Niebauer posits that practicing compassion can actually strengthen our right brain and that Buddhists have understood this all along.

D. in cognitive neuropsychology in 1996 and says: “My interest in psychology and the inner workings of the mind began after the death of my father when I was twenty years old. But because we don’t tend to think through that experience or say to ourselves, “Okay, I need to stretch out my hand at exactly the right space and distance to grab that coffee mug,” the mechanics of this function exist outside our language sphere and thus become categorized as an “unconscious mental experience. So, as she sought a way to regain some use of her left and brain and bridge the gap, she found that there must be a type of “middle way,” a means of existence that avoided relying too heavily on either the left brain or the right brain. In other words when you realize that everyone’s brain is constantly interpreting, in ways that are subjective and often inaccurate or completely incorrect, you might find yourself able to grasp this as “just my opinion “or “the way I see it” rather than “this is the way it is.The left brain is categorical; it interprets the world in words, delivering a constant inner monologue. For example, until this connection was disrupted, scientists relied on either brain damage or indirect methods to test for differences between the left and right brain. But toward the end of the book, the conversation suddenly shifts toward an idealistic interpretation of reality; namely that consciousness is singular and the idea of separate consciousnesses or selves emerging from individual physical brains is an illusion.

Where Western philosophy explicitly affirms that it does, Eastern philosophy posits that there is no singular sense of self and that al; human suffering can be attributed to the illusion that there is. So, if our left brain helps us to make sense of language and patterns, what does our right brain do? Many of our problems result from an overactive mind, one where the left side of the brain is constantly perceiving and categorizing things into buckets of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ ‘desirable’ and ‘dangerous. While various neuroscientists have made the claim that the self resides in this or that neural location, there is no real agreement among the scientific community about where to find it—not even whether it might be in the left or the right side of the brain. However, with the sides disconnected in these epileptic patients, scientists could test each on its own and gain insight into the functional differences between the left and right sides of the brain.This study proves what we’ve been saying about the split brains all along; our right brains process information on a faster, nonverbal plane. In short, I really liked the book and it gave me the opportunity to make peace between my analytical and spiritual thinking.

Labels/categories: focuses on parts/objects in space, labels them, categorizes them, and tries to make sense out of them; dividing things into categories and making judgments that separate the world. But it also provided scientists with a group of people whose left and right brains were no longer in constant communication.Although some of the activities might cause a bit of discomfort (to the left brain), I think you'll find them actually enjoyable. You can become the observer of your attention, and notice how your attention is pushed in this direction and pulled in another. You’re also likely feeling confident that those thoughts are being processed by the same autopilot self you’ve always imagined up in your head.