Book Review: My Stroke of Insight

MY STROKE OF INSIGHT by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph. D.

It was an internet video by Jill Bolte Taylor, talking about her stroke and what she experienced, that interested me in this book.

Jill was working as a scientist, as part of a team trying to map neural circuits in the human brain. She actually thought it was cool when she woke up one morning, realized she was having a stroke, and decided to take advantage of the chance to study what her own brain was going through.

To try to summarize briefly what Jill tells us, I can say that we have two halves or hemispheres in our brains. The right hemisphere or right side of our brains is the emotional/spiritual side, where our instincts and sensitivity and things like that come from. The left side is the logic and language center, where we have our speech and language and ability to reason.

Jill’s stroke powerfully affected the left side of her brain. Her language capability was going in and out. Her ability to think logically enough to call for help was going in and out. At times the left half of her brain went completely off-line, to use a computer word.

What happened at those times was the part that interested me the most. When the right brain dominated Jill, she became aware that she was part of an enormous flow of energy, and in a state of peace. In her book she calls it Nirvana. A Christian mystic would say she was in a state of unity with God. (Yes, there are Christian mystics. Many of the early saints were mystics. We even have them today. Our beloved Mother Teresa was a mystic.)

Then the left brain would come back into operation, and Jill lost that state of peace but was able to keep trying to call for help. During the stroke, she kept going back and forth between the state of peace and the ability to try to get help. During it all, she remained conscious, and in no fear at all because of the peace that she was in.

It took her eight years to fully recover – physical strength, speech, ability to reason, ability to resume her work as a scientist and teacher.

She gives much information about strokes – what can cause them, what stroke patients need for recovery, how the medical profession should treat stroke patients. She works now to spread this information on behalf of stroke patients.

She also has things to say about the spiritual side of our nature. In most of us, the rational left side of the brain dominates. One of the things we do with the “left mind,” as Jill calls it, is to make judgments. She has a lot to say about how we can live in more happiness and peace by learning how to let our “right mind” be more active within us. She chooses now to be a different person than she had been before the stroke, quieter, less judgmental, less easily frustrated and angered, and more at peace with herself. And she shows us how to do that also.

Parts of the book are fairly technical, with descriptions of how the brain works, but she is a teacher and does a pretty good job of explaining it so that laypersons can understand. I found all of it interesting. The things she says about our spiritual nature, our connection to God, to that flow of energy and source of peace, were what fascinated me the most. If you want to learn about stroke or the needs of stroke patients, or if you want to find out what Jill experienced during her stroke, you will decide to read this book. I heartily recommend it.