Lantern consciousness 🧠
Lantern consciousness occurs when attention is more widely diffused, allowing one to take in information from virtually anywhere in their field of awareness. It is dependent on the right hemisphere because the right hemisphere has broad and global attention (The right hemisphere has broad, global, and flexible attention, while the left has narrow attention). This is the default state that is experienced by children, as babies and children are more reliant on the right hemisphere than the left.
The left hemisphere prioritizes things that it already knows and expects, and being inexperienced in the way of the world, the mind of the young child has comparatively few priors and preconceptions from which the left hemisphere can guide their perceptions down the predictable tracks. Instead, the child approaches reality with the astonishment of an adult on psychedelics.
References
-
Pollan, Micheal. (2018). How to Change Your Mind Chapter 5. The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Psychedelics (Location 4419). New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
-
Mcgilchrist, Iain. (2010). The Master and His Emissary Chapter 1 Asymmetry and the Brain (p. 59). London, UK: Yale University Press.
Metadata
Type:🔵 Tags: Psychology / Developmental Neurology Status:☀️