The left hemisphere houses the
neural circuitry that mediates verbal and written language, as well as
being home to many of the cognitive processors that give rise to the
intellectual functioning of the human
mind (i.e. our ego). Accordingly, the
left hemisphere is often considered
to be the dominant hemisphere, and
many of us spend much of our exis-
tence cultivating and using the leftbrain mode of cognitive processing. During meditation, the practitioner accesses the functioning of
the right hemisphere, and therefore
can gain insight from the rightbrained mode of cognitive processing. Experiments suggest that the
right hemisphere captures a much
more truthful representation of an
experience. Our left hemisphere has
a tendency to filter our experiences
so that they fit into our established
11
perception of ourselves and the
world. Experiences that fit our world
view and “boost our ego” are captured, whereas those that challenge
our world view and “undermine our
ego” are ignored. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, captures
the whole experience and therefore,
during meditation, when the practitioner has access to the right hemisphere, often long-forgotten memories can surface in full Technicolor or
solutions to unsolved problems or
dilemmas can emerge.
Meditation therefore provides the
practitioner with a method through
which to switch between the two
modes of thinking and perceiving
conferred by the two hemispheres.
We have seen that the expansion
of awareness often reported during mystical experiences elicited by
meditation can be partially explained
by decreased activity in the neural
circuitry conferring our sense of
orientation in space–time, as well
as our self/non-self boundary. This
expansion of awareness can a ?6?????vWfW"?&R'F???W????VB'??F?Rf7BF?B?VF?FF???G&?vvW'2?6??gBg&???VgB?V?7?W&R7F?f?G??F?&?v?B?V?7?W&R7F?f?G???@?F?W26??gBF?v&G2??&R???7F?2??'7G&7B??FR?b6?v??F?fR&?6W76??rF?B&WfV?2F?R??FW'&V?FVF?W70???