Working With Phantom Limbs.

I'm hoping this thread will do as a place to talk about Phandom Limbs. Somewhere to offer advise, answer questions, and sharing techniques.
_

What follows is an adaptation about how I perceive what it is that I do, regarding my pantom limbs, adapted to an exercise.
This is stuff that I do naturally, but in the hopes some of it offers new insight, I'm offering it. Also, while this works this well for me it may not work for everyone else.

The core of this work is Meditation and Concentration.
Some basic understanding of your own flow of energy will help as well, but the exercise might help you become more aware of it as well.
Be mindful that enough concentration can create a phantom limb even if you don't come with one. The mind is a powerful thing.

First, I suggest you work on the limb itself, as a separate part of your body. Just start with something simple. From whichever standpoint feels comfortable to you (meditation/concentration/energy) just concentrate on the limb itself. Feel it, how it's shaped, the weight and such. (Don't touch, just feel at this point.)
Once you are comfortable, then move the limb. Feel how it moves, every joint and muscle and how the skin on top (if you have these biological components as part of your make up of course, whatever else you could replace it with is fine) is move and are pulled by the movements. Study these sensations and just play around for a while, become comfortable with every little feel of the limb.
The next thing is to link the physical and the limb. This is for the sake of physical comfort as well as for the sake of future interaction with the limb. Again, move the limb but this time let your physical body react naturally to the motions. While we don't have the muscles of the wing joint the physical muscles we do have that would surround it would be affected by the motions a little bit. This step is to allow this motion. Line up your body with the phantom limbs to create and align "connecting points" (the phenomenon sometimes referred to as wing-spots for instance) in the places where the limb would be protruding from your physical body if they were a part of it.
(I do this specifically because I'm a 5' short critter in a 6'2" body and this helps me align with whole of my body.)
When you feel like your physical and metaphysical body are set in their places, reach out and touch the connecting point(s) if you can reach them and feel the limb with your hand. See how far you can move your hand from the actual physical connection point and still feel the limb with it. And also how long you feel the hand with the limb.

I do not have to concentrate to feel my phantom limbs really, I pivot the ears and flick the tail and feel every detail without effort so I do understand if this all seems redundant to some/most of you.

Now. A short and simple exercise for the sake of phantom-limb interaction between two people.

You'll need a partner for this exercise. Someone who is as comfortable with his/her phantom limbs as you are with yours and knows what phantom limbs you have. It helps if this is also a person you trust and knows "something" about energy work.

Concentrate on a specific phantom limb and become fully aware of it. Then have your partner touch the connecting point gently, preferably just with fingertips. Concentrate on the feel of the person's fingers and hand and flex the limb. See if they feel the change in energy or quite simply the limb itself. The sensations to have a limb touched by another person (a limb that you may not have physically possessed in a very long time) can be great/strange/nice.
Rinse and repeat as needed/desired.

Heightened emotions can affect the ability to feel/be felt, not always to a reduced effect.
_

Anyways, hope this helps someone.

This was very interesting to read and it's got some great suggestions! Thanks for sharing it!

And I'm going to have to try the partner phantom limb exercise. It would be very surreal if someone else could feel my ears and tail for a change!

I'm going to ditto Elinox.

As far as partner work may go, would you think that it'd be possible to do essentially the same thing to something like a can or empty bottle? Those would be easier to get than a partner, even though I do have a friend relatively close that may work out.

Also add that while he reports being able to feel me touch phantom limbs, I can barely feel the returning stroke at all. Any tips for enhancing astral sense, anyone?

Silyon Wrote:As far as partner work may go, would you think that it'd be possible to do essentially the same thing to something like a can or empty bottle? Those would be easier to get than a partner, even though I do have a friend relatively close that may work out.

While objects does have energy it's less interactive than that of another person as well as less powerful/strong/distinct. Might work, might not.

As for enhancing senses... best bet out there is to simply concentrate and work on them, you know... practice...

This actually is extremely helpful.

I'm going to go learn about my tail. =D

*trips and falls over himself*

Well I'll be damned, I half expected the post to be replied to with nothing more than references to this as something that people already do. ^^ Glad to be of service.

Freetha Wrote:*trips and falls over himself*

Well I'll be damned, I half expected the post to be replied to with nothing more than references to this as something that people already do. ^^ Glad to be of service.

I don't know why, but for some reason it never occured to me to try anything other than just enjoying the phantom limb sensation! The idea of someone else being able to sense the energy and touch body parts that aren't there is a great idea and I really wish I'd heard/thought to try it sooner! While I feel my phantom limbs almost on a daily basis, it's comes so natural to me that I just never thought to experiment with seeing if other people could sense/feel them too. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for posting this, I'll have to try it! This is awesome!

Thanks for sharing. I have been trying to work it out with my own way and am not sure how it works. So it is great to be able to learn from your techniques, though I don't have a partner of this sort and can only practise half of it. <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s -->

*nods* Really good advice there Freetha.

Now, me being me (and you know what that means) if you want to up the ante on the experiments, there is an exercise I have.

Unfortunately it doesn't work with most limbs, it works best if you have a tail, or tentacles, though I'm sure any opposable phantom limb could be included.

Basically, sit with your back to your partner, you being the one with tail(s) and tentacle(s). Looking back, create a square, you can draw it in chalk, put down tape, or sometime to mark the edges. Then divide the square into smaller sections. I usually use nine (3 x 3), any more can get confusing for you. You then assign each square a letter, a number, something, so you can refer to them. Then turn back around, an position your tail(s) or tentacle(s) to rest along a set of squares, depending on how prehensile you are, you can coil it within a specific square. Then the partner is to feel across the squares, and try to find your phantom limbs, then you can either have them say it, or to be more objective, write it down (both of you, where you are, and where they sense you) and compare later.

I like it because it's a good energy sensing game, and helps validate the thought that there is /something/ there.