The Right Way Brain

3 Commentsby   |  10.11.10  |  The Beginnings of Scientific Psychology (Part III-B)

Dr. Jill Taylor’s talk struck a chord in my inmost being. I cannot hold my peace on the issue; her conversation reminded me of teachings on meditation and its wellness promoting benefits. Her description of transcending the boundaries of her body and becoming one with the energy around her reminds me of accounts of Buddhist meditations and sounds familiar to some of the goals stated by Sufis. Also, within Christian meditative practice, wellness and a feeling of connection with the everything that is God is a possible side effect of enduring practice.

So I have to speculate: is the right brain’s functioning enhanced through meditative practice, and, as a result, the experience of God?

Also, can the right brain be trained, promoting the benefits of right brain dominance as described by Dr. Taylor? I know of a book entitled: “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards that is an instructional book for drawing, using techniques that seem to be right brain specific.

I am very interested in the functionality of the right brain area and what the possible benefits could be of further research. Perhaps I’m catching optimistic whiffs of the convergence of science and religion. One can hope, right?

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3 Comments

  1. Kameron Allen
    10:05 am, 10.11.10

    This is a very interesting topic to me as well. Are there benefits to increased right brain functionality as well as possible techniques to achieve this functionality? I believe there are, I’m just not sure what they could be.

    Actually, Dr. Taylor’s video really reminded me of hallucinogenic drug experiments that I have read about where the participants claimed to have experienced reality how she did during her stroke, using descriptors such as “absolute oneness” or even “ego death.” Very crazy stuff, good post!

  2. Mary Tomkins
    10:46 am, 10.11.10

    I don’t know if you’ve taken Cognition and Learning yet, but we talked about this in that class. We had to read a book called “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future”. The author did not go into depth about the spirituality of the right brain, but if I remember correctly he did touch on it. You might be interested in reading it.

  3. Jeremiah Blalock
    12:01 pm, 10.11.10

    I agree with Mary, I think you would benefit in your search/questioning by reading this book. It is actually an easy read and, although it does not touch onto as much spirituality as you would think, it comes to pin point certain aspects that would be useful in understanding this all.

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