Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) remaps his neural connections!

Scott Adams lost his voice a few months ago. He is afflicted with Spasmodic Dysphonia. Maybe you have heard Diane Rehme on NPR. She’s actually a younger woman than she sounds - she also has this disorder.

From Scott’s Blog:

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.

This ability for the brain to rewire itself is referred to as brain plasticity - similar ideas have been applied to helping people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with 80% success. When I teach yoga I often say that the body is a river - it flows from moment to moment into something new. It is believed that every seven years, all the cells in your body have regenerated. Perhaps we can undo serious complications of the body with this knowledge.

He goes further, saying:

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

What happened is that his voice suddenly returned! I can’t help thinking about mantra when I read the above. Repeating a phrase over and over - he says he really enjoyed it - took him back to childhood. I am infering that he got a great deal of joy from repeating the phrase. Mantra is said to be a powerful form of healing. So all of you saying “GATE GATE PARA GATE PARASAM GATE BODHI SVAHA” - maybe you should change to “OM JACK BE NIMBLE, JACK BE QUICK HUM”.

Anyway, congradulations to Scott, what wonderful news. What you have done here has great implications for matters of the mind and brain!

Read his post here