Self delusions

I feel that I talk from my right side to another's right side and receive communication that way.  For most of my life this has been below my level of awareness.  Even now it is hard for me to accept.  Watching interviews on TV or the computer and trying to switch between what I normally do which is right eye to right eye and then to the unfamiliar left eye to left eye I am becoming more aware of my discrepancy.

It feels the same with my left tongue.  The normal right tongue is what my body image felt to have a right and left side and I could use it eat, swallow,  move my tongue in either direction, talk and breath without difficulty  but seems to be a self illusory delusion.  I now can feel a left tongue which has trouble with all of the above but is separate as my left hand is from my right hand in terms of directing movement.

Or I am self deluded in another way.

Horse Head Nebula video off topic

Horsehead

No reason just for fun

Amazing what can be seen

Got it here

Hubble space telescope

Body Image and function

I have always had the image I have one tongue with two sides. I now feel I have two tongues a left and right co-joined.  The left tongue did not exist as something independent of the right. Which image is more correct? There are two separate areas of control for the tongue, two sets of nerves, two sets of muscles. What confuses me is that I can move my tongue left and right easily in the right tongue dominated mode and I can barely do anything with it in what I describe as my left tongue mode.

Why would I not know about the left tongue? The most obvious answer is that it does not exist and I am not in my right mind.  But now I have a sense of it and I am left with the thought that I am in my right mind even though that is the least obvious choice. What is showing up for me more and more is that my left side operates in speech, communication and daily function in a subservient role. It appears that I have learned to be 'right' as most of society is that way. I think my right eye's ability to cross the body midline and connect with someone other's right eye is mirrored in my right tongue. The incomplete connection that I am making with my left eye to someone else's left eye is mirrored in my left tongues 's ability. However the image of my left tongue is growing and it is improving slowly.

It feels like my normal body image of one tongue is reflected in the basis for my right handedness tied to the use of my right eye but it is something I can affect and change.

Function and Structure

My thinking on my 'left tongue' is derived from my limited understanding of the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. Not having studied personally under him I only have second hand knowledge of what he said. I have read several of his books, watched him on several videos. The programs I attended was four years long but only a couple of months each year. I must admit I did not understand him far more than I understood him. He had a book called The Potent Self which I read several times. I am much more the poster boy for 'The Impotent Self'.

However his work in my mind is verified by the finding of my left tongue.  He did not address a 'left tongue' but by changing one's perception of body image one changes how the body is used.

Ruthy Alon Movement Nature Meant

This young gal demos and says it much more beautifully than I do. My only quibble would be is that I have two backs a left and a right as I do in the tongues. I feel my left side plays a subordinate role to my right side.

Fourth Book

Stroke of Insight

Jill Bolte Taylor was a 37-year-old Harvard-trained and published brain scientist when a blood vessel exploded in her brain.  Through the eyes of a curious neuroanatomist, she watched her mind completely deteriorate whereby she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Because of her understanding of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and an amazing mother, Jill completely recovered her mind, brain and body.  In My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, Jill shares with us her recommendations for recovery and the insight she gained into the unique functions of the right and left halves of her brain.  Having lost the categorizing, organizing, describing, judging and critically analyzing skills of her left brain, along with its language centers and thus ego center, Jill’s consciousness shifted away from normal reality.  In the absence of her left brain’s neural circuitry, her consciousness shifted into present moment thinking whereby she experienced herself “at one with the universe.” 

Good book to read. She does not talk about a 'Left tongue'.

I do not feel one with the universe so I am not sure that I am on the same page as Dr Jill. I can be very judgmental and not very in the moment. I suspect the left tongue (right hemisphere) can be organized to talk and function the same way the right tongue (left hemisphere) can. I feel it is a matter how I learned to interact with others and that it is culturally advantageous to be right sided. 

Three Books

The Case of Nora

I have never heard Moshe Feldenkrais talk or any of his students teachers of his method talk about a left tongue.  However this is a good book if someone is interested in his thinking. It has been many years since I read it but there was one part where he was trying to have Nora differentiate between the left and right. It is amazing that we can lose that ability.

In a sense though my left tongue has been lost for most of my life. There was no need for it to be independent of my right tongue. There still isn't. However if I had a left hand and did not know it could function independent of the right hand I think I would like to know about it.

Moshe as far as I know did not discuss Wigan's theory about The Duality of the Mind. Most of his exercises however are taught with that concept embedded in them. First you do the exercise on one side then the other. One becomes aware of the discrepancies of the sides by attention during movement. There is a story about Moshe when he injured his knee playing football (soccer). He needed to get something done and though the muscle was severely wasted on the opposite leg from the injury by being bedbound he was surprised by it's ability to function.

 The story resonates with me in Dr. Oliver Sachs book.  A Leg to Stand On  I have worked with several severely injured lower extremity patients and at times I have recommended this book to read during their recovery.

In A Leg to Stand On, it is Sacks himself who is the patient: an encounter with a bull on a desolate mountain in Norway has left him with a severely damaged leg. But what should be a routine recuperation is actually the beginning of a strange medical journey when he finds that his leg uncannily no longer feels part of his body. Sacks's brilliant description of his crisis and eventual recovery is not only an illuminating examination of the experience of patienthood and the inner nature of illness and health but also a fascinating exploration of the physical basis of identity.

Learning to be Left

I do not know if I can use the 'left' tongue ever in a way that is comparable to my normal 'right' tongue.  My tongue is perfectly normal in most aspects besides never have been able to roll my tongue sides up or extrude it out very far.  The more I play with it however the more it feels that I have areas that I do not control well.  My tongue has always been the relatively small piece that tastes and hurts if I happen to bite it.

The image in my mind has always been that I have one tongue with a left and right side. I now feel that was an illusion created by the dominance of the right tongue in the mechanics of speech. It is not just the tongue that was not activated, it was the use of my left eye ,face, tongue, and throat. There is probably an audio component as well.   I learned to communicate to another person's right side with my right side.  It is how I relate to to other people. My left side is underdeveloped, not currently capable, bound by the habits that I have acquired over a lifetime.

However, I think there was an organic process that I used to learn the mechanics of speech with the right tongue. I believe it was acquired through mimicking and feedback. That process may be available for my left tongue but in a sense I have to learn to be 'left' instead of 'right'.