bicameral minds

Noun

bicameral mind (plural bicameral minds)

1. The hypothetical mentality, neurology and sociology of the theory that before the historical emergence of introspective consciousness ancient humans and the earliest civilizations were governed by auditory hallucinations ‘spoken’ by the right cerebral hemisphere and ‘heard’ by the left hemisphere as the voices of gods.
   • In distinction to our own subjective conscious minds, we can call the mentality of the Myceneans a bicameral mind. pg.75
   • The bicameral mind is ... that form of social control which allowed mankind to move from small hunter-gatherer groups to large agricultural communities… pg.126
   • The two hemispheres of the brain are not the bicameral mind… [It] is an ancient mentality demonstrated in the literature and artifacts of antiquity. pg.456
   • [At Delphi in C.E. 363] the bicameral mind had come to one of its many ends. pg.3311976, Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1990

   Synonyms:

   bicamerality, bicameral mentality