We have all had the experience of walking into
a crowded room or down our high school hallway at one time or another and
notice a group of people that appear to be talking about us. Uncertain if we are actually the subject of
their conversations, we begin to imagine in our heads or at least start putting
together an elaborate story of what they must be sharing. Countless are the high school drama episodes I have mediated over the
years that have their origins with, “She was talking about me
behind my back!” or “I know that sub-tweet was about me.”
In many of these cases, the offense is rarely
as bad as the social victim has imagined in their head. In fact, the narrative constructed by the
“person talked about” is almost always way more creatively negative than what
actually is the case. Of course, this
often times leads to greater conflict and a deeper sense of hurt that requires
more time to sort through to bring about conflict resolution. While some may think this particular social
tendency is gender specific, the cases over the years in my experience are
about even.
There is something about a good story that
draws us in and captivates our imagination.
In fact, if the story isn’t good enough we will intuitively make the
story better by adding our own “sizzle.”
I suspect the relationships that fall into the neutral position do so
because of one or both individuals in the relationship have construed their own
narratives in their head that exasperate the initial conflict. Unfortunately, there requires very little if
any evidence for us to construct a narrative or interpretation of a social
experience vis-à-vis “I heard my name being mentioned in a crowded room when I
walked in,” for us to hold that narrative in our brains.
In these cases, our brains are not great at
doing social-CSI to uncover the facts of a particular social interpretation for
validation prior to making up our own neural narrative (story making). All we really need is a sound bite or two, a
perceived stare, and some ambiguous body language and we have a full-blown
drama script directing our actions. To
add insult to injury, the individual or individuals that are the characters in
our story making that get our well intentioned stare-back, cheeky comment, and
closed-off body language begin to develop their own dramatic story and there
you have it a two-week long relational fracture that in some cases never really
gets resolved and lead to inflammatory social media posts.
There is power in a good story. It is no coincidence that some of the best
public speakers that hold our attention and bring us back for more are also
great storytellers. The reason we are
attracted to a good story is because God made us with a brain that performs
storytelling daily.
 |
| Dr. Gazzaniga |
In the 1980s, Dr. Gazzaniga added to decades of
research on split-brain patients by identifying specific left and right
hemisphere brain function. Before going
much further, it is important to dispel the neuromyth that some people are
right brain or left brain dominant people.
The fact is we are both right and left brained dependent. Connected by a large nerve bundle of white
tissue, the corpus
callosum facilitates the massive web of neural networks allowing the right and
left hemispheres to talk to each other to perform important tasks. Through the attempts to unlock the
neurological mystery of epilepsy, brain researchers explored the practice of
cutting the connecting corpus callosum tissue splitting the patients brains. What they discovered is that they were able
to localize the neural storms caused by seizures to one side of the brain
providing some relief to the patients.
However, the predicted brain damage of the split-brain procedure did not
render the impact originally imagined.
The
first patients in the 1950s that underwent this procedure experienced very
little slippage in I.Q., perception, and brain function. Over time through clever research methods, researchers
discovered that split-brain patients were unable to perform certain tasks. For example, the “Fork” experiment revealed
that when the patient was given a picture of a fork using only their right
hemisphere, they were unable to connect to the language center of the brain located
in their left hemisphere. The right
hemisphere, which “saw” the fork, was unable to generate the language
independent of the left hemisphere needed to “say” fork. Ironically, the right hemisphere had
control over the patient’s hand to “draw” fork upon command. From this set of research, it was concluded
the left hemisphere was the intellectual-word bank and it could be severed from
the right side of the brain without significant I.Q. slippage. And the right side was determined to be the
visual-spatial expert, the artist. The
two worked in concert as “co-pilots” to accomplish our everyday tasks.
By
the 1980s we learned even more through split-brain research to better
understand our biological bent for story telling. Benedict Carey, in his book How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About
When, Where, and Why It Happens, tells the story of Dr. Gazzaniga’s
research. Carey describes one of
Gazzaniga’s experiments this way, “He flashed a patient two pictures: the man’s
left hemisphere saw a chicken’s foot, and his right hemisphere saw a snow scene.
(Remember, the left is where language skills are centered, and the right is
holistic, sensual; it has no words for what it sees.) Dr. Gazzaniga then had the man choose related
images for each picture from an array visible to both hemispheres, say, a fork,
a shovel, a chicken, and a toothbrush.
The man chose a chicken to go with the foot, and a shovel to go with the
snow. So far, so good.”
What
Dr. Gazzaniga discovered next helps explain the high school drama I described
earlier. The man’s left hemisphere accurately made the connection between the
chicken and the foot, and he had the words and a good explanation for making
that connection. Remember the man’s left
hemisphere did not see the picture of the snow, only the shovel. As it turns out, the man instinctively chose
the shovel and it just so happened to be correct. But when Gazzaniga asked for his explanation,
the man responded, “The shovel is needed to clean up after the chicken.” With an absence of evidence, the left
hemisphere engages in story telling. The
man came up with his own story that explained the use of the shovel since his
left hemisphere did not have a chance to see the picture of the snow scene. Carey puts it this way, “The left hemisphere
takes whatever information it gets and tells a tale to conscious
awareness. It does this continually in
daily life, and we’ve all caught it in the act-overhearing our name being
whispered, for example, and filling in the blanks with assumptions about what
people are gossiping about.” Succinctly
put, our left hemisphere is more than an interpreter. It’s a story maker.
In
conclusion, the lesson learned is probably not a new piece of information. Be careful jumping to conclusions, it may
actually be all in your head. This
is not to say that there are never any cases of gossip or that the your
assumptions are always wrong; however, my own experience tells me that more
often than not our minds tend to weave a more elaborate and dramatic story in
our head of what we are visually and socially experiencing than what reality
fully supports. In a more practical way,
the last time you gave a speech and mispronounced a word or answered a question
incorrectly in class causing some immediate embarrassment; resist the temptation
of allowing your left hemisphere the opportunity of fixating on those
events. It may actually be the case that
very few people caught the mispronunciation and most have already forgotten the
wrong answer in class.
Second
application, Jesus’ ministry was full of great episodes of storytelling. This just makes sense doesn’t it? After all, He was present and involved when God created
humanity and designed the complexities of our brains. He already knew that we are a species that
specialize in stories. To my preacher
friends, find good stories to augment your homiletics. P.S. A
good rule to live by when deploying the art of storytelling in your sermons, make
sure most of your stories are not centered around YOU! lol
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