Nirvana After a Stroke

Jill Bolte Taylor recently talked about what it feels like to have a stroke. That video is a couple months old, but I just came across an interesting new article in the New York Times about her experience entitled "A Superhighway to Bliss ". The article mentions that her perception of having a concrete body literally disintegrated before her eyes as a clot shut of the functioning of a specific area of the brain.

"Her perceptions changed, too. She could see that the atoms and molecules making up her body blended with the space around her; the whole world and the creatures in it were all part of the same magnificent field of shimmering energy."

This really shows how the mind creates our sense of the self. Our subjective conscious feeling that we have a definite body that is separate from the outside environment is merely generated within the brain. It's amazing how many weird states of consciousness can be induced by brain damage from having a stroke. People often fail to realize how much of our perception of "reality" can't necessarily be uncoupled from brain functioning and chemistry. Our own brain creates much of the world that we perceive around us.

At first Jill felt discomfort from having the stroke, but this brain damage actually lead to her having a spiritual awakening and feelings of bliss.

"The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.”

She is really lucky, and this is a fairly rare occurrence for stroke victims. I would have to imagine it's a bit like hitting the lottery. Often strokes can impair brain areas associated with mood and this can lead to depression. Toxic euphoria from a stroke has an almost whimsical appeal to it. She should be grateful that she had an experience that was rather enlightening as opposed to dreadful as it is for most people. Amazingly she was able to recover fully after having this stroke. This is certainly showing the plasticity of the brain at work. The brain can sometimes recover to a substantial degree even after a seemingly great insult. This is certainly a fascinating story about a first hand account of undergoing drastic brain alterations.