How Does Imagery Work?
The ultimate mechanisms of imagery are still a mystery. In the last thirty years however, we have learned that imagery is a natural language of a major part of our nervous system. Critical to this understanding is the Nobel prize-winning work of Dr. Roger Sperry and his collaborators at the University of Chicago and alter at the California Institute of Technology. They have shown that the two sides of the human brain think in very different ways and are simultaneously capable of independent thought. In a real sense, we all have two brains. One thinks as we are accustomed to thinking, with word and logic. The other, however, thinks in terms of images and feelings.
In most people, the left brain is primarily responsible for speaking, writing, and understanding language; it thinks logically and analytically and identifies itself by the name of the person to whom it belongs. The right brain, in contrast, thinks in pictures, sounds, spatial relationships, and feelings. It is relatively silent, though highly intelligent. The left brain analyzes, taking things apart, while the right brain synthesizes, putting pieces together. The left brain is better at logical thinking while the right is more attuned to emotions. The left is most concerned with the outer world of culture, agreements, business, and time, while the right is more concerned with the inner world of perception, physiology, form, and emotion.
The essential difference between the two brains is in the way each processes information. The left brain processes information sequentially, while the right brain processes it simultaneously. Imagine a train coming around a curve in the track. An observer is positioned on the ground, on the outside of the curve, and he observes the train as a succession of separate though connected cars passing him one at a time. He can see just a little bit of the cars ahead of and behind the one he is watching. This observer has a “left-brain” view of the train.
The “right-brain” observer would be in a balloon several hundred feet above the tracks. From here she could not only see the whole train but also the track on which it was traveling, the countryside through which it was passing, the town it had just left, and the town to which it was headed.
This ability of the right hemisphere to grasp the larger context of events is one of the specialized functions that make it invaluable to us in healing. The imagery it produces often lets you see the big picture and experience the way an illness Is related to events and feelings you might not have considered important. It allows you to see not only the single piece but also the way it’s connected to the whole. A “right-brain” perspective may allow you to put ideas together in new ways to produce new solutions to old problems, to see the opportunity hidden in an illness or problem.
The right brain has a special relationship not only to imagery but to emotions, another of the major strengths it brings to the healing adventure. Many studies have shown that the right brain is specialized in perceiving emotion in facial expressions, body language, speech, and even music. This is critical to healing, because emotions are not only psychological but physical states that are at the root of a great deal of illness and disease. Rudolph Virchow, a nineteenth-century physician and founding father of the science of pathology, remarked that “much illness is unhappiness sailing under a physiologic flag.” Studies in England and the United States have found that from 50 to 75 percent of all problems that patients bring to their primary-care clinic are emotional, social, or familial in origin, though they are being expressed through pain or illness.
Emotions themselves are, of course, not unhealthy. On the contrary, they are a normal response to certain life events. Failure to acknowledge and express important emotions, however, is an important factor in illness, and one that is widespread in our society. As a result of how our culture shapes us, we are in many ways emotional illiterates, lacking clear guidelines and traditions for expressing emotions in healthy ways. It is difficult to know how to respond to distressing emotions such as grief, fear, and anger, so we cope as best we can. We may unconsciously build layer upon layer of inner defense to protect us from feeling unpleasant emotions. But strong emotion has a way of finding routes of expression. If not recognized and dealt with for what it is, it may manifest as pain or illness.
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