Free My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor Page A

to a slower vibration. I clearly understood that I was no longer the choreographer of this life. In the absence of sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and fear, I felt my spirit surrender its attachment to this body and I was released from the pain.

Upon my arrival at the Massachusetts General Hospital emergency ward, I landed in the center of an energy spin that I could only describe as a bustling beehive. My limp body felt heavy and terribly weak. It was drained of all its energy -- like a balloon that had been slowly and thoroughly deflated. Medical personnel swarmed about my gurney. The sharp lights and intense sounds beat upon my brain like a mob, demanding more attention than I could possibly muster to appease them.
"Answer this, squeeze that, sign here!" they demanded of my semi-consciousness, and I thought, How absurd! Can't you see I've got a problem here? What's the matter with you people? Slow down! I can't understand you! Be patient! Hold still! That hurts! What is this chaos? The more tenaciously they tried to draw me out, the greater was my ache to reach inside for my personal source of sustenance. I felt besieged by their touching, probing, and piercing; like a slug sprinkled with salt, I writhed in response. I wanted to scream, Leave me alone! but my voice had fallen silent. They couldn't hear me because they couldn't read my mind. I passed out like a wounded animal, desperate to escape their manipulations.
When I first awoke later that afternoon, I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. (Heart felt thanks to the medical professionals who stabilized my body and gave me another chance at life - even though no one had any idea what or how much I would ever recover.) My body was draped in the customary hospital gown and I was resting in a private cubicle. The bed was partially raised with my aching head slightly elevated on a pillow. Devoid of my usual well of energy, my body sank deep into the bed like a lump of heavy metal that I couldn't begin to budge. I could not determine how my body was positioned, where it began or where it ended. Without the traditional sense of my physical boundaries, I felt that I was at one with the vastness of the universe.
My head pulsed with a tormenting pain that pounded like thunder while a white lightning storm raged theatrically upon the inside of my eyelids. Every little shift in position that I tried to make required more energy than my reserves held. Simply inhaling hurt my ribs, and the light that flooded in through my eyes burned my brain like fire. Not able to speak, I begged for the lights to be dimmed by burying my face into a sheet.
I couldn't hear anything beyond the pounding rhythm of my heart, which pulsed so loudly that my bones vibrated with ache and my muscles twitched with anguish. My keen scientific mind was no longer available to record, relate, detail, and categorize information about the surrounding external three-dimensional space. I wanted to wail like a colicky newborn that had been suddenly plunged into a realm of chaotic stimulation. With my mind stripped of its ability to recall the memories and details of my previous life, it was clear to me that I was now like an infant - born into an adult woman's body. And oh yes, the brain wasn't working!
Here in this emergency cubby, I could sense, over my left shoulder, the presence of two familiar associates as they peered at a CT scan mounted on a wall light-box. The picture on display contained serial sections of my brain, and although
I could not decipher the words my colleagues softly shared, their body language communicated the gravity of the situation. It didn't take someone with a Ph.D. in neuroanatomy to figure out that the huge white hole in the middle of the brain scan didn't belong there! My left hemisphere was swimming in a pool of blood and my entire brain was swollen in response to the trauma.
In silent prayer, I reflected, I am not supposed to be here anymore! I let go! My energy shifted