phantoms in the brain- a study and analysis

i realise now this is much more sciency than my normal posts, and indeed my normal speech, so there may be words and such used wrong or it may read off! my bad!


**EDIT: i have decided to split this up into several posts because i am so fascinated. this first post only explores the first 30 or so pages.i will make further posts in the future on more pages!! **


hi there everyone! i found an interesting book, with a lot of research on phantom limbs and the functions of the human brain and nervous systems, and thought i would share it here since it helped me interpret many of my own phantom limbs related to therianthropy! this is all, of course, my personal take and look at the science. i will do this in quite a formal analytical format, but hopefully it will be informative for u all! if you would like to read the book for yourselves, its 'Phantoms in the Brain' by Sandra Blakeslee and V.S. Ramachandran. i found it in my school library! please bear in mind that, since this was published in the late 90's many of the practices or sciences may be out of date or disproved. even so, i thought it was interesting to share my finds! the key parts i looked at for phantom limbs were pages 21-57 ^^. think of this like a.... detached essay of sorts. i take snippets from the text, or things i have learned, and evaluate them. where i can, i connect and theorise them to therianthropy, specifically psychological therians. this is all very theoretical, and raises more questions than it answers really, as welll as being very in depth and long winded. in fact, i may update this as i read the book, so i have an at the time and up to date perception. consider it like a diary of sorts, of how i perceive the book. im writing as im reading, so with introspection some of my idea may be stupid or entirely false, this is just how i see things at first glance, u will notice how my ideas develop and change as the post progresses, because i have just read more to feedback on X3. i am a biology A level student, not a scientist. this is all a theory, and i cannot prove it. perhaps though, learning if others experiences mirror mine would be useful? i talked abt this briefly in the discord aswell, and id be happy to discuss it here or there further!! this truly fascinates me. those that asked to be tagged: @Wolfie @Greenleaf8 @Z1ppy.0fflin3 @SproutTheAlterhuman @AgitatedSneaker (u didnt ask to be tagged, but u did talk in the discussion, so i thought ya might be interested ^^)

my first point comes from before the talk of phantom limbs at all, pages 13-14 talking about the differences between brain connections in a natural and taken smile. the authors explained that, whilst natural intuition and brain function circumvented the 'processing' parts of the brain to produce a natural smile, its instinctual with no thought, that a 'taken' smile by someone like a photographer looks completely different because our brains recognise the speech and look of a camera, rather than the natural look of a face, causing us to react differently and use a different cortex of the brain. thus the smile looks unnatural, as it is not produced in the same area as a normal smile would be. the author explained this in context of strokes. if a patient with a small stroke affecting one area of the basal ganglia (that smile area) sees a loved one, they may smile with only half their mouth, because the stroke damaged the parts controlling the other side. however, if you asked that same person to smile for a photo they explained, the person could smile with both sides of the mouth, unnaturally, proving that it comes from an entirely separate and therefore undamaged part of the brain. my phantom limbs, i feel, react in a similarly instinctual way. you will hear many therians say that shifts are (most of the time) involuntary, and for me this is certainly true. i cannot consciously command them at all- they just naturally appear, usually as an expression of emotion. if someone asked me "can you feel a phantom tail right now?" the sensation dissipates because it no longer feels natural, instead forced and commanded. in this way, i likened my shifts like the genuine smile. my tail is spontaneous and natural, i do not have to think it for it to be there. if i am angered, i instinctively pull back my gums to snarl, and lash my tail. no one taught me these things, at least not in a human concept, but they are so instinctual i cannot reproduce them on command. a snarl of anger is not performative, it is natural. if you ask me to snarl for a camera? i cant, its like a forced script and it comes out all wrong... human like in a way, like my brain redirects itself to the 'correct programming' and can no longer express it. maybe in this way, one could suggest that our shifts are a 'natural reprogramming' of the more primitive and shaped parts of the brain, that this is just our smile loop of sorts, that it developed as an unconscious response that cannot be artificially controlled. but for all this, i kept wondering how phantom limbs were even possible in the first place. how does the brain even recognise something that cannot biologically have ever been there on our human bodies? sure past lives could explain a remembering of some functions, but what of those of us that dont have past lives? so i read on :3

chapter 2; 'knowing where to scratch' is literally allll about phantom limbs! i got super excited at this fact, and probably overanalysed it all (my bad!). unfortunately though, because they stories and explanations are all about HUMAN experiences and lost limbs (not those that were not biologically there in the first place) a lot of this is supposition, me simply putting the authors' words into a different order and context to guess at the theory of phantom limbs in therians specifically. its a whole other science, more about the programming, memory and wiring of the brain than neurology since we never had those limbs, but also partially neurological too since the sensations are performed in a similar manner. a mere memory cannot perfectly reconstruct or change and adapt a phantom limb to the angle one is standing at, or the heat of an argument, thats developmental and constant. totally different wiring, just like how the authors look into with missing human limbs and how they respond to previous functions, even if the arm is no longer there. i do not need my tail to balance, yet i instinctively sway it from side to side when on a stone wall to stop me from falling, as if ive always done so and its needed for survival. the book explained that these patients experiencing phantom limbs were not crazy, and that the sensations could be so realistic they do not even realise they are missing the part removed. the limbs can even produce pain, and some stories describe experiences in the detached limb that could still be 'felt' in the patient who lost it. of course this dosent explain limbs that never existed, but perhaps it can help us understand how they work. why does my phantom tail move in such uncanny, natural motions even if it cannot do so? why does it respond, twitch, change, spike the fur, even if i have not consciously made it do so, and i have never had a tail in which to learn all these things? to quote "why would an arm persist in the patients mind long after it had been removed? why doesnt the mind simply accept the loss and 'reshape' the image? to be sure, this does happen in some patients, but it usually takes years or decades. why decades--why not just a week or a day?" end quote. and honestly, i could arise the same question. especially for older therians, why do we not just 'forget and reshape' ourselves and our identities once we leave the socially accepted 'play pretend' phase as pups. why does it linger? why can some of us remain shifting into adulthood, and why dont others? of course, im only 16, i cant really give an opinion here. so as a question for you guys... why do you think you still shift?. the book went on to explain the early seeings of such phenomena, in the C16th and how people likened them to concrete evidence of the existence of the soul, that the minds thought of our body may no longer, or never, represent what is really there. does that therefore explain our internally inhuman images? that these limbs are, in fact, the movements of the soul we simply cannot see, but our brain seeks to control? the authors then cited the idea of this being just wishful thinking, of wanting back the limb they lost. and then declared that idea nonsense (which for me personally, was a huge confidence boost, because my brain went 'yeah! i dont wish for my tail back, it IS mine! i DO/did have one! i swear!' even if that cant be true cause i cannot have one :< ). honestly to understand all of this fully, i recommend reading the book yourselves. im actually really enjoying it and the stories are fascinating! they remind me of many of my mothers own doctor stories X3 with added science, which perhaps explains my draw to them. i just cant explain it as well without magpieing the whole thing lol. what i did find encouraging personally, was that they explored not only arms and legs, but even a story of a phantom appendicitis pain after the appendix was removed and the pain was gone, or someone with phantom parts of the face lost after an accident. this, to me atleast, shows that is is scientifically possible for phantom limbs to be other body parts, and would explain why worldwide therians experience this both similarly and differently, for different species even, even if they have never had contact with one another or known therianthropy. i have had phantom limbs since around 7 or 8, and learned about therianthropes at the age of 14. so it wouldnt make any sense if this was just mass delusion, since i didnt even know this was a shared thing until (relatively) recently.

now heres the really cool and sciencey bit! pages 25-39. this segment began by explaining a diagram, labeled as 2.1 in the book, showing the proportionality and placement of which parts of the brain reacted to which bodyparts, and how areas of the body more sensitive to touch ( like the lips) were much more overrepresented as compared to areas with less feeling. more interestingly though, that these areas did not line up. this is taken from real evidence, albeit outdated, by mapping areas of the brain specific to certain parts of the body. could there, therefore, be a correlation, or mapping by experience of us as therians to reconstruct this idea and programme in a limb that never existed to fit into this idea. are we always in the same frame of mind when we shift? what areas of the brain are stimulated during such shifts? is there a correlation between our emotive response, and these stimulated areas that makes us move not only our human selves, but also experience phantom stimulation that we feel should also be there. i am aware however i will likely never know the answer to this, as such human experiments are no longer performed, but even so its interesting to me. this is the whole 'nature vs nuture' debate, especially for psychological therians. when performing a similar experiment with humans, the author described how a phantom map of the patients entire missing hand could be found in seemingly unrealated parts of the face, and that touching a specific area would create a phantom sensation in a specific finger. they returned to diagram 2.1 where these fngers were directly above the corresponding areas of the face! the books diagrams help a ton with visualising this idea, so again i suggest reading it urself! i would be curious to see others impressions, does this idea of the corellation of different body parts affect therianthropes at all? which areas stimulate our phantom limbs and how would we find that out? there are, or could be, as the author explained, several maps. as they found a second on the upper arm, above where the missing hand was, and likened it to the diagram too. heres a long quote to explain it: quote " if you look again at the [2.1] you will see that the hand area in the brain is flanked below by the face area, and above by the upper arm and shoulder area. input from Toms hand was lost after the amputation, and consequently, the sensory fibers originating in Tom's face- which normally activate only the face area in his cortex- now invaded the vacant territory of the hand and began to drive cells there. therefore, when i toughed Toms face, he also felt sensations in his phantom hand. " end quote. this idea shows me that in absence of one area, the corresponding spaces on the 2.1 map may stimulate it. is there, therfore, an evolutionary but no longer needed area of the brain for tails and other parts? has this been generationally invaded by other areas of this mental map to create phantom stimulations in the tail or other shift when certain areas are touched? could his have spread over species divergence and hundreds of years to the whole body, meaning we no longer associate one part, but can instead stimulate or feel phantom limbs from anywhere and have them be brought on my multiple factors, maybe even our emotions?

there is a whole lot more i could explain and deduce here but- alas i have run out of time, i will continue to revisit this book over the near future and add more posts to this thread with my findings!


thank you for reading, and have a good timezone everyone! feel free to reply with your own thoughts and analysis

-Rain

this is really intresting Rain

This was a really interesting read Rain, I'm looking forward to more of it! I'll share some of my thoughts thus far, but keep in mind I've not read this book and I'm the opposite of an expert. English is not my first language, so excuse me if some of my writing is sloppy.

The example with the smile made sense to me. The more you consciously think about shifting, the harder it is to do so or feel your limbs. It adds up with how in order to get out of a shift, you just have to remind your conscience of your surroundings. The subconscious is where all of this happens, and if it gets "overshadowed" by us forcing ourselves to act a certain way, it leads to a different result. So naturally, it's also connected to emotion, as each feeling leads to instinctual subconscious actions that were developed throughout evolution, such as the goosebumps we get that are a leftover of the mammalian ancestors who needed their fur to fluff up or be more insulated. We can't force those to happen either, unless we find a way to trick our subconscious into feeling the required things needed to trigger them, such as by being in a certain environment/situation. Same thing can be done in regards to shifts in some ways.
Why phantom limbs can exist in the first place without having biologically existed is anyone's best guess I feel like. As the book explained, the brains of amputees are wired to "expect" more than what they have now, because needing to rewire it is so rare that a lot of the brains kinda just keep it in one way or another, and it could be similar in regard to, say, a phantom tail: The brain already works differently in some way in comparison to the "normal" human brain you'd expect, so it was also wired to expect more than the human body that sends signals back directly from its limbs. Therefore, it also answers why it doesn't fade like "pretend play" - because it works the same as the phantom limbs described in the book, which are also the opposite of "pretend play". It can fade, but oftentimes, as is laid out here, it doesn't. It's a real, learned brain pattern and can stay over time if you don't consciously block it out and therefore also works just as instinctually as all the other limbs you control automatically.
With all of them, your subconscious knows what to do to adapt them to your current situation. So what all of this shows is that, just like the author agreed, it has to do with your brain controlling what it is wired to control. It's just there, and the brain does what it is wired to do, and it's hard for that to change. If it was about your brain wishing that something was there, the phenomenon wouldn't be part of the same area that controls what the rest of your body should instinctively do. It's not thinking "I wish it was there," it's "I need to control my limbs. This pre-installed wiring shows me the limbs I have." There's no thought process checking: Is this or that limb really there? Because every limb that can be controlled there has a reason to be there. No matter if it's feeling in a missing arm, appendix or anything else. Whatever it is for e.g. a phantom tail, as I said, is pretty much just speculation. All we know is (at least us two) that shifts just kinda were there eventually, and later we found therianthropy which we could use to give it a label. I'm honestly not really sure about the whole limb areas in the brain affecting the phantom limbs thing because that's not something I've ever experienced through a simple touch of one specific part. It seems to be a way wider phenomenon, but again, when you get to this stage, it becomes way too much speculation for me to say anything concrete about what it may be. Beyond the aforementioned emotion thing where they can react when the signals for the emotion are being sent. I guess in some way, the brains do also carry leftover brain maps, but I'm not sure in what exact way. Is this lined out more clearly somewhere in the book? Or is it just as you said: "There are, or could be, several maps"?

I feel like the things explained in the book line up really well and could help us explain and deal with certain stuff better, so I'd love to read what you write about the next chapters as you continue reading the book!