Brain Dance

Both sides of the human brain can see, hear, smell, taste, think, feel, remember and communicate.  But how each half sees, hears, tastes, thinks, feels, remember, and communicates is completely different from the other half.

The left half of the brain takes information it receives from the senses and uses it to separate the world into different things.  It defines the borders between beings or objects so that each "thing" can be dealt with as a separate entity.  It names things.  It listens to words, thinks in words, speaks in words.  All because it is driven to get things done, to control the situation--exactly what we need much, but not all, of the time.

The right half of the brain starts with the same information, but seeks to see things as they are.  The whole picture.  No boundaries between self and others.  No words or names to represent reality.  Instead, absorb reality in all its raw, unfiltered complexity. 

In her book, "My Stroke of Insight", Jill Bolte Taylor, describes brain scans showing that both sides of the brain are active most of the time.  In a conversation, the left brain will interpret the words and the right brain will interpret the sneer that shows the words are sarcastic.  They work together to achieve more than either could alone, but the left brain usually dominates our awareness.  As a result, we have two minds but are usually see things mostly from the left brain's perspective.

It's as if the two sides of our brains were in a dance.  Most of the time, the left brain leads the dance.  The couple could not be more different in personality, priorities, and character.  But if they agree on who will lead the dance, they can appear as one.