The story of Jill Bolte Taylor
OCTOBER 12, 2020 (updated on October 17, 2023)
Table of contents
After a first overview of the relationship between the brain and consciousness, let’s take a look at the testimony of the American scientist Jill Bolte Taylor.
The brain occupies an atypical place in her life, to say the least. The illness of her brother, who suffers from schizophrenia, led her to specialize in neuroanatomy. This allowed her to study the connections that occur in the brain, particularly in psychiatric pathologies.
While she was trying to understand why her brother seemed to live in a world separate from reality as his fellow human beings experience it, she suffered a stroke a few years later, on December 10, 1996, at the age of 37. The rupture of a blood vessel in her left brain resulted in the complete shutdown of that brain hemisphere.
During this strange episode, she lost all sense of bodily boundaries. She could no longer distinguish her physical envelope from what surrounded her, she simply perceived energy. Then, intermittently, she returned to her usual perceptions. By dint of going back and forth between an expanded state and a state where the mental was regaining the upper hand, she finally succeeded, not without difficulty, in calling for help [1].
From the left brain to the right brain
Two brains, two functions
This unusual experiment led her to hypothesize how the brain hemispheres function. According to her, the right brain would function in the here and now and process all information simultaneously. It would be associated with perceptual binding. In this way, it would construct a unified representation of things from visual, olfactory, auditory and other perceptions.
The left brain, on the other hand, would function in a linear fashion, and by comparison. It would focus on the details of the present moment, classifying them and comparing them to past events in order to know how to act in the future. This hemisphere would be the seat of language and the distinction of things between them. It would practice a kind of mental labelling of sensory perceptions.
For the scientist, the brain would actually house two cognitive consciousnesses. On the one hand, the left hemisphere, treating information from the perspective of separation, detail and identity. On the other hand that of the right hemisphere, engaged in the present, the globality, the unity, representing in sum the non-local aspect of consciousness. She says that “the right hemisphere of our brain is programmed for happiness, peace and compassion” [2] and that “the plasticity of neurons [3] gives everyone the possibility to ‘turn right’ and choose peace and love rather than confrontation.” [4]
Complementary hemispheres
Jill Bolte Taylor published her testimony in the book Journey to the Center of My Brain [5]. However, it is more of an account of one’s own experience than a scientific work per se. On this subject, let’s specify that the distinction between the two hemispheres proposed by the neuroanatomist presents the brain as being asymmetrical. According to her, this means that information relating to cognitive functions – such as vision, hearing, memory, etc. – would be processed by one or other of the hemispheres.
However, in light of the work done in recent years in neuroscience [6] on functional disorders caused by brain injury, the reality is more subtle. Rather, there is complementarity in the way the two brain hemispheres process information. Thus, language, for example, would not depend exclusively on the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere would deal with aspects of grammar and word production, but the right hemisphere would also play an important role in managing intonation and accentuation.
Augmented reality
For my part, I would tend to place the distinction not indeed between the two hemispheres but rather between mental and consciousness. The latter being in my opinion non-localized and supporting the experience of the mental and the left hemisphere. But in any case, this does not change the essential message that Jill Bolte Taylor gives us: what we believe we are is not what we are.
Although we have both experienced and survived a stroke in order to provide a testimony, our experiences differ. As much by the way they happened as by the consequences they had. The scientist suffered an intracranial haemorrhage from which it took her eight years to recover. She had to learn how to speak, read and walk again.
As far as I am concerned, my brain as such did not play a major role in my experience since the hemorrhage started in my meninges (read My Story). However, its functioning could have been considerably impaired due to the pressure exerted on it by the haematoma. Fortunately, this was not the case, thanks to the stop of the recurrent bleeding, thus sparing me the after-effects.
A question of neurological wiring
Focusing on the moment
Nevertheless, our respective experiences are similar in the sense that they have broadened our consciousness. Jill Bolte Taylor puts it this way: « I have to confess that the need to admit that our view of the outside world and our relationship to it stems from our neurological ‘wiring’ has freed me, but at the same time has challenged me. Until then, I was a pure product of my imagination! »» [7]
I used the words “mental” and “consciousness”, but obviously we’re talking about the same thing. Like her, I too have experienced absolute serenity in the here and now. Although it was in a very short period of time, this state outside the mind is still accessible to me. As the scientist explains in her own words in her book Testimony :
“[My emotion] only persists for a minute and a half when I leave the corresponding neural circuitry activated in a loop. However, I am free at all times to wait for my reaction to dissipate by concentrating on the present moment rather than getting caught up in the repetitive workings of my neurons. The “wiring” of our limbic system has such a tendency to program our reactions that we often move forward in life on autopilot.”
JILL BOLTE TAYLOR [8]
On the road to adventure
The way Jill Bolte Taylor describes her experience reminds me of a conversation I had with Madeleine (read my story to find out who Madeleine is) about ten years ago. At that time, I had in mind to recharge my batteries by going on a one-week training course in the middle of nature, in the heart of the Cantal region.
The meeting had a shamanic feel to it, furthermore with people I didn’t know. Even if it was specified that no plants would be used – a sine qua none condition for me to agree to participate! – I sought Madeleine’s advice to make sure I wasn’t embarking on too risky an adventure. So I made her read the description, which she immediately gave back to me, spontaneously exclaiming: « I want to go! ». So I was not only going to be accompanied, but also sharing this adventure with her: jackpot!
Between belief and experience
A few weeks later, I’d put her in my car. I took advantage of the privilege of being alone with her to ask her how she perceived things. Her answer was very literal. She told me that when she was little, she couldn’t see the limits of her body. For her, it was all about energy. She would then stand in front of the mirror and have to concentrate on delineating the contours of her body envelope…
It was like the world was upside down for me. As I listened to her, I realized that while it was obvious to me that we each have a different interpretation of things, it seemed strange to me that our “eyes” do not see the same thing. So much so that it never occurred to me to question my visual approach, as it was the only possible way for me to access the world.
Even if Madeleine’s answers did not fit my conception of things at the time, I had already been close enough to her authenticity to believe her willingly. I believed her, but she was experimenting: that was the difference between us. The craziest thing was indeed to find myself in the presence of a flesh-and-blood being for whom this way of being was natural. I simply had beside me living proof that one can evolve – and make others evolve – by being « wired » differently.
I now invite you to continue your exploration of the links between the brain and consciousness by reading the testimony of neuroscientist Eben Alexander.
Notes & references
[1] See the talk she gave: My stroke of insight
[2] DE VEZINS Véziane. (2008, November 7). L’incroyable guérison du Dr Jill Bolte Taylor [Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s incredible recovery] In : Le Figaro
[3] Read the article Brain, Science and Consciousness
[4] DE VEZINS Véziane, L’incroyable guérison du Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, op.cit.
[5] TAYLOR Jill Bolte, Voyage au centre de mon cerveau [A journey to the center of my brain], Paris : J’ai lu, Collection Aventure Secrète, 2009.
[6] Voir Cortex Mag (2021, July 8), University of Lyon: Neuromythe #5 : cerveau droit, cerveau gauche [Neuromythe #5: right brain, left brain]
[7] TAYLOR Jill Bolte, Voyage au centre de mon cerveau, op.cit., p.88
[8] Ibid., p.175
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