MEDITATION AS A NEURAL PROCESS DESIGNED TO
UNLOCK THE INNATE POTENTIAL OF OUR BRAINS
In the discussion above, we
saw that meditation, through
sustained attention, elicits a
switch between left and righthemisphere activity. This
switch is a crucial component
of the process leading to the
mystical state of awareness
often experienced as a result of
meditation. In order to understand
the implications of this, it is important to first examine the functions
of the two hemispheres. Our understanding of the different roles of the
two hemispheres largely stems from
split-brain surgeries performed in
the 1960s in patients suffering from
particularly severe epilepsy. By severing the connections between the
two hemispheres, the two sides of
the brain can be essentially isolated
from each other. Following one of
these surgeries, a split-brain patient
was blindfolded and given a toothbrush to hold in their left hand.
As the right hemisphere controls
the left-hand side of the body, the
toothbrush was sensed by the right
hemisphere. The patient was there10
fore
able
to mime
what
a toothbrush
would be used for (i.e. they understood the toothbrush’s purpose);
however, they were unable to name
the object. Both the term “toothbrush” and the ability to vocalise this
term lie within the left hemisphere.
Observations in these split-brain
patients prompted the neuroscientists, Jerre Levy and the now Nobel
prize winning Roger Sperry, to suggest that the two hemispheres have
inbuilt, qualitatively different, and
mutually antagonist modes of cognitive processing [4].