Visualizing the Corpus Callosum and the Visual Apparatus
A Healing Visualization and Brain Health Meditation.
The corpus callosum is white matter in the brain that connects the right and left sides of the brain. It regulates the interaction and coordination between the right and left side of the brain. Below the corpus callosum lies the optic chiasm or the place where the optic nerve traveling from the right and left eye cross on their way to the visual cortex in the back of the brain’s occipital lobe.
From the field of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine comes the idea: “where the mind goes, energy follows. Where energy goes, the blood flows.” Visualizing and thinking about certain areas of the body can aid in healing.
A character in the book, The Speed of Dark, once asked, “if there is no light inside of our heads, how can we see what is happening in our dreams?”
More and more scientific investigators are looking at visualization research compared with actual physical activity. There are a lot of similarities. While imagining you are sleeping is not the same as actually sleeping, visualizing a step by step process before you go to sleep and then seeing yourself sleeping and visualizing the process of waking up and noticing how relaxed and refreshed you feel can have an impact on the real sleep.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine the relationships inside of your head.
In the center of your head sits the Suprachiasmic Nucleus, the Biologic clock, that part of the brain that balances your restorative sleep and alert, productive awake time. This biological clock sits deep inside the head.
It is part of the hypothalamus, that part of the brain that regulates — well in a word — everything. It is called the supra (above) chiasmic nucleus because it sits above the optic chiasm, where the nerves coming from the right eye cross the nerves coming from the left eye on their way to back of the head, where visual information is interpreted.
It is an interesting piece of real estate right here in the command center of our rhythmical and cyclical nature
The optic chiasm is at the center of a large X with the upper arms of the X being the two eyes and the bottom part of the X being the occipital lobe or visual cortex at the back of the head. That is from front to back.
From bottom to top we follow the spinal cord up into the head where it merges with the brain stem. Just above the brainstem is the thalamus (our sensory or pain control center). Slight in front and below the thalamus is the hypothalamus. The suprachiasmic nucleus of the hypothalamus sits above the optic chiasm, which sits above the pituitary gland (the master of our hormonal system. The pituitary sits in the sella tursica, a little saddle in the delicate sphenoid bone.
The sphenoid bone makes up the bottom and back parts of the orbit of the eye and the only part you can feel is at your temples on either side of the head. Above the hypothalamus and thalamus is the corpus callosum, which are nerve fibers joining the right and left side of the brain.
I have gone into detail here so you can visualize the area but what does it all mean?
It means this is a busy neighborhood and a connection between the central area of the brain, the bones of the skull (sphenoid), the master of the hormonal system (the pituitary), the center of the visual system (optic chiasm), our sensory and pain control system (the thalamus), the master regulation and homeostasis (balance) organ (hypothalamus) and the coordinator of the right and left side of the body (the corpus callosum), and on either side the middle cerebral artery bringing nutrient and resources to the area.
