Monday, November 05, 2007

In Support of Right Brain - Left Brain

JS's post of the Right Brain - Left Brain test really got me thinking. I went to the website and played with the spinning image and the text. What I found out was that if I looked at the text on the side of the page and let my brain become aware of the spinning image out of the corner of my eye I could occasionally see a change in the direction of spin. This intrigued me enough to try it several times. I wasn't always successful. It seems that the more I tried to look at the image the more right brained I became. But if I worked at reading the text I became left brained. That will probably be food for thought later. Surely this has something to do with how children learn to read and maybe there are ways to use the right brain - left brain thing to help them be more successful at it.

This morning on "Meditations for Women" the weekly article was about, you guessed it, being right brained or left brained. The article told of a story the author had read about how a woman who worked out of her home had found her daughter's art supplies in the kitchen before she went to her office and started to work. She sat down and started playing with the glitter, markers and other supplies for about 30 minutes. Then she got up and went into her office and started to work. At the end of the day she was amazed at how much she had gotten done. The creative activity at the beginning of the morning had helped her kick into full right brain mode. She decided to do it every morning and she attributed her success to the practice of 30 minutes of creative activity. The author of the article said she tried the same thing with similar results. She also commented that a friend of hers who is very creative and needs to be more analytical will do something structured...she counts tiles in the ceilings when she needs to turn on the logic juices.

So...maybe that is something I can use in my work. Maybe you can too. I wonder if writers, like my friend Susan, do this kind of thing when they get writers block? There may be entire studies out there on how to use strategies to activate the necessary side of your brain when you need it. If so I haven't read them, but I can see the potential. Yet another sign of being right brained. (G)

Peace! Hope! & Joy!

10 comments:

david mcmahon said...

G'day from Australia,

I came here from San's site. As a novelist, I'm really interested in this post - and also your question about writer's block.

Is the ``Susan'' in your post the Susan who writes the West of Mars blog?

I've often been asked how to deal with writer's block so maybe it's time to update a post on this ...

Cheers

David

Lee said...

G'day David,

Thank you for dropping by. :) I'm delighted you found my writing interesting.

The "Susan" in my post is Susan Palwick who writes the Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good blog. Her genre is Fantasy.

I'd love to read your post on writer's block. Especially if it includes something on right or left brain functioning.

Peace!

jsd said...

Last night I showed the spinning woman to both kiddos, and she was spinning in both directions for them easily. So, I'm thinking that as "we" grow our left-ness and right-ness comes more predominant.

Shrink Wrapped Scream said...

Hi, I've found you through David. I also took that test, but try as I might, I could only ever see her spin clockwise (right brained to a fault). That's an interesting theory - I must try it with my children..

Lee said...

That's a strong possibility JS. Do you think it might also mean that those of us who can switch as adults are "young at heart"? (g)

Peace!

Lee said...

Hi Shrink Wrapped Scream,

Welcome to my corner of the web and thank you for stopping by and commenting. If you come back you might notice that JS tested her kids and they both could switch with ease. I wonder how yours will show.

Peace!

San said...

I broke down and went to observe the dancing lady too. My results were as Ms. Scream's. I kept thinking: How could anyone in their right mind see her twirl COUNTERclockwise? Then I remembered: Oh yeah, they'd be in their LEFT mind if they did that.

Wonder if it has to do with the fact that I've been kneedeep in paint for the past several days. When I return to the gallery and begin to update the spreadsheets, will the lady suddenly decide to twirl in the other direction???

Lee said...

That's the question isn't it San? Let me know if you find out, ok? My PC told me that reading, in fact all communication, was a left brain function. That might explain why my image switched when I was reading the list of traits. Do you want yours to switch? Why not try the test in several different states of awareness. Do something left brained and don't look directly at the image. If that makes any difference then maybe you have tendencies on both sides.

When I was taking a class on assessment of children, I read up on multiple intelligences. This is a division of where our learning takes place and where we can impact learning in our interests. You might find that interesting. There is a test you can take to find yours out...it is interactive and a bunch of fun. Here is the link to the page it is on. Scroll down to the fly wheel image (near the bottom) and click on it. It will open an interactive pop-up window which will ask you to click on a link at the bottom of it to start the test. Let me know how it turns out, ok?

Peace!

david mcmahon said...

Hi Lee,

Okey-dokey, will do a special post for you before the weekend - on writers' block.

Stay tuned ....

Keep smiling

David

david mcmahon said...

PS, Lee you might be interested in one of my earlier posts. The link is ....

http://david-mcmahon.blogspot.com/2007/09/telling-write-from-wrong-part-4.html