Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

And I thought, oh my gosh, paralysis.

Oh my gosh, I'm having a stroke.

And then I'm thinking,

You know, oh my gosh, how many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?

And I literally thought, okay, I'll do this stroke thing for a week or two, and then I'll get back to my job, right?

So then it was a matter of, I have to get help.

I have to communicate with the external world.

And the problem was that the hemorrhage was happening inside of the left thinking portion of my brain, which is where language is.

So I was drifting for four hours.

I was drifting in and out of the consciousness of the present moment.

And the present moment, in the present moment, I don't know who I am.

I don't know what I am.

All I know is what's in the present moment.

Yes, it was.

I was waffling back and forth.

because it was growing.

It started small.

So I had what we call an arteriovenous malformation, where an artery, which is a high pressure system, it's bringing blood into the system.

And then I have a vein, and the vein is a no pressure, low pressure system.

And then we have these little capillary networks in between.