I used to write stories that I thought would appeal to lots of people. Then, once I became ill, I stopped writing altogether. Thanks to the cannabis I can now have enough pain-free time every day to write -- but for whom?

If you have come this far into the story thinking it is some New Age idea or a con to get you into some born-again movement -- then here is where you can bail out. Reading beyond this point will perhaps not sit well with you.

I was about to tell you what the mind of man might have been like prior to having consciousness. But before I can do this, I need to review some brain anatomy and tell you some things that may or may not be a surprise to you. It will not be too technical as I will simplify things as best I can. OK. Buckle up.

We Have Two Brains

Surprisingly, not many people realize that we all have two processors in our brain. They are called the Left and Right Hemispheres. I'll post a picture below so you can see what I mean.

Notice that there is a fissure (crack) extending from the front to the back. This fissure goes all the way through, separating the brain into two mirror images of each other. The hemispheres are connected at the base by a thick chord of nerves (kind of like a firewire) called the corpus callosum and share data by this means.

There is also a much smaller connection called the anterior commisure [right] that is kind of like a USB cable. This little link will become more significant later on.

I have written a whole story on the discovery and characteristics of each half of our brain in a previous report HERE. If you are not familiar with the split-brain experiments and the characteristics of each hemisphere it would be good to stop and read this other story, then come back.

Just to review the characteristics of each hemisphere, I am reproducing the chart here:

We all have both male and female traits. This happens because, somehow, each hemisphere agrees to perform specific mental processes while the other hemisphere takes a break and observes. In short: they learn to cooperate with each other, controlling and influencing our thinking and actions. The pattern of response and the assigned duties of each hemisphere combine to make our personality.

Occasionally, the hemispheres can view a certain problem differently. In a given situation, the Left Hemisphere may want to be logical, like Star Trek's Spock, while the Right Hemisphere might want to consider emotional consequences. Left unresolved, we feel a kind of uneasiness in our consciousness as we sense the conflict. This is one theory of mental illness.

The Language Center

If you have grasped this split brain thing, the next thing to know is that there are certain areas of the brain that perform certain tasks. We will only be concerned with one area -- the place where language is understood and created. It's called the Wernicke's Area. For most right-handed people this area is just above and in back of your left ear.

Before they had fMRI and PET scanners, brain scientists knew this area controlled language because it is often the area damaged by strokes. Also, accidents and tumors that damaged this part of the brain resulted in the patient's inability to speak.

Jaynes noticed that almost all of the important areas of the brain are duplicated on the other hemisphere. In some cases, when there was an injury to the dominant side, the other side would actively take over the duties of the injured area. It seems that nature did this to protect our vital abilities for survival.

But what about language?

Jaynes' noticed that the Left Wernicke's Area did NOT have a corresponding language area which would compensate if it were injured. That seemed very odd. In fact, it is known that the Wernicke's Area on the non-dominant hemisphere (Right in right handed people) is empty real estate! It has been cut out for various tumors with no evidence of any deficit.

But, oddly, if it is stimulated by an electrical current the patients report hearing a voice. Not an inner voice but an actual voice, often in a specific location in the room. For some reason, researchers were eliciting audio hallucinations in patients with no history of schizophrenia or other mental disorders.

(Sigh) We're all through with the anatomy stuff. To review, we have two hemispheres which, in normal healthy people, communicate and cooperate with each other in such a way that we do not notice the split in our consciousness. It's there for sure but we only receive one narrative in our consciousness which is the result of these two processors deciding who would do what and when for you.

In each hemisphere we have areas that do certain things. We know this because of modern brain scans that were not available to Jaynes back in the 70s. We know that the Left Wernickes Area is where language resides in most right handed people (about 85% of the population) while the Right Wernicke's Area seems to have no vital function, can be removed with no symptoms, but creates a hallucinated voice in the patient when stimulated.

Now I need some medicine... but we made progress. You are already a couple of hundred pages into Jaynes' huge book. Hang in, there's more to come. Next up I'll describe the pre-conscious man and show you why Jaynes believed it could be proven.

(later)