The Essential Colin Wilson (30 page)

These are the basic facts. And when I first came across the notion that our right and left hemispheres are separate personalities—in Ornstein's
Psychology of Consciousness—
they induced a state of considerable excitement. And I did what I always do—and what my more cautious friends (like Robert Temple) deplore: proceeded to extrapolate, and to spin interesting and totally unproven theories. Some of these I shall now proceed to outline.

My first thought was that this seems to offer a possible explanation of poltergeist activity. One of the oddest things about poltergeists (banging ghosts)—which, as we now know, are usually caused by emotionally disturbed adolescents—is that the person who is responsible for the disturbance is totally unaware of it. Hans Bender, one of the experts in this field of paranormal investigation, states in an article on poltergeists that the first rule is
not
to tell the child that he or she is causing it all. It scares hell out of them. And understandably. It is essential to our sanity to believe that we are 'individuals' (i.e., indivisible). Nothing could be more frightening than the idea that some Dr Hyde part of the personality could go off on its own and start throwing objects around and causing loud bangs and crashes.

If my guess (and it is no more than that) is correct, then the 'poltergeist' lives in the right half of the brain. And for some reason, highly disturbed adolescents proceed to function like split brain patients, in the sense that the two halves go their separate ways.

This, of course, still fails to explain
how
a poltergeist can cause objects to fly through the air or burst into flame: i.e., fails to explain (a) where the energy comes from, (b) how the 'other self' makes use of it. But if you would like my guess, which I will throw in for good measure, it is that the energy somehow comes from the earth. If my poltergeist theory is correct, then the right brain is responsible for such 'paranormal' effects as dowsing, which causes a twig or divining rod to twist violently in the hands. Any good dowser knows that this energy—whatever it is—can be so powerful that it can throw the dowser on his back, or send him into convulsions. It
sounds
as if it could be the same energy involved in poltergeist activity. And if the right brain is sensitive to it—can somehow 'pick it up'—then it is not too difficult to believe that it could also use it to make objects fly around. But that, I will concede, is one of my more way-out guesses. Let us return to less controversial matters.

It would seem more-or-less accurate to say that the left brain is a scientist, the right is an artist. It also seems probable, if my poltergeist speculation has any foundation, that the right braincould be regarded as the gateway to the unconscious mind. And here I feel I must hedge myself around with qualifications, since my old friend Stan Gooch has gone on record as believing that the actual seat of the unconscious mind is the cerebellum, the older part of the brain that lies below the cerebral cortex. He may well be right; yet it still seems to me arguable that the right cerebral hemisphere plays its own important role in our unconscious activities. The one thing that seems clear is that the conscious mind is hardly thicker than the icing on a large Christmas cake, while the unconscious mind has many layers. So while, in the rest of this article, I shall refer only to the right brain, let it be understood that I am keeping an open mind about the rest of the brain and its functions.

At the time I read Ornstein's book, I was working on a biography of Wilhelm Reich. I have always been vaguely anti-Freudian, feeling that Freud's insistence that sex is the basis of
all
neurosis is as preposterous as Marx's insistence that all human creative activity can be reduced to terms of economics. In studying the history of psychoanalysis, I became increasingly convinced that Freud's error lay in regarding the unconscious as some kind of monster. As is well known, Freud stumbled on the discovery of the unconscious as a result of working with Charcot in Paris. Charcot had restored hypnosis to respectability, and he noted the similarity between hypnosis and hysteria. A hysterical woman who believes she is paralyzed can actually become paralyzed. And hypnosis can produce exactly the same effect. Charcot thought that hypnosis
is
a form of hysteria. Freud saw deeper. He recognized that if there is a part of the mind that can cause paralysis, phantom pregnancies, and so on, then it must be far more powerful than the conscious mind. Both hypnosis and hysteria are effects produced upon this 'other' mind—the unconscious. So far so good. But Freud's next assumption was less reasonable: that if this unconscious mind is more powerful than the conscious mind, then we are all helpless puppets in the hands of this invisible monster. This is equivalent to saying that because a ship is far bigger and more powerful than the captain, the captain is not really in control—he only thinks he is.

It seemed to me that the relation between the conscious and the unconscious is more like the relation between Laurel and Hardy in the old movies. Ollie—consciousness—is basically the boss. Stan takes his cues from Ollie. If Ollie looks miserable, Stan is sunk in gloom. If Ollie looks cheerful, Stan is positively ecstatic.
Stan always over-reacts
.

So if we wake up on a rainy Monday morning, and think gloomily: 'How am I going to get through this boring day?', the unconscious mind begins to feel depressed. An hour later, we feel miserable and exhausted—
because the unconscious mind controls our vital energies
. This confirms our feeling that this is 'one of those days', so Stan becomes more depressed than ever . . . In short, there is a build-up of negative feedback. Consider, on the contrary, what happens to a child on Christmas day. He wakes up full of delightful anticipation: Stan takes the hint and sends up energy. And throughout the day, the mood of delight is reinforced by all the usual accompaniments to Christmas—carols on the radio, Christmas programmes on TV, fairy lights on the Christmas tree, and so on. By bed time, the child may feel that it has been one of those perfect days where everything has gone right. He thinks this is the 'Christmas spirit'; in fact, it is the close and friendly cooperation of Ollie and Stan.

I would suggest that this 'tennis playing' mechanism—the feedback between Ollie and Stan—explains neurosis far more convincingly than Freud's explanations about sexual hang-ups festering in the unconscious. We can all recognize the mechanism in ourselves—how pleasant anticipation revitalizes us; how self-pity and boredom deprive us of our natural powers. Norman Vincent Peak may not have been a great intellect, but he understood something about the human mind that Freud managed to overlook.

It was at this point—about the second chapter of my book on Reich—that it struck me that this theory of neurosis works just as well if you substitute the right and left brain for Stan and Ollie. For example, as a writer, I am thoroughly familiar with the 'tennis playing' mechanism of positive and negative feedback. My instrument of communication is words—a leftbrain function. But what I write
about
are patterns, insights, intuitions—a right brain function. When I started to write, in my early teens, I used to find it hard and depressing work. The words were always killing the intuitions, squashing them flat. In fact, it seemed to me then that analysis is the enemy of insight. But as the years went by, I persevered, and gained a certain command over words. Sometimes, particular insights would defy me, and refuse to be turned into words. But then I learned to keep on trying—sometimes for months or years—until I saw how it could be done.

When I am writing well, there is an interesting balance between the intuitions and the words. And 'I' seem to somehow straddle the two, gently encouraging the intuitions, gently translating them into language and allowing them to flow on to the paper. If I get tired or frustrated, this balance is upset. I try
too
hard, the intuitions dwindle, and the words become clumsy and inappropriate. But some days, I am positively brilliant. I turn the intuitions into words so neatly that the right brain gets excited to see itself expressed so well; it shouts 'Yes, yes, that's it!', and sends up more intuitions. And my left brain, pleased to be praised, makes an even greater effort, and catches the intuitions as they come pouring out. And suddenly, the tennis match is worthy of Wimbledon, both sides playing with unaccustomed brilliance. This is the state called 'inspiration'.

All this makes it clear that our basic problem as human beings is, in effect, to get both players into a mood of warm cooperation. It would seem that our two aspects have two quite different functions. The left brain is the 'front man'; its job is to cope with practical problems, to stand on guard, prepared for emergencies. Its chief instrument is crude willpower. It always seems to be in a hurry. And if we allow it to get too dominant, we end in a state of permanent tension.

The right seems essentially to look
inward
. It is concerned with patterns, with over-all meanings and values. It is the part of us that appreciates music and poetry and beautiful scenery. And for this, it needs to be left alone. If the left starts muttering '
Do
hurry up,' the right cannot function properly: if the phone keeps on ringing or your husband—or wife—keeps on nagging, the right quickly gives up. It is basically shy and easily discouraged. The right has very little sense of time—although it has quite enough for its purposes. (It can, for example, wake you up at precisely a quarter past seven in the morning . . . ) It needs to be allowed to amble along comfortably at its own pace.

But the real business of the right seems to be to add a dimension of
meaning
to our lives. When I have finished my day's writing, at about five in the afternoon, I take a hot bath, then pour myself a glass of white wine and switch on the evening news. Then, at six fifteen or so, I pour another glass of wine, and put on a gramophone record, and play myself music until dinner is ready. If I am successful, the 'verbal me' relaxes and goes off duty, and another aspect of me begins to voyage in the world of music. 'Verbal me' retires quietly to a corner and dozes, and 'I' become a being with a completely different kind of awareness—for example, with a strong sense of the reality of history, of the fact that Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert
really existed
. During the day, when I am writing, I can
say
Mozart existed, yet in an odd sense, I don't believe it. I don't believe it even though it's true.

This change in my 'centre of gravity' from left to right is an interesting phenomenon. My usual sense of identity involves my ego, my conscious 'me'. If I become deeply absorbed in music ('Happiness is absorption' said T. E. Lawrence), I become aware that this conscious ego is not really me. He is only the front-man, only a complicated series of responses. The 'real me' seems to be a voiceless observer who lives behind the scenes of everyday consciousness. Whether this is the genuine 'real me' is anybody's guess, for I can easily imagine a yet further retreat 'inside' myself, to a level where non-verbal me would also seem to be a particular set of responses.

This experience of non-verbal me makes me aware that my so-called ego is
not
me. So, for example, I may be reacting to some annoyance or crisis with the appropriate anger or anxiety, while another level of me looks on, totally uninvolved. When I was young, this self-division worried me, since it seemed to suggest that 'I' am an illusion. Now I regard this recognition that 'I' am an illusion as a piece of good news, since it makes me aware that my real existence is to be found on a deeper level, and that my main purpose in life should be to learn to relax into that deeper level, while maintaining my faculty of analysis and verbalization.

As I expounded my 'alternative theory of neurosis' in my book on Reich—a theory, oddly enough, which is by no means in opposition to Reich's own brand of Freudianism—it struck me that this left-brain ego seems to be emerging as something of a villain. (This, of course, is the view held by D. H. Lawrence, who called it 'head consciousness'; Reich is also basically a Lawrentian.) In civilized man, it can usually be found in the role of nagging housewife, interrupting his spontaneity, questioning his intuitions, filling him with self-doubt and inner conflict. To put it crudely, you could say it is as if you had Bertrand Russell in one side of your head and D. H. Lawrence (or Walt Whitman) in the other; and the result is non-stop hostility.

But the more I thought about it, the more I saw that this view is fundamentally mistaken. 'Head consciousness'—dominance of the left-brain ego—
is
the cause of many of the problems of modern man. Yet the answer is
not
to hand over full control to the 'intuitive self. Consider, for example, what happens in 'stage fright'. The rational-self is something of a hysteric; faced with any important problem, it is likely to over-react. It does this when you are confronted with a large audience and proceeds to 'interfere'. The familiar negative-feedback mechanism occurs, and you find yourself blushing and stammering.
And yet
, every great actor will tell you that some degree of nervousness is essential to a great performance—as distinguished from a merely good one. Instead of 'interfering', it stimulates the two 'selves' to a new level of co-operation. The actor who is completely at his ease, completely relaxed, seldom turns in more than a workmanlike performance.

And now it should be possible to grasp the real importance of the left-ego. It is, and is intended to be, the controller. Consider what happens in hypnosis. The subject is apparently reduced to sleep; yet an EEC machine shows that he is awake. What happens, I would suggest, is that the hypnotist has put the left-brain to sleep, while the right remains awake. (The nature of hypnosis is still not understood; this is my own theory.) An interesting thing now happens. The subject is capable of more remarkable feats in the hypnotic state than when normally awake. The hypnotist might, for example, tell him that he will now lie with his shoulders on one chair and his legs on another, while a strong man will stand on his stomach; yet he will remain as rigid as a board. And, incredibly, the subject does precisely that. This is, of course, the phenomenon that Charcot observed—the amazing powers of that 'other self', when not constrained and undermined by the left brain. Then why can the subject not perform such feats when in his conscious state?
Because he doesn't believe he can
. When the hypnotist tells the 'other self' to perform some unusual feat, he is the voice of authority, and the other self responds like a well-trained soldier. Its own left-ego lacks that authority; it is manifestly nervous and unsure of itself. If, in fact, the left-ego could somehow generate that authority, the powers it could release might well be described as superhuman.