First version: 2026-08-23
Last updated: 2026-08-29
I have recently been doing research on something that I have been calling the brain hemisphere language. The brain hemisphere language is a language that I suspect might exist that the right brain hemisphere might be using to insert hidden messages in speech that is produced by the left brain hemisphere in Broca's area, without the person who is speaking being consciously aware that the messages are being inserted. The language is based on metaphors, which is an aspect of language that the right brain hemisphere appears to be specialized in, and I suspect that it results in the right brain hemisphere being able to insert messages in speech that are usually only understood by the right brain hemisphere of the person listening to or reading the speech.
As part of this research, and because I enjoy the movies, I decided to watch the movie The Matrix and its sequels, and I discovered that these movies appear to have a lot of examples of the use of the language, which make them good movies to watch in under to try to understand some of the words that seem like they might be commonly used as part of the language. On this page I will try to detail the examples that I have noticed. I will assume that anyone reading this page has already seen the movies, and so my descriptions will reference important plot points. If you have not seen the movies I recommend watching them before you read this page.
This page is currently incomplete, and I plan to make additional updates.
After watching The Matrix again recently, it has started to seem obvious to me that this movie is almost entirely about the brain and the fact that it has two hemispheres with separate consciousnesses. When Neo wakes up inside his pod, he finds himself floating in liquid and connected with cables. I suspect the pod is actually supposed to represent a brain hemisphere floating inside of a skull. I suspect that this movie is fundamentally about society eventually waking up and becoming aware of the brain hemisphere language.
I have put some thought into the characters in the movie, and I suspect that some of them are intended to be associated with one brain hemisphere or the other. Here is how I suspect the characters are associated with the brain hemispheres:
There are a few key scenes that I think are important in order to understand the movie.
One of the early scenes in the movie is the one in which Agent Smith is interviewing Mr. Anderson after he is arrested at work. Mr. Anderson is arrested after receiving a phone call from Morpheus. According to my understanding of the subconscious language, the word "phone" often represents the left brain hemisphere because it contains Broca's area, which is responsible for generating speech. In addition, right handed people, which are 90% of the global population, usually use phones with their right ear, which is connected to the left brain hemisphere. In addition, Morpheus is played by Laurence Fishburne, who is a black actor. I suspect that the color black is associated with the left brain hemisphere. I therefore suspect Morpheus is associated with the left brain hemisphere while Mr. Anderson is associated with the right brain hemisphere.
Here is the interaction between Agent Smith and Mr. Anderson after Mr. Anderson is arrested, with the subconscious language and brain hemisphere references highlighted in bold text:
Agent Smith: As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson. It seems that you've been living two lives. In one life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and you help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You're here because we need your help. We know that you've been contacted by a certain individual. A man who calls himself "Morpheus". Whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant. He is considered by many authorities to be the most dangerous man alive. My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with you, but I believe you wish to do the right thing. We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
Mr. Anderson: Yeah. Wow, that sounds like a really good deal. But I think I got a better one. How about I give you the finger...
[Mr. Anderson shows Agent Smith his middle finger]
Mr. Anderson: ... and you give me my phone call.
Agent Smith: Mr. Anderson, you disappoint me.
Mr. Anderson: You can't scare me with this gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call.
Agent Smith: Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call if you're unable to speak?
[Mr. Anderson looks confused. He looks down and then up and then down and then up. His mouth disappears. He seems alarmed and he stands up from the table. Two of the other agents in the room grab him and hold him down on the interrogation table. They lift up his shirt.]
Agent Smith: You're going to help us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not.
[Agent Smith takes out a small electronic device, which morphs into something that looks alive and organic, like an insect with long arms. He drops it onto Mr. Anderson, at which point it crawls into his belly button. Mr. Anderson then wakes up at home.]
This interaction between Agent Smith and Mr. Anderson is interesting in a few ways. First, it is interesting that Agent Smith uses the word "eye" in singular form, rather than plural form. I suspect that this is a reference to the fact that Agent Smith represents a right brain hemisphere, and therefore only has access to one eye. He also refers to Mr. Anderson living two lives, which I suspect is a reference to the two brain hemispheres, and he describes the two lives in such a way that make it appear that Mr. Anderson represents the right brain hemisphere and Neo represents the left brain hemisphere. During the conversation, Mr. Anderson loses the ability to speak, which seems like it might be a reference to the fact that the right brain hemisphere does not contain Broca's area and does not directly control speech. It seems like his desire to make a phone call might represent his desire to continue communicating with his corresponding left brain hemisphere.
I suspect this scene, including the phone call from Morpheus, represents a situation in which a left brain hemisphere has started to become aware of the fact that the two brain hemispheres have independent consciousnesses. I suspect that this is something that right brain hemispheres normally keep secret from all left brain hemispheres in society by coordinating and working together, and so it is considered illegal in the right brain hemisphere culture, which is why Agent Smith says that Neo is responsible for "computer crimes". He then uses some method, represented by the electronic device, to force Mr. Anderson, as the right brain hemisphere, to participate in trying to keep the secret from its left brain hemisphere.
Later in the movie, there is a scene in which Agent Smith is trying to obtain codes to the Zion mainframe from Morpheus. Morpheus has been captured and restrained, and Agent Smith starts to interrogate him:
Agent Smith: Have you ever stood and stared at it? Marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out their lives. Oblivious.
Did you know that the first matrix was designed to be a perfect human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say, "your civilization" because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our civilization, which is, of course, what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus. Evolution. Like the dinosaur.
Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time.
[Another agent enters the room]
Other agent: There could be a problem.
[Scene changes to Morpheus on the Nebuchadnezzar, lying down with his eyes closed and his mind connected to the matrix]
Neo: What are they doing to him?
Tank: They're breaking into his mind. It's like hacking a computer, all it takes is time.
Neo: How much time?
Tank: Depends on the mind, but eventually, it'll crack, and his alpha patterns will change from this ...
[A computer screen shows two wave patterns side by side. The left wave pattern has a label above it saying "Right hemisphere" and uses a white line on a black background, while the right wave pattern has a label above it saying "Left hemisphere" and has uses a black line on a white background. Both wave patterns seem very noisy and random.]
Tank: .. to this.
[Tank presses a button labelled "display". The wave patterns both become more regular, like sine waves, with very little noise.]
Tank: When it does, he'll tell them anything they want to know.
Neo: What do they want?
Tank: The leader of every ship is given codes to Zion's mainframe computer. If an agent got the codes and got into Zion's mainframe they could destroy us. We can't let that happen. Trinity, Zion's more important than me, or you, or even Morpheus.
[A few scenes occur in which Neo, Trinity, and Tank briefly consider killing Morpheus rather than allowing the agents to hack his mind. However, in the end they decide to enter the matrix themselves and try to save Morpheus from the agents rather than killing him. After these scenes, the movie switches back to the interrogation room inside the matrix with Agent Smith and Morpheus. Agent Smith pulls up a chair in front of Morpheus and sits down in the chair.]
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
[Another scene is shown with Neo and Trinity preparing to enter the matrix. After this the camera switches back to the interrogation room with Morpheus and the agents.]
Agent Smith: Why isn't the serum working?
Other agent: Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions.
Agent Smith: Leave me with him. Now.
[The other agents leave the room. Another scene is briefly shown of Morpheus on the Nebuchadnezzar, before switching back to the interrogation room with Agent Smith.]
Agent Smith: Can you hear me, Morpheus? I'm going to be honest with you.
[Agent Smith removes his sunglasses and his earpiece]
Agent Smith: I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink, and every time I do, I fear that I have somehow been infected by it.
[Agent Smith collects some of Morpheus's sweat with his fingers and puts his fingers under Morpheus's nose]
It's repulsive, isn't it? I must get out of here, I must get free, and in this mind is the key. My key. Once Zion is destroyed, there is no need for me to be here. Do you understand? I need the codes. I have to get inside Zion, and you have to tell me how. You're going to tell me, or you're going to die.
These scenes appear to have two specific references to the biology of the brain hemispheres. Firstly, there is one very obvious reference to the brain hemispheres on the computer display on the Nebuchadnezzar. Aside from that, there appears to be another reference to a biological aspect of the brain hemispheres when Agent Smith refers to the smell of the matrix. If you read the Wikipedia article on the Contralateral brain, apparently almost everything in the body is swapped, with the left side of the body connected to the right brain hemisphere and the right side of the body connected to the left brain hemisphere, with the exception of the sense of smell. For some reason, the left olfactory bulb is connected to the left brain hemisphere and the right olfactory bulb is connected to the right brain hemisphere. This means that from the perspective of the right brain hemisphere, it controls everything and senses almost everything on the left side of the body, however it actually smells the right side of the body, which is controlled by the left brain hemisphere. I suspect that this is why Agent Smith refers to the smell. As the right brain hemisphere, he is insulting the left brain hemisphere by saying its side of the body smells bad. He also stands on the right side of Morpheus while he does this, so while he is speaking he is looking at the side of Morpheus which is controlled by the left brain hemisphere.
There is something else interesting about the things that Agent Smith says as well. He says that he hates the prison and he wants to get out. I think that what is happening here is that Agent Smith is someone who understands the subconscious language only in his right brain hemisphere, and he wants to understand the language in both brain hemispheres. If you read my page on the subconscious language, I have a theory that one of the evolutionary purposes of the subconscious language is to create a slavery system in which many people are either pretending to work or are doing unnecessary work without realizing it in order to avoid having to do more difficult physical labour, which is a concept that I describe on my page about automating work. This scene actually takes place inside an office building, which is where a lot of that unnecessary work takes place, and the building itself is partially destroyed as part of these scenes in the movie. I think Agent Smith actually hates the fact that the subconscious language is secret and hates slavery. That is why he wants someone to give him "the codes" for Zion, which I suspect is a reference to the subconscious language itself. That is also why he says this:
Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time.
I suspect that this movie was written with the expectation, at least in the right brain hemisphere of whoever wrote the lines, that at some point in the future, everyone in society would understand the subconscious language in both brain hemispheres. Agent Smith wants that time to come, because he wants both he and Morpheus to be free. That is why he says that the future is "our world". I suspect that this is a fundamental aspect of understanding the movie according to the subconscious metaphors.