On the morning of the 10th December 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year
-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke when a blood v
essel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, sh
e observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she lost the ab
ility to walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the spac
e of four hours. As the damaged left side of her brain - the rational, logical,
detail and time-oriented side - swung in an out of function, Taylor alternated b
etween two distinct and opposite realities: the euphoric Nirvana of the intuitiv
e and emotional right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being an
d peace; and the logical left brain, that realized Jill was having a stroke and
enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely.
