#yes its nighttime if anyone was wondering if you couldn't tell

[scarperseus]

I was reading some research about split brain patients, or people who have had the connection of the brain hemispheres (or corpus callosum) severed, leaving the two halves unable to communicate. And of course I immediately thought of Jekyll and Hyde.

Now I am one to know very well that J&H are not split personalities nor "brain sides", but the similarities are so neat I don't see why I couldn't dive in a little deeper into representation. I know this has most likely been looked into before as them being the two brain sides, but I wonder if ever in a much more real life situation like in split brain patients, (their experiments are trippy, I recommend watching them), not just in a hypothetical sense.

As Hyde representing the right brain, it definitely works as a really good "villain origin story". Since that hemisphere does not have the ability to speak, when working and connected with the left brain it is forced to submit to the more "analytical and reasoning" side. When Hyde is set free, he now has a voice and a freedom in what to do, where now the left brain has to submit (hence Jekyll not being able to change back since reasoning isn't priority, only want). That feeling is intoxicating for one who's never known it.

The right brain is primarily used for senses, identification, etc., so Hyde only cares about chasing his desires. Now able to figure out things for himself, without having to do whatever the left brain says, anything is possible. That feeling of unexplainable actions is very obvious in split brain patients (the left hand, controlled by the right brain, draws something that the left brain doesn't know the reason for) where the horror of this story being a possibility is much more conceivable.

So, who really are you? Or was Stevenson right and you.. were always really two?