Left Brained Right Brained

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I've read that autism enhances the activity of the left side of the brain, which is the more logical and scientific side. I can see that this is true for me. However, I have mostly an artistic personality, so my thought processes are usually centered in the right side of my brain. I'm going to school for graphic design, and am still struggling with the fact that I can actually do well in a visually artistic field, even though I'm getting good marks, like a 10/10 on an assignment I got back yesterday.

People say sometimes that I'm really good at math and science and should go in for computer programming. That would be all well and good, except for the fact that I really don't like them. I like them as they apply to my writing and art, like creating a calender system for my fantasy world of 395 solar days with 2 moons. That's the kind of math I enjoy.

Does anybody else have a problem with being right brained in personality and interest but still left-brained aspie? It feels like my mind keeps jumping back and forth between the two.

I'm not so sure about how they have left brain/right brain divided up. I'm a dancer. I studied ballet seriously for 10 years, I do swing dancing and social dancing (lindy hop, blues dancing, salsa, hip hop...), and I play the blues harmonica. Curiously, there are a lot of dancers and musicians who are engineers (I think Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter had/have Aspergers). I'm a writer for an engineering firm. I think we approach our art in a systematic way. Dance and music are built on certain basic patterns that you learn and then apply variations to them endlessly. These days you also have to be systematic about your mp3 collection for DJing. And I'm quite creative improvising, but I like doing it within a structure. It relaxes me and then I can add improvizations when I want and not feel pressured.

I know visual arts are different, but do you approach your artwork in a systematic way?

Last edited by WonderWoman on 05 May 2009, 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I do tend to do that. One problem I have with my writing is that I over plan and have a hard time getting down to the actual writing. Now that I'm actually learning design principles, I'm trying to keep to the principles, which sometimes gets in the way of creating the piece. However, I did manage to get something right, like the assignment that I mentioned above.

Somewhat related: there's a recent study (2009) that confirms that HFA (Kanner's) is a left hemisphere deficit whereas Asperger's is a right.

Interesting what danielismyname said, I see myself as right brained as I am creative and prefer subjects like art or philosophy rather than maths. And I'm not that systematic, my SQ was 28.

I think that almost all the talk of "right brain vs. left brain" is nonsense. And specially when we go down to the "left-brain activities" vs. "right-brain activities", even more nonsense it is (most activities usually called "left-brain activities", like maths, science, computer programming, etc. are very "right-brained", if you use this in the sense of activities that requires intuition)

I agree with this. I am creative and yet my larger paintings which measure ten foot or so are more like systematic plumbing or engineering exercises. they require great attention to detail and a kind of ongoing mapping that is both sequential in a two dimensions (flat surface) and three dimensional (layers of paint) sense.

my feeling about maths and science is that they can be incredibly creative pursuits as well.

What i do know is that i have a good jump back and forth from the two hemispheres and i can feel this happening as i paint.

I'm quite systematic for a female, but not any more so than the average male. I am most likely left hemisphere dominant and better at subjects that require the skills associated with being so.

I do like the arts though, alot of arsty people are a different matter entirely.

Have you read Simon Baron Cohen's book about Autism and the 'male brain theory'?

News from yesterday says there might be a measurable grown on one side of the brain (right side? "Stage Right"? from the picture).

See here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/04/au ... pstoryview

Interesting. I'm left-handed. I wonder how that plays in.