Strange Phantom Quills

(I also posted this on WL for a little more possible feedback)

For a good while now, somewhere around maybe a little over a years or so, I’ve been experiencing these phantom ‘things’ on my back. Even from the very start they were fairly vivid presences, but they rarely occurred and did not last long, and so rarely thought about them seriously. When I first started having them I didn’t really take much notice of them, and kind of shrugged them off as phantom wings of some sort as a cameo shift. After a while though, I began to notice that they kept coming back and that they were not wings. For a good while I didn’t know what they were, they were just this presence and phantom feeling on my back that came and went a lot. As of late though, over something like four to six months, these somethings have become more and more common and have virtually become constant phantoms along with my phantom tail and ears.

They are not wings; they are far to small, and their shape is not like that of any kind of wing I know of. They are more like quills or spines, but even that is not quite right. There in the same place you would expect wings to be: one on each side of my back set just between the lower part of my shoulder blades. On each of these two places covering a base of about four or five inches there are what feels like four or five quill-like things that form a line on each of these two spots. Each quill in itself is about eight to ten inches long depending on where it is down my back. These quills are not straight and inflexible, they have a kind of jointed curvature to them and they almost seem delicate if that makes any sense. They are usually up and stick-out from my back, but they can and I can make them lay down flat along my back like folding up a fan.

(Here is a rough sketch of kind of what the phantom quills feel like they look like and where they set on my back. Sorry in advance but drawing people is not my strong suit and it is only a sketch. The colored circles on the second sketch represents where the quills set on my back because I just couldn’t draw the quills right foreshortened. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll91/EarthListener/Arts%20and%20Crafts/quills.jpg">http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll91 ... quills.jpg</a><!-- m -->).

One interesting thing I have to note about these quills is how their presence on my back reacts when ever I am doing various spirituality-related activates. When ever I have rituals, meditate, or even just try and have a voluntary mental or phantom shift for some reason the phantom quills reach greatly. They begin to tingle and feel like their full of static in some way. This fact, was one of primary reasons I began to take great notice of them in the first place. Its not to greatly uncommon for me to have some degree of a metal shift or have a phantom limb become more vivid while doing some kind of spirituality or whatnot related activity, but noting compares to how these phantom quills react.

I don’t know if these ‘quills’ are an emergence of a second theriotype, or an emergence of some part of my ‘wolf self’ as a whole, or if its just something I’m experiencing. What I have somewhat been able to figure out is that the quills are not like anything I can remember on any kind of living animal like a porcupine, echidna, or even lionfish to name a few. In some ways, the phantom quills don’t really feel like they are a part of a second theriotype or anything. There just, well, there.

Maybe they are just something I will now just experience along with my phantom ears and tail. Then again, maybe simply a passing ‘thing’ I am experiencing for sometime, like a very long drawn-out cameo shift of sorts. Maybe the ‘quills’ are a part of my therianthropy or whatnot in some fashion that has only just begun to surface. Perhaps, maybe these quills are just another part of my very growing insanity. I’m not fully sure, but regardless I still trying to keep an open mind about these phantom quill things.

Any thoughts, comments, and whatnot on this? I would much appreciate it.

Hmm, well I was thinking long-spined sea urchin, but then you said they seem soft and almost delicate. So that makes me wonder if they're related to something like a nudibranch. If you blew a nudibranch up to human size, their gills would be about that long too.

Sounds like possibly a totem-related thing in my head.

How unusual. The tentacles-things of a nudibranch does fit the soft and delicate bill, but I’m not sure. Both it and the possibility that I might be feeling these phantom quills because of a totem is something I’ll look into.

Then again, while the phantom quills don’t feel the same way like my phantom tail and ears, they still feel like their mine and not from exactly an outside influence. Then again, that may not mean anything or that they are not from a totem.

Or they're symbolic.

I‘ve been kind of leaning towards that idea a bit in some ways. That they don’t really have an actual connection to my therianthropy and what not and they are just their because they are there.

Then again what they might be symbolic of I don’t know. So many different possible causes to look into. Thanks for all the help. ^ ^ Anything other ideas, perhaps? This discussing is really helping me get my brain turn over all sort of possible ‘causes.’

Well they almost seem like wings...only not. Someone on the werelist mentioned that they sounded like the stumps left behind when someone cuts your wings off...so perhaps *that* has some meaningful symbolism in your life?

That seems to make sense, something to think about. While they don’t act or long like wings in themselves, if their only symbolic they don’t really have to be then.

No one has really ‘cut off my wings’ in a symbolic way in my life, though. Or at least none that I know of. In fact, my future life is looking up in some ways more and more. But still maybe…

Perhaps they mean you're Cthulu-kin. Just a thought <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s -->

*makes an sound* <!-- s:shock: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" title="Shocked" /><!-- s:shock: --> ...maybe not…

This doesn't fit exactly, but my first thought was of the hairs that stand up on the back of canines (and felines) when they feel threatened.