Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?)

The book suggested drawing in ways that frustrate your usual LH habits — for example, trying to draw something upside down from how it looks in front of you. The logic here is that if you give the LH a task that it doesn't want to do, it goes away and refuses to do it, leaving only the RH to pick up the slack. I have no idea how realistic this is o... See more

McGilchrist brings up again and again that the right hemisphere is more deeply connected with the body than the left one, and that it specializes in broad, open awareness — so our obvious choices are open awareness meditation and somatic meditation .

The go-to options for learning about these are:

• Reggie Ray


• Loch Kelly


• Judith Blackstone


• My Somatic Reson

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two modes of experience McGilchrist describes (one associated with the left hemisphere, the other with the right) match up pretty precisely with two modes of experience that have been described again and again elsewhere, from Taoism1 to John Keats' letters2 to Federico Campagna's philosophy3 to Proust — you can even see it in things like Finite &am... See more

McGilchrist notes:

Only the right hemisphere has a whole body image; the left hemisphere sees the body as an assemblage of parts, and as if it were an object in space alongside other objects, rather than a mode of existence. ...For the right hemisphere, we live the body; whereas for the left, we live in it, rather as we drive a car.

The Alexander Technique is ostensibly a way of improving posture, but mostly it's about awareness. Namely, it's about expanding awareness — everything else is downstream from that.

Because the central trait of the RH is open, attentive awareness, a technique that's all about finding ways to keep your awareness open and attentive in everyday life see... See more

Mêtis is the particular quality of intense alertness that can be effortlessly aware of everything at once. While our wandering minds go off on their endless journeys, it always stays at home. And its home is everywhere. Mêtis feels, listens, watches; can even be aware at the same time... of every thought drifting into and out of our consciousness. ... See more