation blends with her naive account in order to give people the impression that “this is it” when “this” is really not it.
m
I see what you’re saying but I don’t think she meant to mean that “this” is all there is to spirituality; it’s only the beginning…she entered into the other dimension only for a short moment, of course she knows it’s not all there is to it….
Let’s not criticize, and rather accept her version of it. It was moving nonetheless.
Thank you and as always much love!
Tamsin
I’m sure she didn’t mean to say that, but it is the message that is being sent and it’s not a good message.
And as for not criticizing, that’s unrealistic. She is a scientist and it is her business to accept criticism. In science, critical discourse is a methodological requirement. It’s one of the features of science that makes it a powerful method for accessing the truth. As long as she is situating herself in that discourse, criticism (I would say critical dialog) is natural.
And even if not, what’s wrong with criticism (or critical dialog). Criticism is important, especially in the realm of spiritual knowledge. We humans seem to to think that any thing goes in the realm of spiritual knowledge but I totally don’t buy that. In my experience, spirit is raw power and there is a lot at stake when you begin to develop an authentic spirituality. As I say in my article series on opening to spiritual communication (a.k.a. channeling), a lot can go wrong. In my opinion, a lot of people with psychotic symptomatology can be seen as victims of poor spiritual training. If you think that spirit is all about “la la” perceptions of this world, you got another thing coming. Spiritual consciousness is so unlike the image that she is providing as to make her experience almost a caricature. If you believe that, and if you happen to have what I would call a “spontaneous crown opening,” you become a candidate for a
spiritual emergency (I’ll fill in the definition later today). And that’s not a pleasant experience. If it’s not handled properly, it can damage the fragile psyche of the Physical Unit
So back to the experience. If you ask me, she’s being irresponsible here. Not only is she ignoring the fact that her experience is rooted in left brain pathology (which I would think would immediately raise her scientific warning bells about generalizing too far from her experience), but she’s giving a totally wrong impression of what to expect. She’s a scientist, she should know better
m
. If you want to get access to that kind of power,