Poetry from Epilepsy Arising from the Right Temporal Lobe

Discussion of Julian Jaynes's second hypothesis - that before the development of consciousness, humans operated under a previous mentality called the bicameral mind.
Post Reply
godmemes
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2006 2:36 pm

Poetry from Epilepsy Arising from the Right Temporal Lobe

Post by godmemes »

The following anecdote is from Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind , 1998, by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, p. 7:


For example, one patient I saw--a neurologist from New York--suddenly at the age of sixty started experiencing epileptic seizures arising from his right temporal lobe. The seizures were alarming, of course, but to his amazement and delight he found himself becoming fascinated by poetry, for the first time in his life. In fact, he began thinking in verse, producing a voluminous outflow of rhyme. He said that such a poetic view gave him a new lease on life, a fresh start just when he was starting to feel a bit jaded.
This relates to Jaynes's "Of Poetry and Music" chapter in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., is professor and director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, and is adjunct professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California.
Mark Zima

My blog (essays+forum) site is godmemes.com
Memento Mori
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2009 9:09 pm

Re: Poetry from Epilepsy Arising from the Right Temporal Lobe

Post by Memento Mori »

.
Post Reply

Return to “2.0. Hypothesis Two: The Bicameral Mind”