91with epileptics. In 1950, Roger W. Sperry of the Univer-
sity of Chicago (and later of Cal Tech) made the great-
est breakthroughs in discovering that dreams, energy,
and creative insight come from the right side of the
brain, while linear, logical, short-term, and short-
sighted thinking come from the left.
The best explanation of how “whole-brain” thinking
surpasses left-brain thinking or right-brain thinking is
in a book written by British philosopher Colin Wilson
called Frankenstein’s Castle. Wilson reveals that we
have more control over drawing vital energy and cre-
ative ideas from the “right brain” than we ever real-
ized. And what stimulates the right brain the most is a
high sense of purpose.
If you had to carry a heavy sack of sand across town,
your left brain might get upset and tell you that you
were doing something boring and tedious. However, if
your child were injured badly and she weighed the same
as the huge bag of sand, you’d carry her the same dis-
tance to the hospital with a surprising surge of vital
energy (sent from the right brain). That’s what purpose
does to the brain. Self-motivation gets more and more
exciting as the left brain gets better and better at tell-
ing the right brain what to do.
42. Let your whole brain play
Suicide rates go down during times of war because
many people begin to feel useful and challenged enough
times during the day. This encourages them to us both
sides of the brain harmonically. In less eventful times,
people tend to slip into using just one side of the brain
and get trapped into feeling useless.
Most people unconsciously wait for an external cri-
sis, such as a threatened bankruptcy or an attack on the
Let your whole brain play