← The Telepathy Tapes
The Telepathy Tapes
S2E37: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor: What a Stroke Revealed About Consciousness | Talk Tracks
00:46:04
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Hi everyone, I'm Kai Dickens and welcome to the Talk Tracks brought to you weekly by TTT Media. In this series we explore the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, consciousness, and even unexplained phenomena. Because every era has ideas once dismissed as impossible until someone was willing to investigate them seriously. And on this show, we do just that. Your home is more than just furniture. It's an extension of who you are. Even small details like a rug can completely change how a space feels. And that's why I love Ruggable. I recently added one of their Persian rugs in our living room. It's a beautiful kind of warm pastel pink that softens and totally pulls together the space. And there were so many styles to choose from, from boho and modern and vintage. And you can filter by size, by color, by material, by designer. And what I love is that they aren't just beautiful and soft, but they're stain resistant for everyday spills and machine washable, making them so easy to clean. And it's especially awesome for our life because we have two young kids, two dogs and two cats. The built in nonstick backing makes sure that even when everyone is running around, there's no slipping. They really are design, led and performance built. Refresh your home@Ruggable.com get 10% off your first order site wide with promo code tapes@Ruggable.com that's R U G-G-A-B-L-E.com and use code tapes at checkout. So if you're looking to refresh your space, I really recommend checking them out. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Today's guest, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard trained neuroanatomist, best selling author and one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. Dr. Bolte Taylor spent her life studying the brain. Then one morning she had a massive stroke and became the subject of her own life's work. Watching from the inside as 3/4 of her brain went offline. Over the course of four hours, she lost the ability to walk, talk, read, write or remember the details of her life. The parts of her brain tied to language, identity, linear time and the sense of being a separate self began to shut down and yet she wasn't met with nothing. What remained was an experience of the present moment that she describes as expansive, peaceful, connected, and full of love. Over the next eight years, as she rebuilt the abilities she had lost, Dr. Bolte Taylor began to understand the brain in a new way. Not just as regions and functions, but as four distinct inner characters, each shaping how we experience ourselves, each other, and the world. In this conversation, we explore what her stroke revealed about consciousness, what it means to live from the whole brain, and how we can learn to tap into and engage all four parts of our brain. Then we turn to the bigger mysteries and how her experience shapes her perspective on unexplainable phenomena like telepathy, intuition, and energy healing. So, Dr. Bolte Taylor, welcome. It's a delight to have you here. And can you introduce yourself in your own words?
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I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I am a trained and published neuroanatomist. My specialty is in cellular anatomy. I'm the author of two books, My Stroke of Insight and and second book is Whole Brain Living. And I do my best to counter all work time with paddleboarding.
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And then how did you first get interested in neuroscience?
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I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who is only 18 months older than I, who when we were children, his point of view was very different from mine. And I recognized that we would have the exact same experience, but we would walk away with completely different interpretations about what had just happen. So I became fascinated with body language, facial language, intonation of voice, just context of how do we communicate and how does our brain create our perception of reality. My brother would eventually grow up to be diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia. So I studied anatomy and the brain in undergrad. And then I got a PhD in neuroanatomy. And then I went to Harvard Medical School where as a postdoc I was teaching and performing research into how does our brain create our perception of reality.
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And that question would be answered in a way Dr. Bolte Taylor could have never imagined when one morning she had a stroke and became the subject of her own life's work.
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You have to be very careful what you ask the universe for. And the universe said, okay, little girl, you want to understand how your brain works, we're going to take three quarters of your brain away. And so I experienced a major hemorrhage in the left half of my brain. And over the course of four hours, that hemorrhage grew to the point where I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. I became an infant in a woman's body. I all but died.
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In her TED talk, Jill describes the extraordinary moments of that morning as she oscillated between her left hemisphere, flickering on and offline, and entering the vastly different reality of only her right brain being online.
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At first, I was shocked, Find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of the energy around me.
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Without her brain's left hemisphere, she lost sense of her own boundaries of self and could no longer delineate between the molecules of her own arm and that of the wall or anything else around her.
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I felt enormous and expansive at one with all the energy that was. And it was beautiful.
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There she was, drifting into a vast consciousness, detached from the body or the world she knew. But then, all of a sudden, her left hemisphere would come back online, and
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it says to me, hey, we got a problem.
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Because she was still getting these brief waves of clarity, Jill was able to do just enough to save her own life. She found her business card and for 45 minutes attempted to call for help by matching the squiggle shapes on the card to those on the phone pad. And I'm talking about the numbers here. And finally, she managed to get through to her colleague.
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And he says to me, I say to him, this is Jill. I need help. And what comes out of my voice is, I didn't know that I couldn't speak or understand language until I tried.
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Luckily, the colleague understood enough to know something was wrong and sent an ambulance. While riding to the hospital, Jill recounts those last moments of her consciousness as she knew it.
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Just like a balloon with the last bit of air, I felt my energy lift, and I felt my spirit surrender. And in that moment, I knew either the doctors rescued my body or this was perhaps my moment of transition.
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But she did wake up, and when she did, she was shocked at the reality she was met with.
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My mind was now suspended between two very opposite planes of reality.
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Sensory stimulation was overwhelming. Light burned her brain, and she couldn't distinguish voices from background noise. And yet she also experienced something else. No longer tied to her body in space, she felt liberated.
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My spirit soared free, like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria. I found nirvana as the parts of
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the brain tied to language, memory, identity, time, and the sense of being separate from the world shut down. She was met with a sense of being connected to everything. So, Jill, you make it to the hospital, you undergo surgery, where the doctors removed a blood clot the size of a golf ball. And then what happened?
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Once they took that pressure off my brain, they sent me home and said, we have no idea how much you'll ever get back. I used what I still had to rebuild the circuits of the skill sets and abilities that had gone offline. So it took eight years for me to completely recover all lost function. And. And that was a wild ride.
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And as those other parts slowly came back online, she began to understand the brain in a new way, as four distinct parts, each with its own way of experiencing reality. But maybe the most powerful part of her realization was that this loving, connected state wasn't something outside of her. It was part of her consciousness. And if she had access to it, maybe all of us did. And here she is in her TED Talk, reflecting on that moment.
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If I have found Nirvana and I'm still alive, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana. And I pictured a world filled with beautiful, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at any time and that they could purposely choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres and find this peace.
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That realization became part of what motivated her recovery and eventually became the foundation of her work, helping people understand the different parts of the brain and how we can learn to access more of ourselves. So before we get into the four characters, I want to make this as simple as possible. Many of us are familiar with the general idea that the left brain is analytical and thinking, while the right brain is creative and emotional. But in reality, it's more layered than that. The left and right hemispheres do process information differently, but both sides have emotional tissue, and both sides have thinking tissue. So instead of just left brain and right brain, Dr. Bolte Taylor sees four left thinking, left emotion, right emotion, and right thinking. And each gives us a different way of experiencing reality. Can you walk us through a brief overview of the brain structure itself?
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So we have a reptilian brain, and this is going to be everything that runs on automatic. And then on top of the reptilian brain in each hemisphere is the emotional limbic tissue. And this is the difference between a mammal and a reptile. So all mammals then have this limbic tissue.
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Put simply, the limbic tissue is where emotional processing happens.
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And then for humans, we add thinking tissue on top of the limbic tissue. So now we have higher cognition.
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Okay, so now we've got all four parts. So tell us about the difference between the left and the right emotional parts.
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In the left hemisphere, the limbic tissue actually has the ability to. To step out of the consciousness of the present moment. Now just think about what I just said. A group of cells inside of the left limbic tissue has the ability to step out of the consciousness of the present moment so that we can have a past, a present and a future. So these cells give us linearity across time and it's going to process deep emotions. And then in the right hemisphere is right here, right now, present moment experience.
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Okay, so to summarize, the left hemisphere is able to pull things from the past to inform our present, whereas the right hemisphere is just experiencing what's happening right here, right now. Before the mind turns it into a story.
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Yes. So these two limbic groups of cells are always running, but they're dancing back and forth between who's being dominant and who's dominating and inhibiting the other.
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Okay. And then on top of that emotional tissue, we have the thinking tissue in both the left and the right brain as well. So how does the left and right thinking tissue differ?
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In the left, higher cognitive tissue, it's going to have linearity across time and it's going to have me, the individual I am, Jill Bolte Taylor, who is separate from you. And then in the right hemisphere, it doesn't have me, Jill Bolte Taylor. And in the absence of my past or my experience of the future, all I have is the collage of experience in the right here, right now. And so the right thinking tissue is simply connected to all that is. There are no physical boundaries for where I begin and end. And so I end up with these four different groups of cells that are always all running, but they are inhibiting who is being dominant in any moment. So each of those four groups of cells, left thinking, left emotion, right emotion, right thinking. Manifest a constellation of skill sets individually. And each end up looking like very distinctive personalities.
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So what you're describing is consciousness, not as one single thing, but as something layered with different parts of the brain, giving us different ways of experiencing reality. And during your stroke, you didn't just understand that intellectually. Right. You experienced what happened when most of the layers are quiet and then what it felt like when they gradually came back online. So can you walk us through what you call the four characters?
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Absolutely.
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According to traditional medicine, the only portion of our brain that is conscious is the left thinking portion of our brain. So I call that Character one, simply because I had to organize and communicate about these different parts of the brain somehow. Character one is the part of us that is designed to take our internal world and relates it to the external world. So first, I have an identity. I am Jill Bolte Taylor because I have a group of cells in my Character one, constantly reminding me where I live, what my phone number is, what I'm supposed to do today. It loves a to do list. It has language, it creates sound. It's going to read and it's going to write, and it's going to have mathematics. It defines the boundaries of where I begin and end so that I experience myself to be a single solid separate from all the energy around me. And again, it's going to have linearity across time. So character wants that alpha personality that most of us can relate to. It likes to control people, places and things so that we can create order out of the external world so that our internal world can feel safe because we have this idea that we can actually control things.
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Yeah, I mean, personally, I can definitely relate to this Character one, like as a mom and at work and all those different places. It's pretty important.
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Yeah. Thank goodness, though, for the intellectual side. I mean, where would we all be? Life would be a mess if we don't have some semblance of Character one in our life. We have no order in our life. So I encourage people to get to know these four characters. There are different identities inside of each one of us, and I encourage people to give them a name. So I call mine Helen. Character one is Helen. Helen Wheels. She gets it done. She runs my to do list. She keeps everything organized and structured. So let's go to character two, which is going to be the emotional limbic tissue in that left hemisphere. So this is all of our emotions from the past. Pain as well as pleasure. This is always running. Sometimes it's having emotional reactivity because it is constantly comparing everything coming in through the right brain from the present moment and making a decision instantaneously. Is that something that feels safe to me or do I need to knee jerk against that and push it away? Thank goodness we have this little character too, because otherwise I'd be stepping off the street and getting hit by a bus because I haven't learned that. Oh, no, that is something I don't want to do. And then it's about all the pain from the past. And every piece of pain from the past, though, is designed to be information to inform me in the present moment, Character two, as to whether or not that feels safe or I need to get away from it.
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Yeah. And it's a helpful way to frame emotional reactivity and trauma as something our bodies are actually, you know, using to keep us safe.
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And in our society right now, we tend to be focused on our trauma, running that circuit more and more and more, rerunning the loops. And my whole life becomes about my trauma, and it becomes a lifestyle. So because Character two has a past, then this is my ability to hold a grudge against you. And so I might not be speaking to you because of something you did 30 years ago, and that person might even have passed away, but it's still running the loop. And at the same time, it's going to be positive emotions like pride. So little Character two, I call mine Abby, which is short for abandonment, because I think the moment I came flying out of my mother's womb, all of a sudden, I was startled into respiration and poking and prodding. I see that as my original trauma.
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And so this makes up part of what you call our inner child.
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Yeah, it never matures because by the time we're born, it has to be online.
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So Character two is the left emotional brain. How does that emotional process differ when we move to the right hemisphere?
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In the right hemisphere, little Character three is the other emotional, but it's the emotional of the present moment. So what does it feel like? What did it feel like? When I was born, my left hemisphere might have recorded this as a negative trauma. My right hemisphere viewed this probably as. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Wow. New possibility. Wow. What's this? So little character three, it's right here, right now. It's curious. It's open to possibilities. It's expansive. It's not about me, the individual. It's about me, the big energy ball. So I call mine Pig Pen, because the first step in the creative process is make a mess. It's our entrepreneurialism, our possibility, our collective whole connectedness. It's excitable. It's empathic. I'm connected to you. So Character three is this really beautiful, wonderful possibility, part of who we are that wants to go and play and explore and adventure and just be in the present moment, feel the life of the present moment.
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Yeah. And that feels like a part that was more readily accessible, you know, when I was younger, but slowly gets a little more overrun by Character one. And two, as time goes by, so then we get to character four, which is the only part you were left with during your stroke. How do you describe this character?
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Character four, the right thinking portion of our brain, it is not active. Well, it's active in that it is running, but it is observing and aware of, oh my God, I'm alive. Oh my God, I'm alive. Imagine what life is like if you take away your character one and all the language and all the noise and all the right and wrong and the good and bad and all that get rid of Helen, and then you get rid of all your pain from the past and you get rid of linearity across time altogether. And so that's not distracting you, and then you're not distracted by your own little character three, the right emotional portion of the brain, which is active and engaged and creating and doing, doing, doing, and all that goes offline. And all you have is love. All you have is this intense sense of gratitude, big picture perspective. I look at the world with wonder and awe and I'm just grateful that I'm alive. And so that's that deep sense of gratitude that this portion of our brain is like that portal to a transcendence from simply being me. I am this mass of cells to I am this massive collection, this ball of energy connected to all the energy around.
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And that is the part many of us are probably not as in touch with on a frequent basis. But you're suggesting that we can all connect with this, and it starts by getting to know our four characters.
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Yes, we end up with these four very different parts of who we are, and we all have them. But some of them you may have listened to and said, oh, yeah, I recognize those parts, but no, I don't recognize that part at all. And it doesn't mean that it's not there. It simply means that the others are being so loud that it's being pushed down and suppressed or possibly even inhibited. So we're living in a skewed to the left brain dominant society where character one and character two are what we really value. And the value of that left hemisphere is about me, the individual. I want to control how I feel. I want to control you. And if you don't fit into my box about what's right and wrong, I'm going to move into my character too, and I'm going to punish you. Or I'm rarely am I open to new possibility because that's going to take my right hemisphere. So step one is the willingness to observe yourself.
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Okay? So even if we are sort of societally conditioned to operate more in our character one and two, by bringing awareness to our different parts, we can change that. And in your book, you Recommend we pause 20 to 30 times a day and just notice which character we're in.
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You know, gaining awareness of these four different parts of you and then paying attention. Whatever tools you use to pay attention. Character one might put it on the clock every hour. On the hour it's going to ping, and I'm going to ask myself, what am I doing and which character am I being?
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And then once people become familiar with all four parts of themselves, you offer a practical tool to really engage all four and start to choose a new way forward.
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Yeah. So getting to know the four parts of who you are and then being able to bring them into conversation with one another is what I call a brain huddle. B R a I n huddle.
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And here's Dr. Bolte Taylor describing those five steps of the brain huddle in an interview from the Weekend University.
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So B breath, it brings your mind to the present moment. R recognize which of the characters called the brain huddle, because now you know them well. So they say, here, here, here, here. A is it doesn't matter who called the huddle. Appreciate the fact that we have four of us here. I inquire, okay, who do we want to be? Do I want to stay in my pain from the past or no, I want to go to the movies with you and I want to have some fun. And then n is navigate moment by moment by moment.
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It's really a way of pausing the automatic reaction and bringing more of ourselves into the room instead of letting one activated part take over. The anxious part, the controlling part, the wounded part. We can breathe and recognize what's happening, give appreciation to the part of us that's triggered, listen to what each different character needs, and choose how we want to move forward with more awareness of all four parts rather than just the one triggered part.
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And then you can bring them into conversation with one another on any intra inside of yourself. Reflective conflict. It's a beautiful thing. I mean, what this really boils down to is that if there's four characters inside of me and there's four characters inside of you, then that means in every relationship we have, there's eight of us that we have to negotiate. And that's a lot of negotiation. And it's really obvious probably to most people that two character twos will never find a resolution because biologically they're not supposed to find a resolution. They're supposed to protect us from that which is threatening. So pay attention to who you are, what you're doing. Really start looking at everybody as four characters. And if you do that, everything in your life will change.
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Alongside the brain huddle, you also talk about something called the 92nd rule. The idea that when something triggers an emotion, sadness, anger, fear, the body releases a wave of chemicals that creates a physical feeling of that emotion. But that chemical wave only lasts 90 seconds. So if the feeling continues beyond that, it's usually because we're reactivating it with our thoughts or our stories or our memories. And here's Jill again explaining how to witness these emotions without continuing to re
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trigger them whenever you're feeling yourself emotionally triggered. If you literally pause and look at your watch, as soon as you do that, you're pulling yourself actually up out of character two, into character one. And as you shift that energy now it's just going to run its loop on automatic and you're going to observe your physiological response instead of engaging and simply being your physiological response.
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Wow. So these tools, the Brain huddle and the 90 second rule, really do help to pause and bring in all parts of ourselves and choose how we want to proceed. So the goal isn't to ignore the emotion or push it away. It's to witness it without letting it become the whole story, to let it inform the present without taking over the present. And through this, we can work to engage with the more expansive, less reactive parts of ourselves more and more.
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It just makes life a whole lot easier because I don't have to be in my pain anymore. I don't have to live my trauma. Do I value my trauma? Oh, my God, I absolutely do. My trauma has saved my life to get me where I am today, but I want that to inform my present, not take over and become the lifestyle of, of my presence. So pay attention to who you are, what you're doing.
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A
It's so wonderful. So thank you for sharing those tools. And I mean, I just think all of us could benefit from learning how to pause, bring more of ourselves into the room and engage more of our consciousness. And with that perspective in mind, I want to turn to some of our bigger questions we explore in the show, especially on forms of communication that don't use ordinary language. So we've heard a lot from non speaking apraxic people who describe telepathic communication with a parent or caregiver or teacher. And we've also heard a similar thing from people who care for those with dementia or who've had A stroke. So from your perspective, where does your mind go when you hear these stories?
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So I will say that every ability we have, I believe we have because we have brain cells that perform that function. I'm a biological creature. If it's out there, I have to have cells that can perceive that. At the same time, if I am capable of having a religious experience, a experience of transcendence, then I believe that I have cells that permit me the ability to have that experience. I can have all the prayer in the world, but if I don't have the cells that get me there, then I can't get there. And people who have right brain, right thinking, tissue damage, they actually complain about that.
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So from Dr. Bolte Taylor's perspective, these experiences still have a biological basis. She's not saying they happen outside of the brain. She's saying the brain may have capacities we just don't fully understand yet. And as many listeners know, we've also interviewed people who do think it's happening outside the brain. But in her framework, one of the keys is which parts of the brain are dominating our awareness.
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This left hemisphere, it's very loud. So if you wipe out that character one and you quiet that down, and then character two, let's quiet that down, and then a character three group of cells, I'm going to purposely, consciously settle that down. And then what do I have? If I am not distracted by all of the details and all the rest of the noise and 3/4 of my brain, then I have me in the presence, open to all possibilities. And in that possibility is the great unknown that science doesn't know how to measure, doesn't know how to do that, because it's not about data, it's about the lack of data. And the scientific method by definition is about measuring data.
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A
Okay, so that's interesting. So you're saying that perhaps, you know, when characters one through three are quieted down or we choose to quiet them down, something might be existing in character four where telepathy can occur. But we don't have the tools to measure what's actually happening there. And so many of the non speaking individuals that we've featured on this show have described telepathy as a form of communication that they believe we're all born with, but has been conditioned, you know, out of us over time. What do you make of that?
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B
The brain is this massive tool that is designed to figure out how to communicate. Because as a biological human, that's what I'm designed to do, right. I've got all these cell for that. But language is very complex. It takes literally a third of your brain, if not more, to figure out language. That doesn't mean that the right hemisphere doesn't have language. The right hemisphere has a different language. So we don't have an Alphabet over here. It's not about that, it's about an awareness. For example, warmth. Well, how do you define warmth? The left hemisphere is going to come in and try to define it. But the experience of warmth, when sunshine comes through a window and lights you up, warmth is an awareness. I think that if we're gonna look at a telepathic conversation, it's gonna be about the experience of an awareness.
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Yeah, it's interesting cause some people who describe experiencing telepathy will say they hear words and others will say they see pictures or images. And others experience it as a sense of knowing or even like they'll feel physical pain. If someone's feeling pain in the arm, and some people say they get a full on download of all of it. And so who knows? I mean, maybe that relates to which parts of the brain are being activated.
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B
I'm the first to say if we all stem from the consciousness of the universe, whatever that is, and that's where we begin, then every ability we have is because we have cells that perform that function. And, and if I don't have the cells that are now inhibiting the cells that need to be dominant in order for us to be able to communicate at a different level in a different way, then I have those skills.
- [33:39]
A
One of my favorite little rituals is having something steady in the morning before the day gets away from me. Even if it's just a few quiet minutes in the sun, a walk with a dog, or getting something nourishing in my body before everything starts moving. And in the summer when I'm traveling or out of my normal routine, that can be so much harder to keep up with. And that's why I love cachava and especially their new travel packs. It's my favorite all in one nutrition shake. Now pack to go. You can just throw a packet in your bag and know you have complete nutrition ready wherever the day takes you. Each packet has protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, greens, probiotics, omegas, electrolytes and more. It actually tastes delicious and comes in eight amazing flavors. Chocolate, vanilla, chai matcha, strawberry, coffee, coconut, acai and chocolate mint. It's plant based, non GMO with no artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, soy, gluten, animal products or preservatives. Just clean nutrition that helps me feel my best Wherever I am. Take your daily ritual with you. Go to kachava.com and use code tapes for 15% off your first order. That's Kachava K A C-H-A-V A.com code tapes. Anyone who knows me knows I love wearing glasses. I have them for different occasions, progressives, transitions, and they're all prescription. And honestly, I could not have that many glasses if it weren't for Zenni. Zenni is an online eyewear shop where you can get prescription glasses, sunglasses and blue light lenses starting at under $30. Because glasses are one of those things so many of us put off replacing for way too long. Often you're squinting through scratches, the frames are too loose, they don't quite feel like you anymore. Or maybe they're out of style, but replacing them feels like a whole production. But with Zenni you just go to zenni.com, pick your frames, upload your prescription and they ship them right to your door. No appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter. And they have everything you'd want from a traditional glasses place. They have progressives transitions, polarized lenses, customizable lens options, but it's easy and it's affordable. They also have over 150,000 five star reviews and their virtual try on lets you see how frames look on your face before you order. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Go to zenni.com podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Zenny. Z-E-N-N-I.com podcast promo code podcast15. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for because I want lighter fabrics, pieces that feel good the second you put them on, and things that can go from work to dinner without feeling overdone. That's why I love Quince. They focus on high quality essentials like breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk and beautiful jewelry without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated, but it's still easy and affordable. Their 100% European linen pants, dresses and tops are the pieces you reach for all summer. They're lightweight, effortless to style and start at just $32. I recently bought the Flowknit Breeze Short Sleeve Polo and it's perfect for going to work or going out on a boat or to a concert in the park. And the big thing for me is that Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. I personally love their 100% European linen long sleeve shirt because in California you go from super hot to super cold and it's perfect for layering and easy to throw in a bag. I also love their 100% European linen high waisted shorts. They look so good and classic. If you're going to the pool or to the beach or just to a summer barbecue, make your summer wardrobe feel easier, go to quince.com tapes for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U-I-N C E.com tapes for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com tapes.
- [37:44]
B
So I'm open to possibility. However, having said that, I will say I do tend to really value the skill set of science supporting things. But science is a growing knowledge base and to me, good science and good scientists are people who are open to possibility of exploration.
- [38:07]
A
Yeah. And I think it can be such a challenge to explore these topics deeper and for scientists to get funding because they run into that wall of materialism and the materials framework.
- [38:17]
B
So for me, if somebody comes in and says, oh, it's not real, it's not this, it's not that, it's like, then maybe we could challenge you to decide that it is real and create tools that could help us understand it better. And to me, that's a good use of science. Not just, just come in and say, no, if we can't measure it, it's not real and it doesn't exist. And science should be curious and it should be, well, if we have children who are making claims and relationships that we don't understand, then it's like, well, let's be creative and how we test that. And if we can't prove it to be true, how might we look at that differently? Because we're still using tools that can't measure that. But I'm not one to go in and simply discount everything because, oh, I have to see it and taste it and hear it in order for it to be real. It's like, no, I've been too far detached from normal reality to discount what I gained because of that stroke. And most people look at people who have deficit as people who have deficit. And I don't do that. I look at people and I say, this person no longer has the tools that are inhibiting the other side. And therefore what is, what is that and what is there? And how might we study it or learn more about it?
- [39:45]
A
Yeah, and I mean, I think it's something. We're all starting to see a change in that. Not assuming that difference means absence of something. Because, you know, it almost seems obvious that if one system is quieter or less dominant, something else has room to move forward.
- [39:58]
B
But scientifically, as long as we got this cranial vault keeping this brain inside and we can't visualize everything going on, you know, it's going to remain a mystery for a long time. But thank goodness for the mystery, because the mystery is life and we have life. And how would anybody ever believe that we exist at all anyway? I mean, it's, it's magnificent.
- [40:22]
A
Yeah, beautiful. So when you say you're open to the possibility, I'm curious, you know, were there things that you dismissed prior to your stroke that you're more open to now?
- [40:30]
B
So I was actually not a left brain scientist. I was a right brain child. And when you're not focused on language and communicating in that level, in that way with that language, there's a lot of information that you pick up intuitively. I mean, what is intuition? Intuition is our ability to connect dots that seem to not be connected to the left brain, which is looking for organization and categorization and definition. The right hemisphere is just connected. It is connected to everything. So when you think about even healing, how do we heal ourselves? How do we self heal? For me, it's a matter. We're wired to self heal, but in order to self heal, we have to get rid of all the noise. And in our society, we function in a medical world that is based on disease, not on wellness. And that was a purposeful decision made by, I don't remember who, and I should, but back in like 1900. And so from that moment forward, everything was established based on the disease model. What's wrong with the system instead of what is in the way of the system being healthy? Wellness. So, you know, there's us as these biological creatures with perception, and then there's the world within which we live. And how do we fit ourselves into the world that we live and still come out as healthy people?
- [42:11]
A
Yeah, and I think it's great that you bring that up because in season two, we explored energy healing. And specifically we looked at one of the studies happening at MG Anderson around Reiki and its ability to slow the progress of pancreatic cancer cells. And I'm curious what you think about energy healing and what might be happening, you know, biologically or energetically.
- [42:32]
B
This is what I think I think when we are first conceived, we start as a single cell, it's called the zygote cell. And that cell is activated to multiply and divide its DNA at a rate of 250,000 new cells per second. And these multiplying cells are nothing other than atoms and molecules and, and energy. And so the energy that is multiplying, dividing, that's energy that is, you know, connected to everything. And if we are energy, is there a consciousness? I mean, that's the next question, of course. Is there a consciousness in this energy? And when all I had was character four, which is the portion of me that is energy connected to the energy of the universe, it felt like love. I'm just going to say it, it felt like love. The absence of experience was one of bliss. So for me, what is going on in that energetic zone of character four is energy. So if the universe feels like love at a fundamental level, and if energy holds the consciousness that feels like love, and it starts with those little cells making up me. The consciousness of that energy is the consciousness of every cell. So I am that love. I am that connection. I am energetically alive because I have that energy.
- [44:04]
A
So when you think about healing, it sounds like you're not separating biology from energy. You're saying that the body is cells and systems and chemistry, but also energy, connection, and maybe even consciousness moving through those cells.
- [44:17]
B
If the consciousness of every cell in my body is the consciousness that is connected to that consciousness all around me that I am not separate from, because I have a tiny little group of cells in my left hemisphere that says I am separate from that energy. I'm not separate from that energy. I just might have a group of cells that freaks out if it thinks all I am is a tiny little collection of cells in this body. And oh my God, I don't have half the importance that I actually attribute myself to because it's all about me, me, me, because I live in a society that values the me. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm open to the possibility of absolutely anything's possible. Not all of our scientific method is sophisticated enough now to be able to measure things. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That means that we, you know, science is young and our understanding of the brain is young. But I do believe that self healing happens. I think I'm a living example of that. And when we become unwell, if I have cells not in the energetic flow of my health and well being, then maybe I'll grow a tumor, but I'm a Believer that we're all always having strange cells going offline in our body that would be cancer cells. And that we have this magnificent immune system specifically designed to go and bring the health and well being back to the cells. Our immune system is this masterpiece of glory. Oh my gosh. We have no idea how sick we are on a regular basis because we have these magnificent cells that are designed to bring us health. I believe life is designed to be well.
- [46:03]
A
I love that. And it echoes what we explored in season two, which is that energy healing is really about bringing the body back into coherence. And it's like resonant vibration of health.
- [46:13]
B
You cannot do healing without an awareness of the energy that is bringing the wellness. And if you are doing it, you're working against yourself.
- [46:22]
A
I mean, what a powerful way to think about healing, not just as something happening in the body, but as a process connected to, you know, returning to balance and connection and awareness. And that feels so connected to your larger message that we don't have to be ruled by one reactive or fearful part of ourselves. And through tools like the brain huddle, we can begin to notice which part is leading, bring more of the whole brain online and choose to move through the world with more compassion and presence and connection.
- [46:50]
B
Yeah, I think we are at an incredible juncture. And if we are functioning as a society at the level of humanity around the world and the medical world believes that only one quarter of our brain is conscious and that means the rest is running on automatic. And I think if you look at the level of violence and crime and sadness and just emotional mental health depletion, we're not doing a very good job with just a quarter of the brain turned on. And so do I want other people to wake up their whole brains thousand percent? Absolutely. And I believe that whole brain living, each one of us who has a brain which is all of us. When we become aware of these four magnificent parts of who we are and we bring them into conversation and balance, I don't have to feel my suffering anymore. I don't have to be angry at you anymore. I'm making conscious decisions moment by moment, who and how I want to be in the world. And maybe I don't want to be mad at you tonight because I actually want to go have a good time and have some fun. So we're making these decisions all the time. Let's just get to know who's inside of our head, who's who inside of you, who's who inside of me, and start having a really conscious Negotiation so that we can elevate ourselves to looking at what that left thinking brain is doing. And it's saying, it's all about me. I want more land. I want my people to do this. I want this and that and the other, and all those terrible things that lead to war. You know, it's like, hello, if we have our whole brains functioning, those things aren't okay with us anymore, and we won't do that anymore. And if that means we vote differently, then we vote differently. But what we really care about is human life on this planet. And I think whole brain living is an easy, affordable way to get there.
- [48:48]
A
Yeah, what a great framework you've provided. And hopefully we can all work to activate and value the right brain a bit more. I mean, gosh, what a difference that would make.
- [48:56]
B
I mean, you know, I have to look at the big picture and say, this stroke couldn't have happened to a more perfect person. I grew up wanting to understand how our brain creates our perception of reality, which means the whole brain, not just a quarter of it that is conscious. And then it's like, wipe out three quarters of the brain and start with, you know, bliss and love and euphoria, and then use that to rebuild the brain to be able to say, this is what was happening in that part of my brain. And then I had to turn on this part of my brain, and these are the things that it did. And this is what it feels like, and this is what it likes to be, and it has an identity, and it feels different. Character three feels different than character four. And then it's like, okay, let's do some repair in the left hemisphere. Character two feels different than any of the other parts of my brain. And then finally, they're all working together to get character one to come online. It took eight years of rebuilding to get character one, Helen to come back online. And I'm telling you, the day she came back online, she came in full force. And it's like, wow, you guys did an excellent job rebuilding me. And now I want to be the boss again. And the rest of my three characters are going, no, we're so glad you're back. We desperately need your skills. But we have a different value structure. And the value structure is now of the right brain collective, whole, not about me, the individual. Now, that doesn't mean that me, the individual isn't important. It is. I have to have it in order to be a completely functional human. But I don't make my life decisions based on me, the individual. I'm Actually looking at the collective whole and how do I want to spend my time?
- [50:48]
A
And beautiful. And are you still in agreement with the medical community that looks at 3/4 of the brain as being offline or unconscious?
- [50:54]
B
No, not anymore. I think that's why we're in the world. We're in whole brain living is completely conscious living. I can jump into any of my four characters in an instant.
- [51:04]
A
That's like a superpower.
- [51:06]
B
It's a superpower, yeah. Oh, my God. We all have it. Let's say somebody comes over and they're trying to make you mad and you can jump into your character too, and you can get mad, or you can look at that person and think, I'd rather go paddleboard. I'm going to go do my character 4. Or I'm going to go do my character 3. Or I'm going to go do my character 1. I can love you in spite of your own character 2. I can love me in spite of my own character 2. Because I have a beautiful character 4 who can come in and self soothe me. And I have a character one who can come online and say, do I need to make a phone call right now? Are we safe? Are we okay? And one of the arguments between a lot of spouses is I come to you, I'm unhappy, I'm upset, and you want to fix my problem. And I don't want you to fix my problem with your character one. I want you to hold me with your character four. And then I want you to distract me with your character three. Right. So when we know our own four characters and we get to know those and the people around us, oh, my gosh. All of a sudden we're all living much more peaceful lives. And the more peace we feel within is what we're projecting into the world. And the world becomes a more peaceful place. And I think people are ready for more peaceful place.
- [52:19]
A
Yeah, I think so too.
- [52:21]
B
You know, life is the miracle. Life is the miracle. And I encourage everyone to just look in a mirror and just look at yourself without the left brain Character 1 Judgment or distraction of another time and space. And just look at yourself in a mirror and think to myself, oh, my gosh, I'm alive. And just reflect upon that concept. I am alive. We are this magnificent design. We are just this magnificent, beautiful thing. And I want people to go and gain that wonder of their own existence because that will change your life.
- [52:58]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.
- [53:02]
B
Thank you, dear. It's good to meet you.
- [53:03]
A
Yeah. You too. Bye Bye.
- [53:05]
B
Okay, bye bye.
- [53:06]
A
That's it for this episode of the Talk Tracks, but new episodes will be released every Wednesday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality. And please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind to dive in deeper. Subscribe to our Backstage Pass by visiting our website. With it, you'll unlock access to bonus content like Telepathy Tests, Ask Me Anything, interviews with myself and guests. You'll be able to enjoy the podcast ad free, connect with other members on our Telepathy Tribe Discord and hear and see exclusive content from the Telepathy Tapes Vault. Visit our website@thetelepathytapes.com for more info on how to subscribe to our Backstage Pass. Thank you to my amazing collaborators, producers Kathryn Ellis and Selena Kennedy. Technical Directing Audio mix and finishing by Jeremy Cole opening and closing music by Elizabeth PW and original logo and color cover art by Ben Condora. Design I'm Kai Dickens, your executive producer, writer and host.
- [54:05]
B
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A
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B
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A
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B
It was 5k to pay the bill
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A
for my son and I need only 22 hours. It was amazing.
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B
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A
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B
30 seconds. Be specific, be quick and tell what are you going to be using the funds for? I was nervous to do it because it doesn't feel okay to ask money. But you shouldn't be nervous. Sometimes you just have to do it and see the results.
- [55:13]
A
We were able to save my son's life thanks to gofundme that we still have my son with us. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this message reflects one person's experience.