Brain research scientist had a stroke- her story...

[Smile]

A friend sent me... very interesting lecture from the brain research scientist about what happend when she had a stroke and certain parts of the brain stopped functioning...

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

[doc benway]

I enjoyed this clip and it's stimulated some worthwhile discussions with friends, some of whom wouldn't otherwise be interested in this line of inquiry. It was posted her before not long ago.

 

I'm sort of surprised there's not more discussion about it on this forum because I think it opens a lot of avenues to explore. When I watched it, I remember thinking at the end that the average "disbeliever" would respond - "how do you know all that stuff she experienced during her stroke wasn't just fantasy and imagination?". And I remember my imaginary response being something like - "whatever it was, the other part of her experience, the part that was damaged and non-functional, must also be exactly the same." Both parts of the brain are imaginary or both are real - call them what you will. But the experience of non-duality is every bit as valid as that of separateness, in my view. They are simply two sides to the coin.

 

The non-dual experience may represent the "truth" about the universal existence, yet the duality is essential in the function and survival of the human organism. Fascinating that there appears to be such a compartmentaliztation for such experiences in the brain. I tend to think that most of our social conventions reinforce the left side function from infancy to death whereas the right side is only reinforced by the meditative traditions which are de-emphasized in most cultures - particularly industrial cultures. Religious traditions can and, dare I say, should empasize the spiritual. Yet even our religious traditions, especially in the West, take away the individual's autonomy and subjugate it to a set of rules and a "spiritual authority" - a contradiction in terms if ever there was one.

 

This is where I find meditation to be invaluable. In my view, this strengthens the right sided functions. Over time, I imagine this may lead to a healthier balance between the analytical and experiential functions.

 

 

Cool stuff.

[Todd]

I watched this clip when it was first posted, but I wasn't in the mood to share, especially since the comment I was inclined to make was more of a quibble. My mood has changed, though.

 

The thing that I first thought while watching this was that she was making a rather large assumption when she ascribed her experience of non-dual reality to her stroke. Later on I began to doubt whether or not she was making this assumption. Perhaps she was merely using it as a convenient way to make talking about her experience more acceptable to a greater number of people, or to people who share the scientific prejudices that she might have had before her experience.

 

Either way, the correlation of a stroke in the left of side of the brain and non-dual perception in no way constitutes causation. In fact, I would bet that the vast majority of people who have similar strokes do not have a similar shift in perception. There is a reason why her experience is news to us. Many, many people have had strokes.

 

A more plausible explanation, to me, is that she began to have a very stressful experience, during which she spontaneously gave up all effort to make sense of her world, while remaining intensely interested in what was happening, and as often happens when these conditions occur, non-dual perception presented itself.

 

It may be a small point, but I feel that this is a more parsimonious explanation, and also one that has more potential to inform our practice.

 

Oftentimes we mistake context for causation, and this mistake can cause some pretty deep delusions when non-dual experience gets thrown into the mix. Thankfully, that same experience also has the potential to open us to an energy that is not satisfied with our delusions, and won't let us ignore them forever, though we can do so for a very long time.

[doc benway]

I watched this clip when it was first posted, but I wasn't in the mood to share, especially since the comment I was inclined to make was more of a quibble. My mood has changed, though.

 

The thing that I first thought while watching this was that she was making a rather large assumption when she ascribed her experience of non-dual reality to her stroke. Later on I began to doubt whether or not she was making this assumption. Perhaps she was merely using it as a convenient way to make talking about her experience more acceptable to a greater number of people, or to people who share the scientific prejudices that she might have had before her experience.

 

Either way, the correlation of a stroke in the left of side of the brain and non-dual perception in no way constitutes causation. In fact, I would bet that the vast majority of people who have similar strokes do not have a similar shift in perception. There is a reason why her experience is news to us. Many, many people have had strokes.

 

A more plausible explanation, to me, is that she began to have a very stressful experience, during which she spontaneously gave up all effort to make sense of her world, while remaining intensely interested in what was happening, and as often happens when these conditions occur, non-dual perception presented itself.

 

It may be a small point, but I feel that this is a more parsimonious explanation, and also one that has more potential to inform our practice.

 

Oftentimes we mistake context for causation, and this mistake can cause some pretty deep delusions when non-dual experience gets thrown into the mix. Thankfully, that same experience also has the potential to open us to an energy that is not satisfied with our delusions, and won't let us ignore them forever, though we can do so for a very long time.

Very good point, Todd. Yet, there are many interesting questions that can be asked. Why is it difficult to accept the possibility that altering brain physiology or hemispheric balance can affect perception of duality/non-duality? I believe that there are, in fact, studies suggesting laterality of analytical vs spiritual functions of the brain. Why is there any more potential to inform our practice if that is not the explanation? Why is an anatomic insult any more or less of a change in brain physiology than an emotional one? Both affect neurotransmitter balance dramatically. You are right, many people (including myself) tend to jump to the conclusion that there was a causal relationship between the stroke and the experience. We have no way of knowing the answer and I wonder how much it really matters. I got the distinct impression that she does feel that there is a causal relationship between the experiences but I could be misreading her.

[Todd]

Very good point, Todd. Yet, there are many interesting questions that can be asked.

 

There are always many interesting questions that can be asked.

 

It is not difficult to accept the possibility that altering brain physiology or hemispheric balance can affect perception of duality/non-duality. Anything can affect the perception of duality/non-duality. It takes a lot more than one instance of this occurring for me to postulate a causal relationship, however. I am far from certain that anything is in causal relationship to the perception of duality/non-duality. This is especially true if we take a wider view, in which a change in anything is a change in everything. In such a view, the cause of any given thing is everything. Coming back to a somewhat narrower view, however, if we want to find the most likely thing that is in a causal relationship with perception of duality/non-duality, then we might be well served to look at more than one instance, and to look for common elements among those instances.

 

I have seen a fair number of people make the shift of perception from duality to non-duality, either while I was directly observing them, or indirectly, from their accounts of that shift. A number of people here have reported similar shifts in perception, by various different means. I have also observed this shift occur in myself a number of times, also by various different means. I cannot put my finger on a common element. Not truly. I have been able to whittle away many of my assumptions about what "causes" these shifts to occur. This leaves me with relatively simple working explanations of what is occurring. I can feel this heart of transformation but none of the words that I might put to it can possibly do it justice. The best I can do might be that there is a pause, or gap in our sense of certainty, and then we become interested in what that gap reveals. We don't turn away when the whole world that we had assumed into existence falls away and we reach the ground of transformation. Its that simple, and all of the practices, and all of the technologies are preludes to this moment. That is not to say that practices and technologies do not have their place, since the cause of anything (if such a thing as a cause can be said to exist) is everything. They just aren't the closest thing that I have been able to perceive to this shift, which can never be fixed with words or technique.

 

One of the potentials that the clip posted above evokes is that we might understand a physiological basis for the shift in perception from duality to non-duality. Perhaps this woman's experience is a clue to a previously not understood dynamic within our brains, an interplay of duality/non-duality, reified by the left and right hemispheres of our brains. If such a causal relationship could be established, then there would be enormous potential for various technologies, both physical and mental, to exploit this understanding and to make the shift in perception a more accessible (and controllable) reality for more people. We would have a more acceptable explanation for why we are pursuing the activities that we pursue, and perhaps we could convince more people to pursue them also.

 

I don't know. The potential evoked above might become actual. It might be the next expression of the all to start waking itself up while wearing the clothing of neurochemical manipulation.

 

The reason I say that the view I presented first holds more potential to inform our practice is that it is available right now, to anyone who cares to indulge. It can be transmitted with only a few words on a piece of paper, and it is effective. Then again, how many people actually use it? For how many people is there enough interest to really see it through, without stopping for any of the alluring potentials, inflations, bliss states, judgments, primordial drives, panic or any other of the ten thousand things?

 

The whole key to it is that we are already where we want to go. We can accept this or fight this. The acceptance is when this supposed shift takes place, but the shift doesn't mean anything... its all about the acceptance, no matter what arises. Until we realize that it is our great good fortune to able to accept even this, even this. This is the destruction of technique, or the destruction of the attempt to bring technique into the heart of being. Technique still exists, and can be utilized (and developed), but the heart of being is wielding all of the techniques, and touched by none of them.

[Owledge]

I was about to post the video when I discovered this thread.

 

The video makes clear what appears natural to me about meditative experiences. Of course you're doing something with your brain. The fact that those experiences are limited to your own perception underlines it.

 

In one word: demystification

Sooner or later it will happen to all mysterial 'supernatural' things.