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Hooked on The Brain with David Eagleman

October 30, 2015 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

david eagleman brain3

I’ve just finished watching the third episode of this PBS series and I think I’m more hooked on David Eagleman and the brain than I was on J.R. Ewing and Dallas back in the 1980s. I’ve spent the past three and a half years intensely focused on learning as much as I can about brain, mind, and behavior, so I’m not really surprised that so far I’m familiar with everything that’s been presented in the first three episodes of The Brain. However, that hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for the series. Quite the opposite. I’ve pre-ordered the DVD and look forward to many future viewings and to sharing the episodes in my classes. I’m thrilled to see this information put together so beautifully and made so widely available. Not everyone is hooked on the brain—at least not yet, anyway. Maybe more people will be after watching.

When I look back on the path to creating Farther to Go! a number of moments stand out. Of course, memory is a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to accuracy, but I do have physical evidence that these things actually happened when I recall them happening.

More than 20 years ago, when I was working as a substance abuse counselor, I came across a book by Richard Restak, The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own. The chapter of the same name described experiments in the 1980s by Benjamin Libet that identified a readiness potential that was observed in the brain prior to the subjects’ awareness of their desire to take a specific action. Quite a few people in a number of different disciplines seemed disconcerted by these findings, concerned about the fate of our so-called free will. I was fascinated. The implication was that things are not as they seem—or as we feel them to be. Restak’s a good writer and the rest of the chapters in his book were no doubt interesting, but all I recall is the information on Libet’s experiments. If you watched Episode #3 of The Brain, you saw some of the current research in this area.

A few years later, I took a biological psychology class that further whetted my interest in how the brain and mind (if they are indeed separate from each other) actually work. That’s where I first encountered the split-brain research of Michael Gazzaniga and Roger Sperry. I don’t know whether the instructor made a point of this particular research or whether I was particularly fascinated by it. But Gazzaniga’s name and research clicked into place for me when I came across them again several years ago. He’s the person who came up with the concept of the Inner Interpreter, which Eagleman alluded to when he mentioned how the conscious part of the brain comes up with a good story about why we’ve just done something.

In 2011, The New Yorker ran an article, titled The Possibillian, about a neuroscientist named David Eagleman, who had spent time living in Albuquerque, which is where I live. He had attended Albuquerque Academy, which is practically within walking distance, and lived in roughly the same part of town. At the time, he was studying “brain time”—essentially how and why our experience of time differs from the actual passage of time. I found the article interesting enough to have torn it out of the magazine and saved it, which isn’t something I do very often. A year or so later, I was browsing the shelves of a local bookstore and saw Eagleman’s name on the spine of a book titled Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. Had I not known who he was, I might not have pulled the book off the shelf. And had the book I was actually looking for been available, I doubt I would have purchased Incognito.

The first chapter in Eagleman’s book, titled “There’s Someone In My Head, But It’s Not Me” (a tip of the hat to Pink Floyd), had enough references to things I already knew about, but expanded beyond anything I had previously been aware of, that I read all 19 pages standing next to my dining table without even taking my jacket off. I’ve since learned he studied literature before turning his full attention to neuroscience, which may explain his talent as a writer.

Just glancing through the pages of the book now and noting what I highlighted or earmarked reminds me of how excited I was to read and think about some of these things for the very first time. Concepts that seemed new or difficult to comprehend or somewhat improbable have become part of my mental model of the way the world—and my brain—work.

He closes the book with these words:

What a perplexing masterpiece the brain is, and how lucky we are to be in a generation that has the technology and the will to turn our attention to it. It is the most wondrous thing we have discovered in the universe, and it is us.

That’s exactly how I feel. I’m definitely hooked on the brain, with or without David Eagleman, but he’s a most excellent tour guide. Everyone should be watching this series!

Filed Under: Brain, Choice, Consciousness, Living, Mind, Unconscious Tagged With: Benjamin Libet, Brain, David Eagleman, Incognito, Michael Gazzaniga, Richard Restak

Why Right-Brain Left-Brain Is Wrong-Headed

May 6, 2015 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

left brain right brain

Conventional wisdom has it that some people are right-brained, meaning they tend to be creative, intuitive, and emotional, while others are left-brained, meaning they tend to be logical, analytical, and methodical. But once again conventional wisdom has vastly oversimplified and overstated the situation. (There’s a reason why conventional wisdom tends to function this way, but that’s another blog post.)

It’s true that the two hemispheres of the brain function differently. Much of what we know about the differences between the two hemispheres is the result of research conducted in the 1960s on patients with split brains. Normally the two hemispheres are in ongoing communication with each other via the bridge of fibers called the corpus callosum. But the corpus callosum was surgically severed in some epilepsy patients in a last-ditch attempt to relieve their symptoms.

Michael Gazzaniga, Roger Sperry, and two other researchers conducted the testing on these individuals that revealed some of the effects—many of them quite surprising—of cutting off communication between the hemispheres. Later on, Gazzaniga conducted additional research with Joseph LeDoux.

To me, the most interesting thing they discovered is what happens as a result of visual information no longer being passed from one hemisphere to another. Language is primarily a function of the left hemisphere. So although the right hemisphere could recognize an image not shown to the left hemisphere, it couldn’t communicate about it verbally. David Eagleman summarizes these experiments in his book Incognito. Remember that brain wiring is contralateral, which means that the right hemisphere processes information from the left visual field and controls the movements of the left hand—and vice versa for the left hemisphere.

In 1978, researchers Michael Gazzaniga and Joseph LeDoux flashed a picture of a chicken claw to the left hemisphere of a split-brain patient and a picture of a snowy winter scene to his right hemisphere. The patient was then asked to point at cards that represented what he had just seen. His right hand pointed to a card with a chicken, and his left hand pointed to a card with a snow shovel.

The experimenters asked him why he was pointing to the shovel. Recall that his left hemisphere (the one with the capacity for language), had information only about a chicken, and nothing else. But the left hemisphere, without missing a beat, fabricated a story: “Oh, that’s simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken, and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.”

When one part of the brain makes a choice, other parts can quickly invent a story to explain why. If you show the command “Walk” to the right hemisphere (the one without language), the patient will get up and start walking. If you stop him and ask why he’s leaving, his left hemisphere, cooking up an answer, will say something like “I was going to get a drink of water.”

The chicken/shovel experiment led Gazzaniga and LeDoux to conclude that the left hemisphere acts as an “interpreter,” watching the actions and behaviors of the body and assigning a coherent narrative to these events. And the left hemisphere works this way even in normal, intact brains.

One important thing to remember is that for people with intact brains, the two hemispheres remain in constant communication with each other. We are whole-brained people who use both parts of our brain all the time, including during the creative process and in the course of logical problem-solving.

Although this, too, is an oversimplification, it’s closer to the mark to say that if we did not have language or discernment, our creative ideas would be useless and possibly incoherent. And if we did not have emotion and imagination, we would have no context for decision making.

Not only is neither hemisphere “better” than the other, you may be surprised at the conclusion Gazzaniga has reached about which hemisphere is more “conscious” and which hemisphere is more literal.

After many years of fascinating research on the split brain, it appears that the inventing and interpreting left hemisphere has a conscious experience very different from that of the truthful, literal right brain. Although both hemispheres can be viewed as conscious, the left brain’s consciousness far surpasses that of the right. Which raises another set of questions that should keep us busy for the next 30 years or so.

I’m looking forward to the results of that additional research!

Filed Under: Beliefs, Brain, Consciousness, Creating, Living, Mind, Wired that Way Tagged With: Creativity, David Eagleman, Logic, Michael Gazzaniga, Right-Brain Left-Brain, Split-brain

Self-Talk Radio Is Always on the Air

July 27, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Announcer

Our monkey minds are constantly chattering away, leaping from one thought to another, unchecked and unguided. We have many conflicting wants, needs, and goals but little available headspace in which to sort them out. Most of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not even consciously generated. They’re the result of what neuroscientist David Eagleman calls zombie subroutines.

In addition, we’re unaware of how vulnerable we are to influence from the environment. We are reportedly mentally AWOL at least 50% of the time. If you don’t believe that, just try tuning in to your own self talk. But be prepared to be appalled.

You’re engaging in some variation of self-talk whenever you:

  • Explain yourself to yourself
  • Explain external events and other people to yourself
  • Assign blame
  • Rationalize
  • Justify
  • Judge
  • React to events and other people
  • Rehash events
  • Mentally argue with yourself or others
  • Come to conclusions
  • Recall past events
  • Berate yourself
  • Make comparisons
  • Make predictions about the future
  • Encourage yourself
  • Give yourself directions
  • Remind yourself or keep a mental to-do list
  • Rehearse for the future

Most of these categories of self-talk are not very productive or what anyone would call positive. It’s part of the human condition. But self-talk can have a very powerful effect on us—especially when we’re tuned in to it unconsciously rather than consciously. On the other hand, tuning in to your self-talk is a great way to find out what’s going on in your unconscious.

  • Notice the ongoing stream of self-talk. Some of it is productive, some of it is neutral, and a lot of it is counterproductive.
  • Notice your inclination to label, judge, or try to change it—which creates additional self-talk.
  • Notice what kinds of themes your self-talk has. Does it bolster a particular mental, emotional, or physical state? Do particular events or situations hook you more often than others? Do you find yourself rerunning mental tapes?
  • Notice your emotions. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and the way you feel?
  • Notice your physical sensations. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and your physical state?

Instead of judging or trying to change your self-talk, try these gentle tools.

  • Ask questions. (Is that true? What do I want? What actually happened? etc.)
  • Empty the trash. If a particular situation or issue has hooked you and you want to get it out of your head, set a timer for 10 minutes and flow-write (keep writing without lifting your pen from the paper and without reflecting) about it. When you’re finished, do not reread what you wrote. Just toss it.
  • Focus your attention. Choose a word or phrase to focus your attention in the moment so you can redirect your thoughts.

A great way to pay attention to your self-talk is to get a pocket-sized notebook to carry with you. Each time you become aware of your self-talk, jot down the date, time, and a brief summary of your self-talk. The notebook is a cue for you to pay attention, and the more often you write in it, the more aware you will become of how you talk to yourself, what you talk to yourself about, and what effect it has on you.

Remember that Self-Talk Radio is always on the air—so you can tune in any time.

NOTE: This post was originally published exactly one year ago today and its subject is timely as ever. Paying attention to self-talk can really help us lessen our attachment to a situation, emotion, or even another person. Observing our self-talk can clue us in to beliefs, attitudes, and biases we may not even be aware we have. We can also watch our brain as it spins a convincing narrative out of what we do, think, and feel and what happens to us. If we’re able to observe the spinning process, we can exercise at least a little control over it. We don’t have to fully buy in to it. We might be able to laugh at ourselves or at least take ourselves less seriously.

Filed Under: Attention, Brain, Habit, Living, Mind, Mindfulness Tagged With: Attention, Brain, David Eagleman, Habit, Mind, Self-Talk

Self-Talk Radio: It’s Always On the Air

July 27, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Announcer
(Photo credit: daftgirly)

Our monkey minds are constantly chattering away, leaping from one thought to another, unchecked and unguided. We have many conflicting wants, needs, and goals but little available headspace in which to sort them out. Most of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not even consciously generated. They’re the result of what neuroscientist David Eagleman calls zombie systems and alien subroutines. In addition, we’re unaware of how vulnerable we are to influence from the environment. We are reportedly mentally AWOL at least 50% of the time. If you don’t believe that, just try tuning in to your own self talk. But be prepared to be appalled.

You’re engaging in some variation of self-talk whenever you:

  • Explain yourself to yourself
  • Explain external events and other people to yourself
  • Assign blame
  • Rationalize
  • Justify
  • Judge
  • React to events and other people
  • Rehash events
  • Mentally argue with yourself or others
  • Come to conclusions
  • Recall past events
  • Berate yourself
  • Make comparisons
  • Make predictions about the future
  • Encourage yourself
  • Give yourself directions
  • Remind yourself or keep a mental to-do list
  • Rehearse for the future

Most of these categories of self-talk are not very productive or what anyone would call positive. It’s part of the human condition. But self-talk can have a very powerful effect on us—especially when we’re tuned in to it unconsciously rather than consciously. On the other hand, tuning in to your self-talk is a great way to find out what’s going on in your unconscious.

  • Notice the ongoing stream of self-talk. Some of it is productive, some of it is neutral, and a lot of it is counterproductive.
  • Notice your inclination to label, judge, or try to change it—which creates additional self-talk.
  • Notice what kinds of themes your self-talk has. Does it bolster a particular mental, emotional, or physical state? Do particular events or situations hook you more often than others? Do you find yourself rerunning mental tapes?
  • Notice your emotions. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and the way you feel?
  • Notice your physical sensations. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and your physical state?

Instead of judging or trying to change your self-talk, try these gentle tools.

  • Ask questions. (Is that true? What do I want? What actually happened? etc.)
  • Empty the trash. If a particular situation or issue has hooked you and you want to get it out of your head, set a timer for 10 minutes and flow-write (keep writing without lifting your pen from the paper and without reflecting) about it. When you’re finished, do not reread what you wrote. Just toss it.
  • Focus your attention. Choose a word or phrase to focus your attention in the moment so you can redirect your thoughts.

A great way to pay attention to your self-talk is to get a pocket-sized notebook to carry with you. Each time you become aware of your self-talk, jot down the date, time, and a brief summary of your self-talk. The notebook is a cue for you to pay attention, and the more often you write in it, the more aware you will become of how you talk to yourself, what you talk to yourself about, and what effect it has on you.

Remember that Self-Talk Radio is always on the air—so you can tune in any time.Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Beliefs, Brain, Consciousness, Habit, Living, Mind Tagged With: Attention, Brain, Consciousness, David Eagleman, Habit, Mind, Monkey Mind, Self-Talk

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