My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

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My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

by Jill Bolte Taylor

3.73 · rating details · 5,518 ratings · 1,490 reviews

The astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment

On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or ...more

Paperback, Large Print, 290 pages

Published May 26th 2009 by Large Print Press (first published November 1st 2006)

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Sep 20, 2008

Lena rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

Jill Bolte Tayor was a 37-year old neuroanatomist when she experienced a massive stroke that severely damaged the left hemisphere of her brain. My Stroke of Insight is her account of what happened that day, her subsequent 8-year recovery, and how these events changed her life for the better.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Bolte Taylor’s discussion of what happened to her on that morning in 1996. With her scientific background, Bolte Taylor was in a unique position ...moreJill Bolte Tayor was a 37-year old neuroanatomist when she experienced a massive stroke that severely damaged the left hemisphere of her brain. My Stroke of Insight is her account of what happened that day, her subsequent 8-year recovery, and how these events changed her life for the better.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Bolte Taylor’s discussion of what happened to her on that morning in 1996. With her scientific background, Bolte Taylor was in a unique position to observe the progressive breakdown of her own functioning as the blood from her burst AVM spread throughout her brain. As new areas were affected, different functions were lost, and reading about her experience is a strange kind of real-world brain anatomy lesson.

A significant portion of this book is devoted to the process of Bolte Taylor’s recovery. She realized early on that the attitude and pacing of her caregivers made a big difference in how willing and able she was to respond, and she speaks in detail about what she, personally, found was most effective in helping her heal. There is some useful information in this section for those involved in stroke victim care.

What has catapulted this book onto the bestseller list, however, is the spiritual message underlying Bolte Taylor’s experience. When the language processing areas of her brain shut down, Bolte Taylor found herself bathed in a kind of peace and bliss that was previously unknown to her. With the section of her brain that controls physical boundaries offline, she felt fluid, open, and one with everything around her.

Bolte Taylor considers these experiences to be the result of her right brain suddenly being given the chance to run the show while her left brain was incapacitated. She speaks quite a bit about how she made a conscious decision during her recovery to retain access to these states and to keep these pathways open as she brought her left brain back online. In the latter section of the book, she offers a list of techniques she feels anyone can use to help open up pathways to the expanded capacities of their own right brains.

I learned a number of interesting things while reading this book, and there is no question that Bolte Taylor’s story is a very inspiring one. Ultimately, however, I was disappointed by a number of things about this book. To start, it would have benefited from better editing. Some sections are highly repetitive, I was confused about certain aspects of her level of functioning and recovery, and the flow of the narrative was very uneven. Hers is a great story, and good editing would have made that even more obvious.

My main criticism of this book, however there is a very sloppy blending of hard, scientific information about the brain with Bolte Taylor’s anecdotal experience and personal theories about what happened to her. It was not always obvious which was which, and I suspect many readers will be confused and assume her personal theories are more scientifically grounded than they actually are.

Though Bolte Taylor does not specifically mention religion in the book, her numerous allusions to prayer, visualization, energy, and oneness make it clear that she subscribes to a certain kind of belief system that her experiences are filtered through. While this is to be expected, her inability to see the contradictions in her beliefs was frustrating to me. For example, she speaks about how, after the stroke, she floated in a place of bliss, at one with everything. Yet just a few paragraphs earlier, she refers to a harried, inexperienced medical student as an “energy vampire.” She does not address why her feelings of being at one with and connected to everything did not extend to this person. In addition, she is critical of how the judgmental function of the left brain keeps us shut down from the more expanded perspective of the right brain, yet doesn’t seem to notice her own preference for right-brain dominated experiences seems, well, kind of judgmental.

I’ve had personal experiences of peace and bliss that are similar to what Bolte Taylor describes, so I can certainly understand her preference for them. I also think she gives some good advice to help people find those states themselves without having to have a stroke to get there. But I think this book would have been much more valuable had Bolte Taylor used her scientifically trained left-brain to more clearly separate her anecdotal experience and beliefs what science actually tells us about our fascinating brains.
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Feb 20, 2009

Bells rated it

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Shelves: work, memo-auto-bio, brainz

The author, an accomplished neuroanatomist, suffers a massive CVA at the age of 37. She takes the reader through the events of her stroke and the recovery. (8 long years of recovery!) She gives basic brain science for understanding, and speaks from the heart.

The grouch in me wanted to poo-poo the whole book when she started in with how she uses "angel cards" to start her day. I ignored the alarm in my head, screaming, "New age kook! Abort! Abort!" But it was too...more

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May 10, 2010

Janet rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Janet by: I did. Why, oh why?

Shelves: book-club

I closed this book today with such a sense of relief. This is, in essence, a self help book marked by the author's inflated (with due reason, I know) sense of self and a few interesting tidbits about brain chemistry.

Let's get a few things straight:
1. I love reading about the brain.
2. I was really, really wanting to love this book.
3. I, like the author, believe that--in most cases--happiness and peacefulness can be choices for every person and that our brain can bec...more

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Jul 14, 2008

Cindy rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone dealing with the injured brain

Shelves: memoir

This book wasn't what I was expecting. I expected to read a memoir of sorts. Maybe a before and after or even a during the process what was happening. And JBT does write "lightly" about those things. But mainly she is writing a self-help book that seeks to influence the rest of us to embrace the right side of our brains. As a brain scientist, she has a stroke then discovers she is one with the universe. Her brain and her cells are beautiful! Oh how lovely the world and everyone ...more

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Dec 01, 2011

Sarah Pi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: brains, memoir

Four stars for the accessible explanations of brain function and warning signs of stroke. Four stars for the fascinating walk through the day of Dr. Taylor's stroke, and for her descriptions of the recovery process. Four stars for her observations about medical care and the attitudes of doctors and nurses and visitors. Three stars for the lengthy exercises in right brain exploration, which were fascinating but a little too fluffy for me. I listened to the audio version on a lengthy drive, and th...more

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Jul 21, 2008

Happyreader rated it

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Shelves: health-and-diet, bio-and-memoir

For me, the most fascinating part of this book is the description of the actual stroke and the immediate aftermath. To have suffered such a traumatic brain injury and live to tell about it in such detail is amazing. Doubly amazing for verbalizing what a brain is like when it goes non-verbal.

One funny detail during the stroke is that, while she's rapidly losing the ability to conceptualize numbers and language, somehow part of her brain still knew she needed HMO approval prior to us...more

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Dec 08, 2008

Natalie rated it

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Shelves: memoir-essay

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I wanted this book to be several other books than the one it actually was. I found it alternately fascinating and incredibly irritating.

Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke and recovered enough to write about it. The chance to learn about what that experience was like seemed compelling enough to me to start reading the book. When her left brain went offline due to the stroke, she experienced only living in her right brain...moreI wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I wanted this book to be several other books than the one it actually was. I found it alternately fascinating and incredibly irritating.

Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke and recovered enough to write about it. The chance to learn about what that experience was like seemed compelling enough to me to start reading the book. When her left brain went offline due to the stroke, she experienced only living in her right brain --what she describes as a blissful nirvana. She's spent years getting her left brain back, and as a result has a unique perspective on the relationship of the two halves.

I stuck with the book because I'm sympathetic to at much of what she was saying -- that if you can turn down the volume on the ego's chatter to attain a sense of calm, your life is better off. It's just that most of us approach that goal through meditation, yoga, spiritual practice, or philosophy. Her writing resolutely avoids any such discussion. So it was kind of like reading a book about God written by an autistic person -- it seemed incredibly flat, devoid of emotion, even when she was talking about feelings.

I suspect that this book is the result of divided intentions about its goals and audience -- perhaps between the author and her editor, or between the author's two brain halves, I don't know. It's one part pop-science, 1 part survival memoir, 1 part oddly cold narcissism, and 1 part new age metaphysics. The audiences for these things are really different, and to successfully blend them would take a much more compelling writing style than Taylor's. It's unfortunate that a book that should be the demonstration of her recovery kept making me wonder whether she was expressing herself so badly because of her brain injury.

There are grains of interesting stuff in here, and it's a quick read. It's definitely been on my mind for the past few days, despite my irritation with it. I've heard from friends that audio interviews with Taylor are very warm and charming, which is the exact opposite of my impression from reading the book. Maybe that would be a better place to start if you're curious.(less)

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Sep 15, 2008

cat rated it

· review of another edition

whoa. i probably should have paid more attention to the little tagline under her name that proudly proclaims "the singin' scientist" and put it down immediately. but that wasn't how it worked.

see, the author is a brain scientist who had a stroke. i heard her speak on NPR and she was insightful and funny and had very interesting things to say about the brain, so i put the book on hold at the library and a eagerly picked it up a few days ago.

i loved the section o...more

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Jan 03, 2011

Mark Picketts rated it

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In a nut shell: I control my brain, my brain controls how I interpret the world - I am in control of my world.
(so choose a good world - for everyone's sake)

I thought this book was really great. It had moments of greatness, and moments of "really?", but I thought the message was solid and something worth being reminded of. Particularly Dr. Taylor's experience while her stroke was happening was really an intense and one of the powerful sections i have read in a long...more

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Apr 08, 2008

Dan Wilson rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: biography, thinkology, psychology

The best way to approach this book is by viewing Jill’s 18 minute video. It is posted at The New York Times blog. The book contains the same information presented in the video (minus the actual human brain!) and a good amount of additional detail that will reward the reader.

I have studied meditation, psychology, and yoga for a long time, and I found her explanation of brain function extraordinarily helpful. The notion of bliss, or nirvana, or samadhi is no longer so “out there” to me...more

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Apr 13, 2009

Ken rated it

· review of another edition

You couldn't invent a more interesting premise: Dr. Taylor, a brain scientist, has a major stroke and goes through years of rehabilitation after the left hemisphere of her brain is severely damaged. She ultimately recovers and records her detailed memories of the stroke and its aftereffects.

Dr. Taylor has given a talk on this subject at a TED Conference -- see the video at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_...

This is what drew me to reading My Stroke of Insight, an...moreYou couldn't invent a more interesting premise: Dr. Taylor, a brain scientist, has a major stroke and goes through years of rehabilitation after the left hemisphere of her brain is severely damaged. She ultimately recovers and records her detailed memories of the stroke and its aftereffects.

Dr. Taylor has given a talk on this subject at a TED Conference -- see the video at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_...

This is what drew me to reading My Stroke of Insight, and the book does deliver on its promise before it veers off into territory that I couldn't quite appreciate.

Dr. Taylor begins with some basic, fundamental brain science, to set the scene. It's written to be understandable to the layperson, and succeeds on that account. She then describes the day of her stroke, combining recollections of her experience with reminders of the science behind the events that occurred.

This is fascinating stuff, allowing us to satisfy our curiosity and learn something at the same time.

Then, Dr. Taylor spends the rest of the book sharing her recovery experience, including the epiphany that she had as a result of the stroke. She explains that her damaged left hemisphere gave her right hemisphere a chance to flourish, and thus taught her the value of her right hemisphere. She contrasts her blissful experience of right-brained living with our culture's emphasis on the left hemisphere's reason, task-orientation and linear thinking.

She has a point -- but I didn't really warm up to the feeling that I was reading a self-help book with no clear path to actually helping one's self! This part of the book features too much repetition, and too many shiny promises of bliss awaiting us, if we only knew how to get there. Short of having a stroke, all we get is advice that amounts to: meditate, and tell your left hemisphere to be quiet. Prune it back. It sounds good in theory, but this is slippery stuff.

I recommend this book for its unique look into how our brains work and what happens when they go wrong. Just know, going in, that you may or may not appreciate the unusual combination of science, memoir and self-help.
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Oct 23, 2008

Joyce rated it

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Shelves: skimmed, science

Thought I'd be more engaged than I was in this book. The writing is pretty flat. Her blow-by-blow description of her thoughts and physical sensations mid-stroke were astonishing, though. How did she retain her memory of all the details? Eh, guess I shouldn't have skimmed.

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Feb 07, 2009

Kari rated it

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Jill Bolte Taylor has a stroke at the age of 37. As a neuro-anatamist, she was in the unique position to understand what was happening when the bleeding in her left brain began. She also had a wonderful mother who helped aid in her recovery, although Bolte Taylor doens't think of it as "recovery," because she does not go back to being the person she was before the stroke.

A good look at the symptoms of her stroke, her recovery process, and the patience and persistance it to...more

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Feb 14, 2009

Anna rated it

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Recommends it for: adults

Recommended to Anna by: Samina

Shelves: nonfiction, memoirs, read-in-2009

I really enjoyed reading this book, even though I didn't always agree with her 100% and I felt like she became a bit preachy towards the end. It was an extremely engaging read and it helped me understand a lot more about how the brain works. Prior to reading this book (which was required reading for a graduate education class), I really had very little interest in learning about the brain and/or the differences between the left and right brain. This book changed that. Jill Bolte Taylor's accou...moreI really enjoyed reading this book, even though I didn't always agree with her 100% and I felt like she became a bit preachy towards the end. It was an extremely engaging read and it helped me understand a lot more about how the brain works. Prior to reading this book (which was required reading for a graduate education class), I really had very little interest in learning about the brain and/or the differences between the left and right brain. This book changed that. Jill Bolte Taylor's account of her stroke made learning about the brain much more meaningful and relevant to me. The book was addicting and the chapters about the stroke and the recovery were particularly fascinating. I felt like I learned a ton about the difference between the two hemispheres of the brain and now have a much deeper understanding of the two and how they work together. So, I really have to thank her for making learning about the brain very interesting.

I liked the writing style a lot because it started off kind of like a mystery and then it became a personal narrative and I started to feel really close to Jill and wanted to know all about how is doing now. The only chapters that started to annoy me a bit were the last three. She kept talking about the greatness of the right brain and the importance of not letting the left brain control you (especially when it comes to anger, frustration, or fear) and while I think this is important, it was starting to sound a bit too spiritual for my liking. However, I think this book had an impact on me, my life, my health, and my way of thinking to the point where I feel like I'm actually kind of a changed person. I also have to thank her for making her recovery process so explicit, as I think those chapters have helped me to reflect and become more aware of my level of empathy and sensitivity when it comes to working with students of various backgrounds (special ed kids, struggling learners, ELLs, etc.).

After reading this book I wish there was a similar kind of story that I could read about epilepsy so that I could learn more about the disease that my dad is suffering from. If anyone knows of such a book, please let me know...

Lastly, I think anyone who reads this book is much more likely to be educated on the signs of a stroke and is much more likely to respond quickly and appropriately when a) someone else is having a stroke and b) if that person ever has a stroke. Since time is of the essence when one is having a stroke, it is important to recognize the warnings signs (which we never ever talk about anywhere!) and to seek help immediately. (less)

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May 10, 2010

Stephy rated it

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Recommends it for: everyone who has had a stroke, or knows someone who has had a stroke

Shelves: autobiography, health, drama, have_to_be_able_to_think, life-and-living, non-fiction, reference, self_help, survival

Everyone who has ever had a stroke must have this book read to them, slowly. Everyone who ever knew anyone who had a stroke must read this book. The author was a brain scientist with a Ph.D. in neuroanatomy. She described her experience of having a stroke, the loss of her faculties, her surgery, and recovery over a period of almost a decade, to someone like the woman she was before the stroke.

Her description of how to help a stroke victim on their return from a hospital are remarkab...more

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Nov 15, 2008

Osho rated it

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Shelves: 2008, medicine-medical, memoir-biography

The 37-year old Dr. Taylor, a neuroscientist, was simultaneously horrified and fascinated to realize that she was having a stroke. Though many reviewers and interviewers focus on the insights she gained from her stroke, I was riveted by her descriptions of the physiological and behavioral processes she experienced in the first hours of the experience. The science is presented simplistically, which makes it generally accessible but may not satisfy a more sophisticated reader. Taylor's musings on ...more

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Aug 01, 2008

Rob Keely rated it

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Recommends it for: Health Professionals. Those *really* interested in spiritual personality transformation.

Recommended to Rob by: Stan Keely and NPR.

Shelves: medical-narritives

This is, perhaps, not my type of book. Dr. Taylor's story is an amazing one, and a fascinating one. And her take on her experience is packaged in a way to give the reader a good number of lessons learned from her recovery; both pratical for anyone who's life or work brings them in contact with mentally affected people, and metaphysical for those who want to better their lives in general. But it's probably pretty thin for a number of readers. If you're not the type of person to appreciate appeals...more

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Jun 14, 2008

Ruzz rated it

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Recommends it for: The Brain Injured (no really) and people interested in the duality of our minds.

Shelves: 2008

I think my view of this book lacked a dimension and that lacking sullied what might have been a marvelous book. The angle I approached the book was--having watched her video on ted--about the mind and it's two halves and their role in cogitation and bliss.

The idea of a more concrete delineation between the thinking mind and the feeling mind from someone who had one half turned off for a time seemed really appealing.

What turned me off then was 120 of 170 pages devoted to...more

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Jun 02, 2008

Tammy rated it

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Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Tammy by: heard an interview with the author

This is a fascinating book about a neuroscientist who, at the age of 37, has a stroke. Because of her background, she's able to explain and chronicle the event and describe what happens when her left brain goes offline. Just realizing that our anger response, basically a chemical reaction, only takes 90 seconds to form, circulate and dissipate and that when we stay angry longer than that is just our left brain repeating an old story is eye (mind) opening. I've heard you can see her on YouTube an...more

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Jan 09, 2011

Jackie Gamber rated it

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This book attracted me as an intriguing study of a woman able to reteach her brain to wire itself! But, although there is some information about that, most of the narrative is a repetitious, almost stream-of-conscious sort of telling. If you can get past the weird attempts at humor (such as a scrabbled drawing of a bulging vein saying "Oh no! It's going to blow!") and the "Strokes for Dummies" sort of instruction, there are moments of insight from this woman who suffered a te...more

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Mar 31, 2009

Alison rated it

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This book is an autobiography and gives a detailed 1st hand account of the author’s experiences while suffering a debilitating stroke. It is amazing how she is able to recall the clear details about what was happening before, during and after her stroke. The story is even more interesting because the author herself is a brain scientist and has extensive knowledge about how the brain works. It is truly fascinating to hear her thoughts about the stroke while it is happening, as she struggles to ma...more

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Mar 02, 2009

Mike rated it

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Although this book does become a little repetitious and overlong it's still a small book and it's unique. It's the only book I've ever read that's written by a brain neuroanatomist about her personal experience with having a massive stroke.

Obviously, since she has written this book, the author survived. She more than survived, she thrived. She lost pretty much all that we think makes us human. She couldn't speak, recall words, concepts, math, people, and more. She lost her...more

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Jan 14, 2009

Richard rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I hadn't planned on reading this book. Actually, I was unaware of it until I saw it on the New Books shelf at the library. I thought My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey looked like it might be interesting, so I grabbed it.

Definitely interesting. Dr. Taylor, a researcher and teacher at Harvard Medical School, suffered a stroke at the age of 37. This book relates the story of her observations during her recovery and the process of her recovery. After a coupl...more

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Dec 20, 2008

Adih Respati rated it

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Shelves: 03-memoir, 08-brainscience, 05-sciencewriting, 11-biology

In a morning of December 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor had a stroke attack. A prominent neuroanatomist as she was, she analyzed the attack real-time and confessed the experience is, to borrow her word, cool (how many brain scientist get to study this inside out). For eight more years, her scientific skill is what guides her self-rehabilitation.

My Stroke of Insight is managed into three parts: 1) an introduction-for-dummy on how the brain principally work; 2) the morning of the stroke and reh...more

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Nov 19, 2008

Dan rated it

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Jill Bolte Tayler, a neuroscientist whose resume includes working for the Harvard Brain Bank, describes the radically altered states of consciousness she achieved after having a stroke. The stroke incapacitated much of the left hemisphere of her brain, which she had allowed to dominate and inhibit the perceptions from her right hemisphere for most of her adult life. Freed from the tyranny of her inner chatterbox's worries and negative thought patterns, she experienced bliss and a sense of onenes...more

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Jan 13, 2012

Karon Cook rated it

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I would give this 3 1/2 stars if that were an option. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard trained neruoanatomist who lived through a stroke. Because of her training she had unique insights into what was happening to her as it was happening. There is a lot of neuroscience here, mostly well-explained and very interesting. There's no doubt that Taylor is able to bring a unique perspective and I tried to internalize it. For my tastes, however, she gets a little too "out-there". That's probably ...more

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Dec 31, 2011

Robert Lomas rated it

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I was given this book as gift and was a little dubious about its subject. Why would I want to read about somebody having a stroke, it hardly seemed a cheerful topic? But once I started to read the story of this bright woman brain researcher who undergoes a major lesion of the left hemisphere of her brain, I found the topic quite fascinating.
There are many books written about the different functions and abilities of the two halves of a human brain, but hardly any descriptions of what it fee...more

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Dec 16, 2011

Holly rated it

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Shelves: biography-memoir

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Nov 27, 2011

Sophia rated it

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Shelves: 2011, medicine, mental-illness, non-fiction

During the early history of neurology, strokes were informative "natural experiments:" by correlating specific lesions with specific neurological deficits, we learned about the normal functions of the different parts from the brain. However, there was little direct input from the patient. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a striking exception. In 1996, the 37-year-old Harvard neuroanatomist experienced a massive stroke. Remarkably, she survived, made a full recovery in eight years, and describe

...more

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Nov 10, 2011

Kim rated it

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The first half of the book was about the stroke the author suffered when she was just 37. There was some great stuff here about the effects of stroke and how it feels to suffer from and recover from a stroke. However, I felt the author applied her situation to too many others, as if everybody who suffers a stroke will go through the same events that she did and will need and want to be treated in the same way she did. Clearly people who suffer strokes in different areas of their brain will ha...more

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About Jill Bolte Taylor

Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who specializes in the postmortem investigation of the human brain. She teaches at the Indiana University School of Medicine, is the national spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, and is the consulting neuroanatomist for the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute.

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“Unfortunately, as a society, we do not teach our children that they need to tend carefully the garden of their minds. Without structure, censorship, or discipline, our thoughts run rampant on automatic. Because we have not learned how to more carefully manage what goes on inside our brains, we remain vulnerable to not only what other people think about us, but also to advertising and/or political manipulation.” — 14 people liked it

“When we are being compassionate, we consider another's circumstance with love rather than judgement... To be compassionate is to move into the right here, right now with an open heart consciousness and a willingness to be supportive.” — 11 people liked it

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