A few days ago I heard part of an interview with a doctor, a Harvard neuroanatomist, who'd had and recovered from a massive stroke on the left side of her brain. What she said was so intriguing that I went out and bought the book she'd just published:
My Stroke of Insight, A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
What she wrote about her stroke and eventual recovery are interesting, but the fascinating part to me is that she remained conscious at some level as the massive stroke gradually shut down her left brain. (Her 'consciousness' moved to the right (nonverbal) side of her brain.)
Here's some of what she wrote (I'm about halfway through the book):
"Introduction: Every brain has a story and this is mine. Ten years ago, I was at Harvard Medical School performing research and teaching young professionals about the human brain. But on December 10, 1996, I was given a lesson of my own. That morning, I experienced a rare form of stroke in the left hemisphere of my brain. A major hemorrhage, due to an undiagnosed congenital malformation of the blood vessels in my head, erupted unexpectedly.
Within four brief hours...I watched my mind completely deteriorate in its ability to process information. By the end of that morning, I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. Curled up into a little fetal ball, I felt my spirit surrender to my death, and it certainly never dawned on me that I would ever be capable of sharing my story with anyone."
"....Although I experienced enormous grief for the death of my left hemisphere consciousness - and the woman I had been - I concurrently felt tremendous relief."
"....When I lost my left hemisphere and its language centers, I also lost the clock that would break my moments into consecutive brief instances....I felt no rush to do anything. Like walking along the beach, or just hanging out in the beauty of nature, I shifted from the doing-consciousness of my left brain to the being-consciousness of my right brain.
I morphed from feeling small and isolated to feeling enormous and expansive. I stopped thinking in language and shifted to...pictures of what was going on in the present moment. I was not capable of deliberating about past or future-related ideas because those cells were now incapacitated. All I could perceive was right here, right now, and it was beautiful....I was consciously alert and my perception was that I was in the flow. Everything in my visual world blended together, and with every pixel of radiating energy, we all flowed en masse, together as one.
It was impossible for me to distinguish the physical boundaries between objects because everything radiated with similar energy. It's probably comparable to when people take off their glasses or put eye drops into their eyes - the edges become softer."
"....Despite my neurological trauma, an unforgettable sense of peace pervaded my entire being and I felt calm."
"....When the time keeper in my left hemisphere shut down... my life s-l-o-w-e-d to the pace of a snail. As my perception of time shifted, I fell out of sync with the beehive that bustled around me. My consciousness drifted into a time warp, rendering me incapable of communicating or functioning at either the accustomed or acceptable pace of social exchange. I now existed in a world between worlds. I could no longer relate to people outside of me, and yet my life had not been extinguished. I was not only an oddity to those around me, but on the inside, I was an oddity to myself."
Wasn't it interesting that although I could not walk or talk, understand language, read or write, or even roll my body over, I knew that I was okay? ....I knew I was different now - but never once did my right mind indicate that I was "less than" what I had been before. I was simply a being of light radiating life into the world. "
libby
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Topic: Stroke: What really happens? (Read 498 times)