Can anyone else "switch" between brain hemispheres

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I have been in the habit of spending long periods of time playing around with consciousness and meditation since I was young...
And I noticed that I can direct "feeling" towards different parts of my brain, and I can "seemingly" activate the dominance of the left and right portions of my brain seperately. (The word is seemingly, because although I have certain feelings and responses, I am not at all sure what I am doing )
What I mean by this, is that I normally "feel" a conscious sensation through both hemispheres of my brain, but if I direct the "feeling" towards one side of my brain, it seems to take dominance. And then it will feel like one side of my face is "real", while the other side of my face feels like I am looking out from a mask.
And if it were just this "feeling" then, I would have concluded that it was most likely some kind of illusion (in my head), but there are other processes that are effected as well.
The strangest effect is that of hearing music in my mind. When I am focused on the left side, then it is easy to hear music in my mind. I can change volume, and create tunes, and mix sounds- it seems normal as usual. But when I turn the focus on the right side- then it is much more difficult to "hear" the music in my mind. It becomes muffled, and quiet, and it is difficult to "hear" two tunes at once. It is almost as if I am listening to the music through a "tunnel". (Which WOULD be the case, almost... if somehow the brain hemispheres were being switched.)
And this is weird, and was almost scary... but I can quickly "re-focus" the consciousness to the normal level, where things return to normal.
And I have experimented with this many times... and so I think there is deffinately some kind of process going on.

I am a psychology student, and I know that the brain isnt as simple as just a "right and left", but... it's an interesting phenomenon that I have been trying to figure out for some time... but when I try to talk to people about it, usually I get some very strange looks

Has anyone else here experienced anything similar? Or a feeling of having one part of your face being a "mask" that you are looking out from?

It's quite difficult for me to explain, but when I am deep in thought, I usually 'feel' something in the right side of my head. For some reason, this sensaton only occurs in the right side, and not the left.

I can essentially choose which parts of my brain to activate or energize when I meditate...

Very interesting...

I experience something similar to this in that I am able to see most situations (except in the midst of a meltdown) both from the point of view of an emotional aspect and a logical aspect . . . so, for example, I'm right now trying to get my favorite person to be around to go out ot lunch with me on Thursday and he hasn't called me back yet - emotionally this irritates me and makes me think that he doesn't care about me, but logically I know that, since he is the poster boy for ADD, he probably got my message and just forgot to call me back . . .
These are entirely different trains of thought that only intersect because they are about the same set of events . . .

That is pretty much how I experience things, as well, animallover. The more intense my emotion, the more marked the separation between my logical thought processes and my emotions become. More often than not, however, my emotion takes a back seat to my intellect. When I do become very emotional (a rarity) I feel like two different people, one who is experiencing the emotion, the other looking down on the emotional part of me with criticism.

That is facinating - I do the same thing with emotions - I can see myself and the way I'm behaving and I'm disgusted by it . . .

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is that way.

Have you figured out any way of integrating the two, animallover? Thus far, I have unfortunately not been successful in doing so.

I always thought it was strange, how I could 'feel' my thoughts in my head. I always tried to get as many of them as I could and squash them together, believing that if I could do it hard enough I would be able to shoot them all out and blow something up!

It never did work.

No - it has helped to be aware of the fact that my brain is going in two different ways at the same time, though - it makes the fact that I am able to think about things in two totally different ways make much more sence - but the only way I can integrate the two is to be aware that I am thinking along two different lines about the same event and simply be aware that this is going on - this is not integration, but it is as close as I think I'll get . . .

This is one of those phenomena that I get the 'Well, I do something like that, too . . .' from NTs - but they realize it is different when I tell them it is like watching something like 'Platoon' and some cheesy TV movie about Vietnam at the same time - you KNOW they are about the same events but other than that they bear no resemblance to each other . . .

I have never felt left and right hemispheres in my brain (except when having a headache), but I certainly can distinguish two autonomous parts, which I call conscious and subconscious minds. In general the subconscious mind is sensing and acting, and conscious mind is thinking and memorizing. I am not entirely sure where feeling belongs. I think that low-level feelings, such as caused by release of adrenaline, as well as pain, are the domain of subconsciousness, while high-level emotions belong to the conscious part. Usually both parts operate together, although the conscious mind is generally slower, which causes delays. But sometimes they "think" and "feel" different things. For example, I can be nervous to the point that my hands shake, and in the same time be in a splendid mood consciously, and wonder what is the reason of that shaking. Please forgive me if I am not entirely clear, I admit that I am still trying to figure these things out.

It is my belief that EVERYONE to a certain degree.... experiences multiple frames of thinking at once, in terms of the concious mind. I think it is due to the western idiology of individualism, and monotheism, that people tend to believe that they must search for a ONE and a UNITY to everything, including themselves. But it is not necessary and even "true" that there is only one answer to everything.
I think that everyone does have multiple "selves" within them.
When we reffer to ourselves as individuals... its a convienient term, but we are constantly changing and reacting in different ways, depending on the different situations we might be faced with.

I think that people with AS may be more aware of this, because of the highly logical part that seems to make its way through...that highly conflicts with everyday human things and stuff, where things seem to be happening on a very spontaneous and automatic basis. Being seperated from social interaction also tends to make you more critical of yourself...

But other people who suffer from this as well, I think... are writers/anthropologists/psychologists/scientists because they have the knowledge of studying people from a critical level, and will always be aware of human interaction on that distant observer kind of level, at the same time as interacting with humans themselves.

But is there anything wrong with it? NO!
That is one of the great mysteries of being human... you know, the dichotomies of conflicting natures... but this is the place where great things like innovation and creation spring from too!
Although...LOL...it is hard to be creative, or want to be creative...when you're annoying yourself.

And... Animallover and Civet, I do know exactly what you are saying too! ...because I always feel like there is this other "logical, higher wisdom force" that is seperated from me... that sometimes makes it difficult to enjoy situations and just "be human" like others.
I can always look at a situation, and seem to be able to assess it in 20 or 30 different ways. I am always overly conscious of my thought patterns.

I've learned that... if you try to fight it, and put them together, or just be one and get rid of another, something like that... it doesnt work, and plus, it may also make you quite krazy or nutz with frustration
I think the best way to deal with it, from my experience... has been to just laugh at myself once and a while, tell myself to SHUT UP when I am being over-critical, and....just accept that there are multiple possibilites to everything.....plus, drinking will often remedy this too, LOL.

My mother once described an advanced Yogic breathing technique that was supposed to address this very thing. Using the hand to close one nostril, inhaling through one and exhaling through the other. Besides helping widen the breathing passages, it was also used to expose the divide between the right and the left sides of the body.

I read an interesting book about this: Of Two Minds: The Revolutionary Science of Dual-Brain Psychology by Fredric Schiffer. It's about how everyone has two minds, one on the right and one on the left. They can be very similar or very different, for instance because of trauma (one mind can react very differently to it than the other) or when the hemispheres have been seperated (this is sometimes done to treat severe epilepsy). It has theory, case studies, and practical information (how to let your more mature mind help your troubled/less mature mind). The original edition is out of print, but there's still a UK edition available with a slightly different title, Of Two Minds: A New Approach for Better Understanding Your Emotional Life.

i've been experiencing this lately. have you found that you are able to integrate the two hemispheres? can you circulate the energy around your body?

Lots of good sense here.

Left and right, yes, and connected, but at a distance. Then both sides have a fore brain, where our awareness can play, and a back brain that is emotional in nature. Somewhere way back, a primal brain, brain stem, that sees flee or fight, and would eat what it kills.

I have a machine sector, I spend a lot of time there, and complex machines shut down the unused sections, and I become the machine. It does not speak, and if interupted, I just stare till some other sector kicks in.

That comes in degrees, the dog or kid get one response, adults another. Coming up I can become angry, emotional, I was doing something I liked, and someone wanted to spoil that, or very analitical, another machine problem to deal with, the parts have arrived, something within that world.

I have two sets of pictures, on the right, I guess, blueprints, and when I draw it comes out blueprint. Line work. The other side has color, form, nature, and is more photographic.

I would call them the image brain, left, and the filing cabinet, right I can look at a part and run a hundred checks from the data base, Are the gasket surfaces clean and flat, are all the parts there, just where in the order of operation does it go, I have put things together, then had to take them apart, because this goes in before that, so there is seeing it all in series, and checking that each part is correct, in good condition, then installed properly. This is a localized area.

Next to that are several areas. In one I see machines as they should be, what it is, how it functions, desired output. What Is. Next to that is how, every sub system, and how they work. Some can be given, what it could not be is subtracted. It can leave a half dozen potential causes. Many of them I can think through, if it does this, then that must work. This is the troubleshoot phase.

For example, a car may not run due to lack of gas, spark, or compression. Checking gas at he carb, pulling a plug wire, checking spark, and if both good, tearing down the whole front to get to the timing chain. More than half of all auto repairs were not needed. Parts were replaced until they hit the right one. Then you get a new carb, distribuator, and timing chain. Fuel pumps get replaced on cars that are out of gas.

There are much bigger machines, and problem solving is not a common skill. The what is it, how does it function, where could the problem be, how to test each potential problem is fairly universal. It is not a function of machines, mechanics, but of the brain. It also works on social systems, growing plants, raising kids.

I am not as at home on the other side, I paint, but have no idea what. Two styles, a scale blueprint, with an exact model on one side, totally figured before I start, or a blank piece of paper on the other, and starting with one line, it grows, and becomes. I am near the end before I see it. It goes beyond what I could plan and layout, then construct layer at a time.

I do talk to myself, we differ, but mostly get along, when times get rough, I do talk to myself in the mirror. There is a third voice, when it gets really bad, it takes over. We get shut out, and overself runs brain stem. It is fast, animal, and dangerous.

I find the fore brain to be light weight, it processes simple thought, perhaps it is Aspie. A weak fore brain, today's thought, idel chit chat, meanless communicaiation, where NTs live. It's highest skill seems to be watching the Simpsons, but the laughs come from left and right.

Sometimes the overself manifests without danger, watching a sunset, the stars at night, it has good taste. It is a rough life, riding on top of an ape brain. It has a much different view of life. Longer term than an ape. It is like me plowing a field with a mule, and you know what end I watch all day. When I sleep it is free.

If I did not have mechanics and painting, or a fore brain, I would live farther down, anger, hatered, lust, being human. As is I can show girls my paintings, fix their cars, it works out. I try to keep that lower range asleep, and it is what people prod when they wish to get anger from me. They do not debate the merits of my painting.

Since I do not have a fore brain defense, and they think that is all, they walk in, and if ignored, will run right into the one that wants to eat them. In the old talk of the street, they were selling a wolf ticket, I am the big bad wolf! I cashed it. They thought they could win by posturing. They found their head in the mouth of a gator.

Not having a fore brain of any merit, as defined by AS, we live in the obsessive places NT never reach. Analitic ability, art, mechanics, music, math, and I have no idea where my music is, totally missing, and spelling, but others cannot fix machines. We all obsess the same, and we all live farther back in the brain, which is closer to anger, hatered, depression, caused by not eating people, and are gennerally to boring to be of interest to the overself. You most likely know it, when without thought, with super human speed, you pulled yourself from danger. You take a half hour to leave the house, then a tenth of a second to get away from real danger.

Altogether I think NT fore brains cannot ever see the overself, develop the talents we do, and we are closer to the overself. We are also between the NT world and the killer ape. NTs do bother us, but just perhaps, they think they are probing past the fore brain looking for emotion, not knowing they have been stepping on it, and then come face to face with the killer ape.

It would explain how we react to them, and they react to us.

As far as the overself, we should get on better terms. But we are boring.