Where the Soul Swims

Since the last entry, much has transpired. If anatomy is the metric by which I can track my progress and medical education, then I have ascended to the next level of understanding: we saw our cadaver's face. Some said that the visage of their cadaver will remain impressed on their memory cells (which ironically we removed later in lab). While I'd like to believe that there can possibly be eddy's in this new flow of information in and out of my mind, collecting pools of memories and emotions, I know too well the results of fast paced learning: everything is forgettable and it is often not under the control of the individual which experiences crystallize permanently in our memory and which become fleeting moments.

The exposure and removal of the brain was truly existential. Exposing the centerpiece of human existence to the open air, removing and feeling it, and realizing that I had cut through not only the skull but also the dura mater surrounding the cerebrum and the brain tissue itself was a new kind of exercise. I found myself thinking about where in the brain itself my experience of seeing the brain was stored. Dr. Stefan told us that some people say that the soul 'lives' in the ventricles (the open spaces) within the brain and then contended that, if the soul did in fact live there, it would in truth be swimming since the ventricles are the factories that produce the
cerebrospinalfluid which coats the brain and spinal column. Is this woman's entire existance contained in the 4 pound mass that we held in our hands?