Green Oasis

Life with epilepsy is no walk in the park, but sometimes it can bring feelings of otherworldly joy or eroticism which the rest of us may never experience.

The Russian author Dostoyevsky famously said of his epilepsy “I would experience such joy as would be inconceivable in ordinary life—such joy that no one else could have any notion of. I would feel the most complete harmony in myself and in the whole world and this feeling was so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss I would give ten or more years of my life, even my whole life perhaps.”

I have often wondered if many founders of religion suffered from a form of epilepsy that led to recurrent religious ecstasies. I also wonder if my brain simply isn’t wired to have religious experiences like others, at least not as easily.

Atul Gawande wrote a fascinating article for the New Yorker. It’s premise is that most of our perceptions come not from direct experience of the world but from memory. In other words, very little information is coming to us from the world outside our skull. Our minds are fudging the rest based on past experience. Using case studies of amputees who still perceive sensations in their missing limb and a woman who itched so persistently that she scratched… well I won’t spoil the story.

(via kottke.org)

Update: Dr. Ramachandran explains some of these same phenomena.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor gave a wonderful talk called “My stroke of insight” at TED about her experiences having a stroke. What she has to say hits all the major points of what I’m about right now, which is somewhat reflected in my posts here. Her experience struck cords of naturalism, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, mystical awakening, and human compassion which is rooted in our commonality.

(via kottke.org)