Quotes by Jill Bolte Taylor
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“I am the life-force power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form, at one with all that is.”
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“I realized, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m having a stroke! I’m having a stroke!’ The next thing my brain says to me is, ‘Wow! This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?’”
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“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.”
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“Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures and it learns kinesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information … explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like.”
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“Then it crosses my mind, ‘But I’m a very busy woman! I don’t have time for a stroke!’”
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Mar 20 2008
This is absolutely amazing! Dr. Taylor in 18 minutes has expressed so eloquently and scientifically what the Silva Method has been teaching for 60 years now through the course in Dynamic Meditation, or Self-Mind Control, which opens communication between the two hemispheres through the Corpus Callosum, so that the two hemispheres communicate with each other under the control of the “I AM” thus, having whole brain functioning.
People learn to control the Alpha waves and experience through Dynamic Meditation and Self-Mind Control this wonderful place of creativity, wholeness and Oneness with the Spirit and all creation. I am very joyful and grateful that I myself know this wonderful level of bliss, enthusiasm and interconnection through dynamic meditation, so I dedicated the rest of my life to teach people how they can experience themselves this Oneness, expanded awareness and magical reality of the Spirit within.
For any information about the Course visit http://www.GuideMind.com
Dr. Aretoula Fullam
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Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened -- and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery.
One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...
Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
6 days ago: It's a very moving talk, but the comments are a bit confusing to me. People seem to be assigning a religious or spiritual bent to the talk as though there is some evidence in the talk of a higher power etc. That is just projection imho. She quite clearly explains the brain in laymen's terms, then proceeds to describe exactly how her particular stroke shut down aspects of one hemisphere. And the result is a first hand account of what it is like to have half a brain. I was moved because she describes something we can all relate to, the loss of ego, the loss of "baggage", becoming an infant, dropping our worries, and embracing how we feel, and the now, and the sense of being connected and vast. Yes, many of us crave that. It is also touching because she felt lost, and surrendered to her fate, and that is very moving. And what she is saying quite eloquently, and touchingly, is that under the layers, physically, we have access to two very different means of being. She is suggesting that we find a way, that we allow, that we focus on the fact that we can feel more connected, that we can try to focus on that other voice. That isn't god, that's your brain. It is the perception from a physical manifestation of a healthy human brain, not some insight into the reality of the universe. If she'd had a stroke in the other hemisphere this talk would be about how to get things done, proper planning, and logical order of things...
In the end up her experience didn't change the reality of the world she lives in. It gave her a chance to see a new way of looking at life, one with more connection and more compassion and as she said so well, that is an idea worth sharing. wonderful talk.
2 days ago: I don't feel that she implies existence of a higher power but rather indicates the immense power of human consciousness to experience a vast terrain of awareness from alternate perspectives. Higher power is a given, everything is powered by some obviously unknowable source. What Higher Power means to the linear experiential self depends on the local conditioning of the individual identity. One could even say that culture itself if a higher power. I didn't hear her mention the word God at any point or make specific reference to religion. She does mention nirvana, which is a basically a Buddhist term for nothingness, or experience empty of all stimulation recognized as such when the experience of stimulation returns. In any case she beautifully relates her experience and knowledge without making claims of absolute truth.
2 days ago: @Eric you should become a school teacher. Well summarised. I try every now and again to live as expansive as I can by viewing everything as being part of the same source. As having pervasive intelligent energy and identity. Life stops to have meaning. The litter stops being litter but intelligent individuation of primal energy seeking expression and being.It blends naturally with the spot its on and looks beautiful. And I no longer want to disrupt that space, that arrangement by picking it up. People just seem dull, no longer alive, lacking in context, without definitions, no judgement from me, they become juxtapositioned bland pieces of canvass, without a story, uninteresting. I loose any urge to do anything. I'm just transfixed in time and all I can do is observe and intuit with awe and wonder. My mind stops analysing and judging and I feel light and at peace. I can go on describing other aspects but I am sure you get the point. Life either looses all meaning or takes on a new meaningless meaning (I will always judge from my norm I guess). When I return to the world of separation, of meaning, of plans and tasks and relationships I heave a sigh of exasperation. I'm still not certain which world I dislike more LOL. Just kidding. I love both worlds. Both great movies just different genres. My ambition is in a manner of speaking, to grow a bigger Corpus Callosum - a bridge - to help me blend both worlds in one reality.
Garrick Sitongia
Mar 20 2008
The state of mind of euphoria and oneness with all, described by Dr. Taylor during ensuing brain damage due to stroke somewhat disturbs me. Imagine yourself as a person walking around in the right-brain only perceptual state, being attacked by robbers, hucksters who want money, or any type of opportunist seeking an advantage. In this state, one would simply give them whatever they wanted. One’s survival probability would be close to zero. Even if one dies happy, that is still death and therefore immoral.
The method of cult religions is to make people into thought slaves by forcing victims into this same perceptual blindness in which one gives up the “self”. This facilitates turning the victim into a physical slave who does not complain and with behavior that is always compliant, even against the victim’s survival needs.
Also, a person in this state is not likely to solve problems of the world such as disease no matter how willing one is because solving problems requires insight from realistic analysis of the past and prediction of consequences, a left brain skill. And how likely are people in this state to be motivated to do physical labor such as farming or building structures for shelter, unless they are forced by others who are not in a right-brained perception only state?
While I greatly respect and admire Dr. Taylor’s presence of mind to explore and report publicly her experience, I also cringe at her conclusions about her experience. I fear that Dr. Taylor’s enthusiasm will invite misguided abuse, and may even result in psycho-surgery based religious cults that convert people using permanent brain damage, with or without consent, at a new level above today’s brainwashing or indoctrination techniques which are reversible.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Tina Brewer
May 26 2008
This is very illustrative of the goal of meditation. If you can close down your left brain briefly, you can experieince the reality of the wholeness and absence of separation of “self” and “other”. This state can be achieved by regular and long practice of various types of meditation, including “moving meditations” such as yoga or T’ai Chi. Yoga literally means “union with” and T’ai Chi loosely translates tot the “Ultimate Supreme” (all things in balance, reality as it should exist for us). I have had this briwef experieince twice only. Once through T’ai Chi practice, another in a time of just waking during a time of extreme stress (the death of my father a few days before). I woke to not knowing what/who I was. for a brief moment. The fright of such an unusual realization literally killed the joy of the experience. BUt all of this is to say: THIS STATE IS VALID, and ACHIEVABLE through dedicated practice. And it is the reality underlying what our left brain organizes into reality for us, so that we can function within our bodies. It is the experieince we all should be seeking, because then we would all finally inderstand that we are all part of the same creation, we are all units of energy that have a “separate” consciousness. When we hurt, kill or pollute, we are actually doing it to our larger “Self”, the one body of energy that encompasses all of us.
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james debar
Jun 18 2008 Ms. Taylor, Thank you for sharing. It is unfortunate that a stroke or heart attack provides direct “access” to one’s Soul. Fortunately the experience leaves an irrevocable and irreversible imprint on the Self.
The world would be a very different place if we could all commune with our Souls. The insight would bring some harmony, within each of us which would then reflect to the other six and half billion.
I would welcome all thoughts on such endeavor at:
http://myselfmysoul.blogspot.com/
Denise Bem David
Feb 11 2009 JBTaylor is the most amazing and important talk I saw in many years. She described the neurophysiological basis of the Nirvana experience.
I have been thinking a lot about the impact of her experience of an almost pure right-brain function, and meditation techniques, NLP techniques, and the perceptions one can achieve while practicing those. We do need a well functioning left hemisphere to be able to live. How can the balance be achieved? How can the perceptions obtained with the right brain be balanced with the practicalities of the left hemisphere function.
Is the religious experience born of those right-hemiphere perceptions ?What is/exists beyond the balanced perceptions of a well functioning brain/mind, and that gives origin to it?
Eckhart Tolle has some interesting insights about similar issues.
I would be interested in knowing the comments of neuroscientists about her experice, and the mystical experience.
Steven Song
Jun 17 2009 Sometimes I have a shift in perspective. Nothing dramatic, but everything appears smaller, further, and more detached. I can force myself (sometimes it randomly happens) to see something as foreign (I.e. a face, words, anything *same feeling as you described for seeing your leg/arm during the stroke*).
What would you call this?
1 day ago: Absolutely beautiful talk! Just in case this book hasn't been mentioned yet (it probably has been), I highly recommend "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. He explains the value of the present moment and teaches you how become one with it as well as how to use your newfound power to radically increase your quality of life (almost completely eliminate stress and anxiety) as well as making you a more vibrant, compassionate person. I don't mean to shove anything in anyones face, but the book has taught me so much and has helped me to have many of the same experiences Jill speaks of, so I almost feel obligated to make it known to anybody interested in the subject. Mental silence is, in my opinion, the most beautiful thing a human.
1 day ago: Absolutely beautiful talk! Just in case this book hasn't been mentioned yet (it probably has been), I highly recommend "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. He explains the value of the present moment and teaches you how become one with it as well as how to use your newfound power to radically increase your quality of life (almost completely eliminate stress and anxiety) as well as making you a more vibrant, compassionate person. I don't mean to shove anything in anyones face, but the book has taught me so much and has helped me to have many of the same experiences Jill speaks of, so I almost feel obligated to make it known to anybody interested in the subject. Mental silence is, in my opinion, the most beautiful thing a human.
Jill Taylor's right hemisphere 'La-la land' depiction is reminiscent of the Near Death Experience stories. Could there be a link?
Most Near death experience (NDE) story tellers have one thing in common: they feel this immense peace and happiness as they travel towards the 'light'. I am wondering if this is a phenomenon of the left brain shutting down first when a person dies allowing the right 'nirvana' half to be fully experienced before the body completely shuts down. I wonder if the mystical experience they so vividly remember is nothing more than the brain slowly shutting down as they slip into death. I don't want to discredit any NDE since I have no clue what happens after you die. I am simply curious to see the scientific explanation to the phenomenon. Why you should listen to her:
"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."Jill Bolte Taylor
Dr. Aretoula Fullam