My stroke of insight | Jill Bolte Taylor | TED

What people said

dorfsmay · 2022-03 · Strong recommendation

Yes, some forms of meditation, in particular "open awareness" is said to give more space to the right hemisphere. I highly recommend this video if you want to hear about what life is when the right hemisphere is in control, especially for people who have been doing non-dual practices (lots of parallel experiences IMO): [VIDEO]

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dorfsmay · 2022-01 · Recommendation

This is like saying sleeping is a "waste of time, how can I be more productive during my sleep?". "clearing the mind", aka Shamatha without an object, has been compared to deep sleep but also a space where insights happen. You should give it a try, do it for 10 minutes a day for a month, just relax and don't hang onto anything (thought, feeling, noise, anything, just let them happen, relax some more). Some of the theories are that it lets our right brain take over, others that only by stopping trying to be in control can old memories and repressed emotion come up, and some others are about deeper of sleep/reparation. I'm as rational as the next guy, but this type of mediation has affected me more than other forms. Please check this video [2] of a brain researcher describing having a stroke in her left brain, and has a lot of parallel with some descriptions of deep meditative state. [1]: [LINK] [2]: [VIDEO]

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bradley · 2010-11 · Recommendation

Thank you for mentioning Stephenson. I haven't read him other than Snow Crash, and I don't think I finished it. Googling Anathem brought me to this blog review of it: [LINK] which reminded me of this NIH neuro anatomist who studied her own stroke, including during her multi-year recovery. Her TED talk: [LINK] YouTube of same: [VIDEO] She sees the right brain hemisphere as being our "consciousness" wetware connecting us to others. Parts of the video are esoteric, but it's fascinating to hear this first-person account from a brain researcher, especially of the morning of her stroke when her left hemishphere was damaged by a spontaneous brain hemorrhage. Edit: couple of typos

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