Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insi...
Summary
This slightly thought altering video was of a brain researcher describing the stroke that she experienced and her thoughts as she was having the stroke. Jill Bolte Taylor had a stroke on December 10, 1996 that altered the way she thought about her own studies on the brain, and also the way she thought about life. Taylor first became a brain researcher because her brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and she wanted to learn about how the brain worked and what was happening with her brother’s brain that was different from what happened in her brain. Why did his thoughts not correlate with his dreams while hers did? As she began working more and more at her job as a brain researcher, she became very busy, until the day she had her stroke.
When Taylor had her stroke, she woke up with a pounding headache that she had never experienced before. As she tried to go on with her day and get ready for work, she realized that something was wrong. However, Taylor did not instantly call 911, she walked around her house for a long time, going in and out of states of what she calls reality and La La Land. Because only the left side of Taylor's brain had hemorrhaged, her vision was fine and she was envisioned herself as a different body than usual. The thing that was affected by the stroke was her language capacity. As she drifted in and out of cognitive consciousness, Taylor said she went from being rational and knowing she needed to call for help, and being in a state of utter bliss.
Once Taylor got help and woke up in the hospital, she said she felt she had reached Nirvana, and now that she was still alive after it, any person that is alive can reach Nirvana if they allow their brain to do so. It took Taylor 8 years to fully recover from the stroke, however, she now teaches people about what happened to her and is back to doing brain research.
Personal Response
I was shocked as I listened to and watched the video of Taylor discussing what happened to her as she had a stroke because I had not clue that people could be conscious of so much happening to them if they were having a stroke. The experience that Taylor was describing seemed like nothing any human being could actually experience. When Taylor said she felt her spirit being lifted out of her, I actually got the chills because it was so weird to me to think that Taylor could be aware of that happening to her. I have never heard of a story even close to what Taylor was describing. It made me a little bit scared about stokes because they are something that could happen at any given time. Taylor happened to be a brain researcher who knew what was happening in her brain, but still that does not explain the experience she had with her stroke. It makes me wonder if other people have had the same time of experience and just do not discuss it.
Connection
I do not really see any connection this video has to the field of education but I completely understand the connection it has to our Brain Research and Theory class. The brain is broken up into two completely different and separate hemispheres. Listening to Taylor describe what was happening between the two hemispheres of her brain and how her left hemisphere was not working, made me understand the importance of both hemispheres working at once. Without her left hemisphere working, Taylor was not able to logically understand what was happening to her body and that explains the feelings she had when she looked down at her body, only to see the shaped but no boundaries. The brain works in such magnificent ways that we do not even know until we experience that, and I think that is the point of this class. We are learning that a brain can do so many different things and work in so many different ways, which as future teachers we can then connect to our classroom and teaching style.
Personal Opinion
I once more have to say that this was by far one of the more interesting educational videos I have ever seen, simply due to the fact that her story blew my mind. There were so many emotions that Taylor was experiencing and as she described them, I felt as though I understood what she was going through. This is a great video for people to watch, especially if they are trying to understand the brain and the connection the different parts and hemispheres of the brain have with each other. I think this video really helps to understand how connected everything in the brain is and how those connections help us to process information we do on an average day.