Though it’s been on my reading list for a couple years, I am just now getting around to reading My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey
My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me. I understood that at the most elementary level, I am a fluid. Of course I am a fluid! Everything around us, about us, among us, within us, and between us is made up of atoms and molecules vibrating in space. Although the ego center of our language center prefers identifying our self as individual and solid, most of us are aware that we are made up of trillions of cells, gallons of water, and ultimately everything about us exists in a constant and dynamic state of activity. My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, releaseased from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea.
It took her eight years to make a full recovery. Through her story, we can share this insight (without the stroke), and come closer to understanding the oneness of our being in the flow which is a fundamental part of our perception of place, time, and identity. Here is a brief presentation by Bolte Taylor at the TED Conference in 2008, in which she describes this insight.
Tags: brain, ego, flow, insight, language, meditation, Mind, oneness, reading, TED
