Some months back, my sister hypothesized that our dad’s hypnosis technique was successful because it distracted one part of the brain from the other. Her experience was that simultaneous counting and visual imagery, the two components of his technique, left her brain open/vulnerable to suggestion, in this case, suggestion regarding follow-through on an exercise routine she wanted to maintain.

This thinking aligned with my own experiences in Shintaido, where counting plus various vigorous body routines seem to break down barriers, leaving one open to suggestion and growth. Sometimes euphoric states occur, sometimes new personality features or untried talents. As with hypnosis, these effects can last for extended periods, long enough to effect long-term transformation.

Today, a friend sent me the URL to a video lecture by a neuroanatomist who suffered a massive left hemisphere stroke. Because of her expertise, she was able to observe her own experience as the function of her left hemisphere broke down, even as she lost speech and speech comprehension. I can’t do her story of her experience justice, it is so moving and incredible, but I can summarize her understanding. She suggests that left hemisphere holds our individuality, our concept and functioning of self while right holds the connection of our energy with that of all that is around us. With the right hemisphere comes a full experience of the present. That when the left hemisphere is erased or disabled, one may experience nirvana, a oneness, a connection, a euphoria, an expansiveness of being, a loss of absorption with self and the trappings of the past. That to learn to voluntarily switch hemispheres as the situation calls for, to regularly experience this connection with all being, could bring each of us, and our world, greater peace.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229