left brain, right brain

click this link (or click the title to this blog entry, a cool trick i just learned): http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22535838-5012895,00.html

which direction does the dancer spin? are you left-brained or right-brained? can you switch between them?

she changed on me! the dancer initially turned clockwise, but when i looked away to read text and looked back, she spun "anti-"clockwise. whoa! what's going on here?

i played with it some more and realized it can work both ways because it's a silhouette, but i didn't get any aha's about what triggers the change in my perception about her direction, just that i need to look away for at least a split second and then look back at her. (what NLP calls a break state.) it's a mystery to me.

(an aside: my friend john gough tried it and wrote me, "She flashed me like we were on Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras...I threw her some beads. -- JG ")

i love learning about the brain. of special interest is the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres of the brain. to better integrate left and right brains, thus to have more resources-awareness-flexibility, i do cross-lateral exercises, found in the books brain gym and smart moves. figure 8s with arms that cross the midline and right elbow to left knee-left elbow to right knee are good brain exercises. so is alternate nostril breathing, a yoga technique.

i do them each day as part of my waking ritual intended to get me through my day with as many resources as possible!

once the truth about those rumors of mortality sinks in at approximately age 50, life becomes more and more precious, and i want to get the most out of it. plus, corpus callosum deficiencies may figure in ADHD and asperger's syndrome, which affect people in my family. hence the interest and the exercises...

i'm currently reading a book, my stroke of insight, by a neuroanatomist ph.d., jill taylor, who had a stroke and observed her own left brain shutting down, area by area. her right-brain-only awareness was at peace; she perceived herself as fluid rather than solid, as deeply connected to the universe. it sounds very much like descriptions of nirvana, of being fully awake, of being enlightened.

i'll post a review when i finish the book.