Comments on: Can someone really know what it’s like to have a stroke? A skeptic considers Jill Bolte Taylor’s “Stroke of Insight.”

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:18:19 +0000

Elisabeth: I haven’t read the book. Though it’s been awhile since I viewed the video, I don’t believe that Bolte Taylor discusses her recovery in detail. The only thing she discusses in detail is her subjective experience of the stroke itself, something that seems far-fetched, as I discuss in the post.

By: Elisabeth Tampier

Elisabeth Tampier — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:00:29 +0000

From people who have read the book I’d like to know if it focuses in a detailed way of how she recovered. My husband had a bad stroke in the left brain almost 3 years ago, at the age of 59, and is still recuperating very slowly, so this aspect interests me more than left brain/right brain dichotomy, and all the New Age stuff. Neurologists keep saying “all strokes are different.” Can you really learn from the experience of others?

By: BrokenBrilliant

BrokenBrilliant — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:31:26 +0000

As a long-term multiple traumatic brain injury survivor (injured in 1972, 1973. 1983, 1995, and 2004), I was really enthused to follow the link to Bolte Taylor’s TED talk. But after about half the talk, when she started to arrive at all sorts of conclusions about the human experience and the nature of our brains’ inner workings (including the right brain/left brain presumptions), I grew very uncomfortable and irritated for reasons I didn’t fully understand until recently, as I’ve read this post and others like it.

I don’t question the power and impact of her experience — and I don’t question the possibility of her recovery. I’ve recovered from multiple brain traumas to the extent that very few people guess there was ever anything “wrong” with me. But it’s worrying to me that she resorts to the binary dichotomizing of human experience - which points in the direction of left vs. right, good vs. bad, men vs. women, logical vs. artistic, holistic vs. segmented, traditional vs. modern. Splitting the world into two halves not only lessens our appreciation for the complexity of live, but we often end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater and losing sight of positive aspects of ‘bad’ sides.

There are many points in her talk that I found troubling, not least of which was her emotional delivery. I felt as though I were being coerced to feel for her, after a fashion, and she was playing on my emotional “right brain” side to make a point that eluded her (or she thought would elude her audience) logically. What worries me the most, in all this, is that by using her “fluffy bunny” “new age” approach, stating things like “peace is just a thought away” (from http://mystrokeofinsight.com) and painting the doorway to nirvana with a pretty blurry brush, she’s undermining the hard science that can actually do us some good in understanding the wider world beyond her own personal experience.

I would have been much more comfortable, had she actually taken one side or the other — be factual and scientific and really stick with the hard facts, no matter how disorienting they are to the general pop public… or recount a personal experience that is moving in and of itself. Combining the two sides, and playing into the territorialist “camp” of the “the right brain is nicer and better and gentler and kinder to Planet Earth and holds the answers to everything that boggles our left brains” just muddies the waters.

I yearn for reason in these things. Norman Doidge’s 2007 book “The Brain that Changes Itself” does it for me! (and no, I’m NOT linking to it on Amazon, so you can buy it through me and give me affiliate earnings — it’s just a really great book that changed my life

By: projektleiterin

projektleiterin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:55:11 +0000

I know people who would find her inspirational. To me it seems she had taken some happy drugs, something that makes you become one with the world spirit. People after a trip often describe similar feelings and sensations.

And it is weird if a scientist insinuates that one brainpart is good and exudes an all encompassing love and the other one causes you to be a selfish individual.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:58:30 +0000

I just watched the video tonight. My Mother had a stroke last week, and I desperately am wanting to know what she’s going through. Jill’s accounts of “Beautiful Nirvana” doesn’t come close to describing the sheer terror and confusion that I see my mother going through today. What I see on my mothers face is more like WHY IS IT THAT I CAN’T SAY WHAT I WANT TO, AND WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER MY HUSBANDS NAME? WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER MY OWN NAME? I watched my mother break down into tears this afternoon when after a physical therapy session, I saw frustration in her face. I asked her if things weren’t happening fast enough for her. She said very clearly “I don’t understand.” She cried on my shoulder until she fell asleep in my arms. What’s frustrating for me is that she can’t tell me what she’s going through. I don’t know for sure if by stating “I don’t understand.” she meant that she didn’t understand why it was taking so long for her to get better, or that she didn’t understand what I said.

Doesn’t sound like nirvana to me. I gotta say that I was disappointed in her presentation, but I do understand that not all people go through things the same way. Perhaps one day my mother will describe what happened to her this way. Perhaps it’s the brains way of taking a very traumatic situation and making it bearable.

Perhaps I should quit venting and just shut up…

By: Mimi

Mimi — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:51:16 +0000

Thank you for being one of the few to question Jill Bolte Taylor’s story!

I used to be a sucker for her kind of book/story, but got burned one too many times by the flowery promises put forth by new agers. Her story was way too glib. I didn’t buy it. Maybe little bits of it here and there, but that’s all.

And what was up with the schizophrenic brother? Why bring him up in the telling of the story? Was he supposed to have undergone a miraculous transformation too, in tandem with his sister?

The whole thing is uber fishy to me.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:05:40 +0000

Bolte Taylor continues to wow people with her apocryphal account of her stroke.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:49:15 +0000

Buy it and find out what all the hype is about!
(message paid for by Oprah Enterprises)

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:00:38 +0000

I’m starting to suspect that we are being subjected to an organized campaign to sell Bolte Taylor’s book, rather sincere comments on the post.

By: Klein

Klein — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:17:36 +0000

I read “My Stroke of Insight” in one sitting - I couldn’t put it down. I laughed. I cried. It was a fantastic book (I heard it’s a NYTimes Bestseller and I can see why!), but I also think it will be the start of a new, transformative Movement! No one wants to have a stroke as Jill Bolte Taylor did, but her experience can teach us all how to live better lives. Her TED.com speech was one of the most incredibly moving, stimulating, wonderful videos I’ve ever seen. Her Oprah Soul Series interviews were fascinating. They should make a movie of her life so everyone sees it. This is the Real Deal and gives me hope for humanity.