Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

It is all about the present moment.

And in the present moment, my name is over there in my left hemisphere.

The boundaries of where I begin and end as a human being over there in the left hemisphere.

But right here, right now is the richness of the experience coming in through my sensory systems.

And it feels like euphoria.

It's beautiful in the present moment because there's no judgment of what's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad.

It's just, wow, I'm alive.

So on the morning of the stroke, I would waffle back and forth between being in the present moment, oh, my gosh, I'm alive, to, oh, my gosh, I'm having a problem.

I need to get myself help.

And so eventually I did make a phone call and I did get help.

But by the time I got help, I had no language, so I couldn't speak.

And I thought I sounded like a golden retriever.

The person listening to me, he sounded like a golden retriever.

And it was like, fortunately, he knew it was me.

He recognized my squawk and then he did what he needed to do to get me help.

So you thought that you were barking?

Golden Retrievers, they speak like, I mean, they communicate.

No, I did not.

I was very fortunate that part of the cells in that left hemisphere, in the left emotional portion of my brain, were swimming in a pool of blood as well.

And that would be my fear.