Following is the full transcript of Emmy-nominated screenwriter Sarah-Jane “SJ” Murray’s TEDx Talk: Hardwired for Story at TEDxSanAntonio conference. This event occurred on November 18, 2017.
TRANSCRIPT:
So, it’s a beautiful day in Ireland. You know, it’s not raining, which is rare.
And today, the sun is just hitting off the ocean as it laps up against the shore. Just one of those days where the little baby seals are lying down on the rocks, and they’re sunbathing and they’re playing in the water. And if you squinch your eyes up back over the sand dunes, at the top of the sand dunes you’ll see a beautiful green field. And in that field, there’s a herd of cows. Behind the field, there’s a little wooden fence.
And behind the fence sits a little yellow bungalow with a blue door. Behind that door lurks Slattery, the standard poodle. Now, ever since he was young, Slattery has had a call to greatness. He yearns, in his little poodle heart, to be nothing more than a sheep dog.
So every Sunday morning he waits. And he paces, back and forward, because he knows that sooner or later, one of his children, who live in the house, will leave that back door cracked just enough for him to get his fluffy black nose into it. And he’ll scoot it open, and he’s off. Across the yard. He clears that fence like a jumper pony. He is running through the grasses and the wind, his little poodle heart free. And he chases down those cows. And before you know it, he has them running in a perfect circle.
Now, if you think this is a quintessential image, you’ve got to hear what happens next. You see, if you’re standing by the back door of the bungalow, what happens next is a giant ball of fuschia runs out of the house, clears the fence faster than the poodle, heads off across the field after the dog, screaming and waving its hands. And that would be my mother in her very bright, pink nightie wearing her Wellington boots.
This image of my childhood is engraved in my brain. Is it really any surprise that I grew up playing with imaginary friends and with words? For better or for worse, it’s now engraved in your brains too. And that’s because you’ve just experienced a phenomenon called “neural coupling.” You know, we’ve all sat in those really boring presentations where it just feels like the speaker is droning on with this monotone voice and they have those giant PowerPoint slides with the tiny font. Like, where do they get that font, anyway? Like, it’s so small.
And when I sit in those meetings now, I don’t feel guilty for falling asleep because thanks to the neuroresearch done on neural coupling, I know that the speaker is literally speaking your brain to sleep. You see, if you tell a story well and you’re not just talking about language, you’re causing all your brain to fire on many, many cylinders. So when you’re listening to the PowerPoint, and you’re only, as you’re processing the language on screen, only the language part of your brain is working. But when you think of a fluffy, black standard poodle clearing a fence and running after cows, then the part of your brain that processes motion fires up.
And if I tell you, in addition, that it’s a beautiful sunny day, and that the sky is blue, and the wind just is blowing the grasses and you can hear them rustling in the field, then the part of your brain that processes colors fires up.
And what if I were to tell you that if you just take a deep breath, you can smell the ocean, in fact, you can even taste the salt on your lips? Well then, you’ve guessed it. The part of your brain that processes taste and smells fire up. In fact, we know today that the way the brain of someone listening to a great story functions, it mirrors the brain of the person telling the story. In fact, there is such a little difference between these brain activities that the brain of the person listening to the story mirrors the brain of the person living the adventure for the first time. What that means is if you’ve ever read something like Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” and you’ve thought, “Wow, I almost feel like I went to the concentration camps,” that’s because, to all intents and purposes, to your brain, you did.