Feeling it drop on my PROSTHETIC toes

Bodies are SO WEIRD!
#Amputee #Prosthetic #Phantom

[FootlessJo]

For anyone curious how I lost my leg, my whole story is here! ➡️

I appreciate you being here & being interested! 💜

[hurricane]

Maybe _this_ is why it's so annoying when your sibling "isn't touching you" but is like 99.9% of the way there

[SamirCCat]

This is why most people get uncomfortable seeing someone else injuring themselves. They are un-harmed, but their brain have a huge capacity for empathy and "feel" the other person's pain. Maybe it's so we can protect our children when they can't pretect themselves? We need to feel other people's pain for human social life to work.

[Snahagebcnx]

I went through the rubber hand experiment it was so bizarre how I felt the brush strokes on the rubber hand. It had been discussed that ppl with higher anxiety feel it. Hope that sheds a bit of light to your experience.

[dustycookies]

This is like how in dreams you still kinda feel pain. You can’t usually feel things but when you go through a lot of pain in a dream you definitely remember the pain a bit

[nixthelapin]

They did something like this on Brain Games: they had people sit down and hide one of their arms behind a curtain then put a fake rubber arm next to them. To “link” the two, they brushed over both with a paint brush (seeing the rubber hand while feeling the real hand). Then they surprised them by pulling out a hammer and hitting the rubber hand. Most felt it!

[gcooper]

You've just made me realise I don't get phantom feelings in the missing part of my foot anymore. I used to get itches that I couldn't scratch. I'm not sure when it stopped and I don't know why, but I haven't noticed it in a long, long time. The body is a curious thing. I still can't feel anyone touching the area that was skin grafted even if I watch them touching me.

[Pixelcraftian]

The leg: _literally does not exist_
The body: _”Hey watch out”_

[larryxiang]

The leg: *Not existing*
Brain: “LEG SAYS THEYVE TAKEN A CRITICAL HIT”

[himearikawa]

This happens to some vr players. For me, if I stick my hand in a wall and I can somewhat feel it. This also means you have feel touch in places that don't exist at all like wings.

[hexagonal]

Even without nerve endings, your brain can still simulate the pain. It’s like getting your kart to drive itself with auto acceleration and assistive steering in Mario Kart. You don’t technically need a controller for it but it’ll still finish the race.

[cryxlz]

Yoooo this is something I learned about recently in a psychology class!

Basically this has a lot to do with the somatosensory cortex of the brain, in the parietal lobe (top part of the brain). This cortex processes the sensory info from the body (the info from the touch sense, including temperature and pain). This cortex is also the reason for phantom pains in amputees, as their body image in this cortex is thrown off by the signals being cut off from the limb that was amputated.

Here the weight, although not causing any pain directly because there isn’t any nerves there, causes pain because the body knows you dropped a weight and your body image perceives the weight you are seeing fall to be threatening to your foot (even though there is only a prosthetic foot the cant sense anything there). As a result when it makes impact, your somatosensory cortex registers pain, all because your brain thought it would hurt.

Ps: if anyone who sees this has better knowledge on this topic and wants to correct any inaccuracies I might have made or concepts I misunderstood pls do

[stilickoh]

a lotta people in virtual reality have apparently trained themselves to feel things they see done to themselves in vr. It’s pretty interesting and they usually call it phantom touch, pain, or pleasure.

[zyrandomness]

So phantom sensation is your brain going “something’s supposed to happen, I will make it happen”
So it’s like when people automatically say ow even if it doesn’t hurt?

[lilgustav]

This is a big thing in virtual reality. Games like vrchat, very popular for dating, people can sometimes feel hugs and cuddle with their partner. It's very intriguing

[mywither]

This is actually a somewhat studied thing, displayed more often with a magic trick of a fake hand being tickled at the same time as the real one (while the real one is out of sight) and then having the fake hand hit with a hammer, your brain kind of takes possession of it, and, when expecting to feel pain, it does even if nothing actually happens.

[vestaash]

I had something similar happen once. I had done SFX makeup that looked like my right cheek had been ripped off & you could see my teeth (which were cut up and shaped fake nails). I knew I wasn’t hurt, I knew it was morticians wax and makeup, but after seeing it in the mirror all night long, my face really started to hurt. Like, really bad. My mind convinced me that I had an injury that I obviously didn’t have. But as soon as I took it all off, the pain stopped. It was crazy. I’d done the exact makeup before (practice for the event) and I know that it wasn’t an allergy thing. My mind just convinced itself that something bad happened. So I guess confused phantom pain? 😂

[rebeccaromano]

I love how you explain everything in such a fun and vibrant attitude ♡

[sinx]

"I can feel my leg, and my arm, even my fingers... The body I've lost, the comrades I've lost... Won't stop hurting! It's like they're all still there!"

[cmousers]

As someone who enjoy the science of pain, this is often super neat. For example there is a case report of a tradesman who had a nail go through his boot. It went between his toes, but he felt like it went through his foot.

Or where cameras were hooked up with VR headsets to make you see through someone else's eyes. The psin the camera person was given was often felt by the headset person

Edit: spelling