I am in two minds about something. In fact, it seems that I am in two minds about everything. No, I am not schizophrenic  At least I don’t think I am. I am going to keep telling myself that, just to make myself feel better about it.

What’s that you say? You too? Have you watched Jill Bolte Taylor’s video, “Stroke of Insight” too? If not, you can find it on TED.

We’ve heard it before I am sure. Our brain is two separate components, which communicate through a bundle of nerve fibres. Jill actually experienced this, via a stroke. And the mind was her area of expertise. So she studied it, studied herself. And following surgery and eight years of effort, recovered to tell us of the results. Amazing.

Our left side is a serial processor, it does one thing at a time, step by step. Hmmm, very male like. It analyses stuff. And it forgets stuff. It just deals with whatever it needs to deal with at that moment. Someone with a damaged right side, can concentrate on something, say the fork in their hand, and the plate, table, etc, doesn’t exist to them.

The right hand side of your brain, processes lots of stuff at once, it deals with context, history and possible futures. It houses your memory functions and deals with thinking.

People have a dominant side of the brain, either the left or right, which impacts how they learn new things. So I am wondering, how did evolution do this. How did it give us a brain of two completely different sides. And was there a past version of our species (or a future one), where we could consciously observe communication between them. How often do these sides disagree on things?

People are weird. And just keep getting stranger and stranger. So the next time you see or hear someone acting a bit odd, spare a thought for them. And for yourself. We must all be a little mad somehow.