If the voice in my head suddenly stopped talking, I think I’d be a completely different person. I wouldn’t know how to feel. I’m not even sure that I’d recognize that I needed to feel something. Could I experience fear with no ability to think? I don’t think that’s possible.
Dr. Jill Taylor says she only experienced any type of realized danger during the moments when the left half of her brain was functioning again (or she had her voices back), which leads me to believe that had she not gone in and out of what she refers to as “La la land”, she’d never have known that there was an issue. So when Taylor says, “I’m just watching my brain become more and more incapable of functioning,” I don’t think she would have been aware of that change without those brief reminders of her normal state.
Dr. Taylor also explains that as soon as the voices stopped, she ultimately “felt lighter” and as though any previous stress, no matter the cause, was no longer weighing on her. I imagine that anyone would miss this feeling of complete freedom.
Dr. Taylor states that during her time in the hospital, when she was no longer juggling the two hemispheres of her brain, she acquired a newfound “peace” within herself: “I had pure silence inside of my mind. Pure silence.” Taylor even goes as far as saying that instead of having thoughts, she had only “joy” - making the act of thinking and acknowledging her surroundings sound like a negative part of her life.
Every one of Dr. Taylor’s experiences with her “La la land” sounds relaxing - almost like a vacation from everyday life. Would I want to lose my memories, my job, and my ability to think? Of course not, but if this were to happen to me, I don’t think any of those things would matter. I wouldn’t experience loss even though I had essentially lost everything.
I agree with Brianna the fact that Dr. Jill Taylor talks about her experience in “La la land” makes it hard to believe that she was able to see this as an issue. She sounds so confident about all her feelings, but could she have really felt this if she wasn’t even aware of what feelings were at the moment? The fact that she got to experience and view the world without a language is quite astonishing, she also states several times that she “misses this silence” I think what she really misses is the stress relieving state of mind she was put into and what is referred to as “Pure silence” which is silence in its purest most original form that cannot be experienced in this world. I envied Dr. Taylor in this aspect, being able to set aside all your thoughts and just be in a natural state with the world it just sounds so peaceful. It must feel amazing to have nothing but joy without having to worry about our constant problems or activities we have to deal with in our daily lives. Towards the end she is asked where would she stay she answers “that’s a difficult question”, the fact that she didn’t give a straight forward response makes me think was it so beautiful and amazing that you wouldn’t care about memories and life in our world. Her experience sounds very tempting and if there were a way to go to this “La la land” and being able to come back from it I would totally be willing to live this experience.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brianna’s statement about Dr. Taylors experience. It does come to mind to question her “confident” feelings as to what was going on with her after her stroke. She did get the chance to experience the world in a different perspective; however, having to juggle the two hemispheres of your brain must have been challenging. I agree on how she must have missed the silence and peace experience because coming from a rough path of having to juggle your two hemispheres of your brain to being at peace after no longer having too, should have been a relief. This “La la land” that she speaks of would have been where most of us would have loved to be in, but being in a vacation everyday would not let us have space to challenge ourselves more than we can. I mean, it would be amazing to be relaxed, like Alexia stated that she is jealous, I am too. However, it is not something we were meant to conform too. It would be a good feeling having a day filled with peace and joy but it is not something to experience daily. No one would want to lose their memory, their job, nor their ability to think but just like you said—“ you can’t experience loss when everything has been lost already.”
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Brianna's statement about this experience. The way Dr. Taylor's brain just completely dismissed every previous thought and entered into this state of "pure silence" is something that is really hard to imagine, but it's so unique and intriguing that I (as alexia also said) envied her deeply. Could you even imagine being completely at peace with everything around you and have no worries in the world? They all just sort of disappear? While this sounds like a win win situation in most cases, i'm sure that after a while it may get tiring to feel nothing but peace, I feel like sometimes chaos makes us kind of stay on our toes and stay perceptive of what is happening around us. As an outsider though i'm sure it sounds a lot better than it actually was, and that losing all of your thoughts and replacing them with "silence" may be nice for a day or two, but after that I couldn't even imagine having to remember things again. As Irene said, it isn't something that we are meant to conform to, and it really wouldn't benefit us in the long run.
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