The Temporal Lobe Gateway: Penfield's Discovery of Consciousness Separation

Of Wilder Penfield's 520 patients, 40 experienced something that should have been impossible. When he stimulated their temporal lobe with electricity, they didn't just remember experiences - they left their bodies entirely, floating above the operating table and observing their own surgery from outside themselves.

Penfield had accidentally discovered the neural gateway to consciousness separation - the exact brain region where awareness could detach from physical reality. But this final episode reveals the terrifying question: if consciousness can be separated from the body through temporal lobe stimulation, what happens to that detached awareness? And who else learned to access this gateway remotely?