# DL Ep. 31: Your Brain Is a Storyteller

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-lab-7434763/dl-ep-31-your-brain-is-a-storyteller
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-lab-7434763/dl-ep-31-your-brain-is-a-storyteller.md
Podcast: [Dharma Lab](https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-lab-7434763)
Published: 2026-05-07T11:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.dharmalab.co/p/dl-ep-31-your-brain-is-a-storyteller
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/196262938/0330679fbeea868d2a6ece13d8bdb84b.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dharma-lab-7434763/episodes/dl-ep-31-your-brain-is-a-storyteller
Duration seconds: 3042

## Resource

In this episode, Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl deeply explore the science of the emotional brain: why the mind is a storyteller, what split-brain research reveals about consciousness, how brain asymmetry shapes emotion, why some people approach opportunity with optimism while others withdraw, and what meditation may do to the brain and immune system. Enjoy! See below for FLASHCARDS , Full Transcript Below Watch on Youtube ; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts . FLASHCARDS / EPISODE COMPANION HERE Podcast Chapter List (00:00:00) – The brain is a storyteller (00:01:03) – Welcome to Dharma Lab (00:04:05) – Norman Geschwind and behavioral neurology (00:06:31) – The thumbtack story: emotional memory without conscious memory (00:12:12) – Language, the left hemisphere, and the corpus callosum (00:19:04) – Brain asymmetry and emotion (00:22:54) – Why emotion was so understudied (00:29:26) – Brain asymmetry, attachment, and aversion (00:31:19) – The prefrontal cortex and the old divide between thought and feeling (00:37:07) – Studying emotion in newborn infants (00:42:37) – Meditation, brain asymmetry, and the immune system (00:47:04) – Why “it’s not so simple” Written transcript for those who prefer to read Lightly edited for clarity and readability. The Brain Is a Storyteller (00:00:00) Cortland Dahl: The example you gave earlier, with Broca’s area and the split-brain findings, points to something fascinating. Parts of the brain are not always talking to each other. One part of the brain clearly knows something, but the part that communicates doesn’t. And it doesn’t stay silent. It makes something up. That’s the funny thing. In the absence of information, we don’t just stay silent. When we don’t know something, we are not comfortable with not knowing. Some instinctual par…

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## Transcript

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