Friday, January 31, 2014

Seeing the persona in the left eye

The quote below comes from a previous post  It contains a link that no longer seems to work but I am only interested in a small part mentioned. How could language still develop normally in children with a left hemisphere lesion.  What would prompt the switch?

I am still amazed at the discrepancy that I see in the halves of someone's head.  I literally do not see the left half of their head as the persona that communicates to me. My normal is to focus solely on the right side of their head as I talk.  It was something I barely noted five so years ago. In fact I noticed it before I noticed I do not perceive the left side of my tongue independently of the right side of my tongue. My previous impression was that I saw both sides of someone's head when I communicated.  That does not seem to be the case. As I try to switch my attention to my left eye and make that connection to someone's left eye it is now easier to see/imagine the persona existing in the left side of their head as communicating to me.

I feel a very strong connection between the use of my left eye and the use of my left tongue. I do not know of any structural anatomical connection. If I speculate (more than my usual)  the connection would seem to be more neurological and or habitual learned behavior.

While left hemisphericasymmetries related to language are present at birth, further research has demonstrated that language may still develop normally in children who sustain a unilateral lesion in the left hemisphere (Dean &Anderson, 1997). Neuroimaging studies have postulated two sides to the development or presence of functional lateralization such that language is either bilaterally organized at birth and becomes specializedto the left hemisphere or language is localized to the left hemisphere at birth (Balsamo et al., 2002; Booth et al., 2001)."

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Strumming the Diagastricus

The Digastric Muscle originates at the Mastoid process connects to the hyoid bone through a fascia aponeurosis and then attaches to the mandible through it's anterior portion. I believe much of the small musculature on my left under jaw is less differentiated than my right under jaw musculature in my ability to relax/inhibit for fine motor control.  Listening to Chris Isaac in 5:15 strumming and crooning got me to thinking of the digastricus like a guitar string. I am trying to get an active image of it vibrating as the song is played. There is a very good chance I am not doing remotely what I think I am doing. However I am getting some vibration in that region and in my attempts there is a corresponding feel of a slightly different head posture to allow it to happen.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Good vibrations

Good vibrations

You Tube seems awful these days. Most videos do not play without a long delay. There is a 30 sec audio clip in link but it is almost not worth the bother.

Playing with the back of my left and right tongues I am trying to get one side to vibrate then the other. I switch back and forth and on occasion I am not doing what I think I am doing.  I can manipulate the tongue to rub the left edge along my upper and lower left teeth without problem like everyone else. Also I can use the tip of the tongue on the outside of left gum of the left teeth yet I was unable to vibrate the left tongue until recently. The right tongue is easy to vibrate and it has always been that way. Almost like I have a functional hole in my use of my left tongue.

What is the sound of one tongue talking?

The old zen koan occurred to me today as I was walking. I believe like elephants use of their trunk the high degree of control necessitates lateralization to one side of the brain. In elephants the lateralization is split 50/50 for left and right trunkers while humans it is 90/10 for right and left handers. As a society we benefit from most of us being right handed according to this study.

My normal is to talk with the right tongue dominant which include the sub tongue structures. It does not mean the left tongue cannot learn the specialization needed to create the sounds independent of the right tongue. Possibly like the zen koan to become aware of what is missing is the point.

PS I am very aware of my unenlightenedness and I am not suggesting this is a path for it.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Switching my eye dominance

I am making an easier connection in seeing people's left eye with my left eye.  It is somewhat easier seeing a persona expressed in the left half of someone's face.  Trying to put the left tongue in the dominant  position seems to play in with the movement of my left eye.  The 'tightness' that spreads to the whole left side of the head includes my left eye and as I move my left eye I feel a corresponding pull on the head.. If I switch back to my normal right mode there is no sense of tightness and I turn my head in a way that feels normal to me.

When I switch back and forth between my two modes it feels like I typically hold the right eye in a slight position of advantage with the left eye slightly disadvantaged. To switch to the left eye dominant position it seems to help  as ask the right eye to relax backward as the left eye comes forward and centers. (It is easier with right eye closed but does not feel like it needs the right eye closed) The dominance of the eye feels to correspond both to the amount of seeing  and the relationship of turning the head.


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Choking the big dog

high collar dog training

I used to have more than one big dog Tshirts.  From the link above the idea is the dog naturally trains itself based on small cues of the sensation of mild choking.

This sensation is different/uncomfortable for them, and your dog will move back into position in order to make the feeling go away. -


Looking at the hyoid in humans and the stylohyoid and diagastric(posterior portion) muscles when they contract they elevate the hyoid closing off the glottis by the folding over of the epiglottis. Thinking of the dog's head what if the trainer was holding the leash tighter slightly on the left side of the dog's neck as compared to the right? Would there be a slight adjustment backward on the left side of the dog?  I think I use the smaller muscles on my left under jaw in a tighter more undifferentiated way than I use the musculature on the right. I believe it is tied to how I communicate and what I see in others who are communicating to me. My tendency throughout my life was to pay no attention to this complex musculature region and say it had no influence on my posture and being. I no longer feel that this is the case.






Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Bi-presidents

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

I was just watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" on the tube. A question came up, "Which President used a contact lens to read a speech with one eye and the other eye without to read the audience?"

The answer was Ronald Reagan. From the link above

Amar Klar, a scientist who has worked on handedness, says that left-handed people "have a wider scope of thinking", and points to the disproportionately high number of Nobel Prize winners, writers, and painters who are left-handed.[6] Michael Peters, a neuropsychologist at the University of Guelph, points out that left-handed people have to get by in a world adapted to right-handers, something which can give them extra mental resilience.

Interesting that so many of the recent presidents were left handed or ambidextrous.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Two heads

If I clasp my two hands together or better yet grasp my right wrist with my left hand I can accomplish most tasks with my right arm/hand dominant and my left arm relaxed and going with the flow. In my perception the task is right sided.  If I do the opposite and grab my left wrist with my right hand and try to write my name then my right arm participates more than it should. I have to actively suppress the right side muscles to make the left side dominant.  The use of my head is done I feel with the right side dominant normally. However like having both hands clasped the left side can be dominant but I have a lifetime unlearning to deal with. The unlearning is far greater than the hand wrist example. My left side head role has been to put the right side in a slight position of advantage. It involves the tongue/anterior throat/face/eye musculature. The smaller anterior musculature use feels to have greater effect than the posterior neck muscles and sternocleidomastoid that I learned in school. I believe it is much more my learning of the function of communication that determined the use of my heads and those larger structures react to support what the smaller muscles do. The smaller muscles have the more neurologically involved task of expressing/receiving my interactions with others and have been far more right side dominant than symmetrical.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Spoon fed

Back of tongue looking forward

Middle of tongue cut in half (sagittal view)

There feels to be a difference in how I usually use both the left and right backs of the tongues. I believe it to be to be echoed with my jaw position. When I eat with a spoon the right side is given a slight advantage getting to the food as the spoon gets closer to my mouth. If I reverse the sides and eat with my left hand I not only get a scapular reversal resistance but a mandible reversal resistance due to my habitual eating movements.  In my normal right hand eating it would seem to be an advantage to pull the right side back as the spoon gets closer but I think the right side of jaw and tongue go forward to meet the spoon.  The TMJ joint allows for limited moment in three planes (see below) with the left side of the jaw musculature doing the opposite of the right side at times. It feels like I have a posture of the tongue that gives the right side an advantage. It is more subtle and complicated than it would seem as it pulls in other structures to accommodate the position.  To reverse the position of the tongue it is almost like I swallow the right tongue slightly to allow the left to lengthen from the anterior jaw all the way to the clavicle.

Movements.—The movements permitted in this articulation are extensive. Thus, the mandible may be depressed or elevated, or carried forward or backward; a slight amount of side-to-side movement is also permitted. It must be borne in mind that there are two distinct joints in this articulation—one between the condyle and the articular disk, and another between the disk and the mandibular fossa. When the mouth is but slightly opened, as during ordinary conversation, the movement is confined to the lower of the two joints. On the other hand, when the mouth is opened more widely, both joints are concerned in the movement; in the lower joint the movement is of a hinge-like character, the condyle moving around a transverse axis on the disk, while in the upper joint the movement is of a gliding character, the disk, together with the condyle, gliding forward on to the articular tubercle, around an axis which passes through the mandibular foramina. These two movements take place simultaneously, the condyle and disk move forward on the eminence, and at the same time the condyle revolves on the disk. In shutting the mouth the reverse action takes place; the disk glides back, carrying the condyle with it, and this at the same time moves back to its former position. When the mandible is carried horizontally forward, as in protruding the lower incisor teeth in front of the upper, the movement takes place principally in the upper joint, the disk and the condyle gliding forward on the mandibular fossa and articular tubercle. The grinding or chewing movement is produced by one condyle, with its disk, gliding alternately forward and backward, while the other condyle moves simultaneously in the opposite direction; at the same time the condyle undergoes a vertical rotation on the disk. One condyle advances and rotates, the other condyle recedes and rotates, in alternate succession.

Link

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Communication and the left side of head musculature

I think have been playing more with left sublingual extrinsic musculature of the tongues than the intrinsic musculature as say this gal.  I used to feel the extrinsic musculature of both sides as one undifferentiated mass with what I believe was right side dominance.  The left side was just tight with no sense of independence. I am coming  more and more to the feel the whole left side of my head was not used independently but more of a stabilization platform for the rights side role in communication/speech. There should be no reason I feel such a strong connection with my left sublingual musculature with the left posterior muscular structures of the neck but as I get 'play' in the left sublingual musculature the whole of the left side of my head is involved. There is both a positive and a negative sense that presents itself. A good feeling of play in muscles that never did it before and a sense of discomfort as the same muscles are fighting 55 plus years of one track habitual use.

However I think it is far more the function of communication than any individual muscles that dominate the relationship of both the left and right side.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Truly left?

In my attempts to involve the left tongue in my movements it seems to be involving the whole left side of my head.  The normal use of my head feels like I keep the muscles on the left side more contracted than it would seem to need to. Almost like being activated but not intelligently. The muscles lack the ability to relax and show greater range of activation. However the right side has a much greater range normal use. Paradoxically when I allow the left side to relax it almost feels more tight as the muscles feel to be in an unusual lengthened position. I also am contracting the right side muscles actively to help lengthen the left.

Very different feel from normal. Again it may not be a good thing..


“Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.” 
― Richard BachIllusions






Saturday, January 4, 2014

Split tongues, hands and parallel brains

Watching the girl with the split tongue reminded me of the girl who can write in different languages with both hands at the same time. President Garfield could write with both hands at the same time one in Latin the other Greek. I still have trouble writing in one.

I wrote in a previous post

However in life there are many tasks that need both hands to do complex tasks such as typing this sentence. Both hands and fingers coordinate almost without thought and the more I think the more I mistype. It would seem to me both sides of the brain have knowledge of the words being typed otherwise they would not be able to coordinate the movements. Each side of the brain must be coordinating based on it's understanding of the task. 

Thinking about this some more suggests to me that the hemispheres of my brain work in parallel to accomplish the task at hand. If it is easier and more convenient for both to cooperate with one side dominant and the the other side subordinate then it can be done that way. For my learning of most tasks that makes more sense but if needed and the tasks requires differentiation it also can be done. However once habituated the task becomes very hard to unlearn.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Girl with split tongues

Interesting to watch a girl with a split tongue use both halves of her tongue independently. Some may find it slightly gross to watch.

split tongue tricks

I think I hear a slight lisp (see below)but may have had it before her operation.  The tongue being innervated on the left and right side should be able to operate independently which she aptly demonstrates. Towards the end of the video she shows some discrepancies in the movement of her tongues.

 I do not want to have an operation to split my tongue. However I am feeling and differentiation in the use of both my intrinsic and extrinsic tongue musculature extending to my hyoid and below. According to some the movement of the tongues are not the same in the function of speech and it's use in eating. I also feel there are two possible representations of muscular activity for speech. Mine has been right side dominated my whole life but now I have some independent representation on my left tongue/throat/lips. There is also a facial and eye element that can be separated from the sounds of speech but if viewed from the function of communication probably should not. To take another step the use of head and spine are influenced by the domination of the one sided speech and the development of my left tongue is creating the possibilities of different use of my head and spine. This may or may not be a good thing.

PS (Just noticed her first comment is that she does not have a lisp. I apologize)