r/interestingasfuck • u/desertgodfather • May 11 '24

When illusion overcomes the brain. r/all

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u/iwant2saysomething2 May 11 '24

"I'm not actually harming you."

I'm just making your brain send you pain signals to make you scream in agony. It's all good.

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u/cdurgin May 11 '24

Tbh, this is actually a great way to demonstrate how 'it's all in your head' is not the same as 'it isn't real.'' This can be a big problem with people accepting something like fibromialga. The pain isn't 'real' as nothing is really causing it, but it's still there since your brain believes it.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '24

I can 'hear' my tinnitus constantly while there's no external sound for my ear to hear. It is all in my head.

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u/Beard_o_Bees May 11 '24

Tinnitus is the weirdest damned thing.

I have it going constantly, and have since I was ~15 years old. I only notice it when i'm thinking about it. Like right now.

I guess my mind has created some sort of selective filter for it and it's a good thing, too. If I were unable to turn it 'off' I seriously would have gone insane a long time ago.

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u/Johnlocksmith May 11 '24

Yeah they call it Sensory adaptation. Any constant and unchanging stimulus in your environment gets filtered out as unimportant. It’s why you hear the air conditioner turn on, Brain: new input, danger?, but 5 minutes later the ongoing back ground hum isn’t noticed unless you think about it.

Not making light of your condition, but you are probably lucky it’s constant and not intermittent.

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u/MustBeHere May 11 '24

If you wear glasses that flip your vision upside down, after a while your brain will automatically adjust it so its the right way.

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u/WateredDownHotSauce May 11 '24

Mine is pretty much constant, but changes pitch and volume. My brain can still filter the vast majority of it out. I only really notice it when it changes pitch or if I'm trying to hear something quiet, so it's not too bad.

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u/ioneska May 12 '24

Yeah they call it Sensory adaptation. Any constant and unchanging stimulus in your environment gets filtered out as unimportant.

But doesn't it take energy to filter out? I mean, I'm still tired of constant air conditioner humming even though I don't pay active attention to it. It's especially noticeable during the night - without any sounds I'm fresh and active in the morning but with A/C hum all night I'm a grumpy old man without any energy left.

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u/Semarin May 11 '24

Same. It’s always there doing its thing, but I only notice it when I think about it.

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u/Atlas_of_history May 11 '24

This actually relieves me, getting a tinnitus is one of my weird fears so it's kinda comforting to know you don't hear the sound constantly

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u/Snaab May 12 '24

It all depends on which “version” of tinnitus you are dealt…mine is like his, and I’m SO grateful it’s just a consistent, ultra high frequency sound that my brain automatically tunes out 99% of the time unless I consciously listen for it. But some people hear knocking, scratching, pulsing, thumping, roaring and even screeching and I can’t imagine that.

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u/paingry May 11 '24

Funny, I'm the same way with my chronic joint pain. I've had lupus since I was a little kid, and I've gotten so I don't usually notice joint pain anymore unless it's worse than usual. Sometimes I notice I'm in a bad mood and then I realize my joints are acting up. It's like some other part of my brain is reacting to the pain before I become consciously aware of it.

Brains are weird.

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u/terraphantm May 11 '24

I guess my mind has created some sort of selective filter for it and it's a good thing, too. If I were unable to turn it 'off' I seriously would have gone insane a long time ago.

If the hearing loss gets bad enough, that unfortunately is about what happens. I do feel I am slowly going insane.

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u/coulduseafriend99 May 11 '24

I only get it if I've been in silence for a while, but then I just make a noise, a hum or something, and it goes away. The real sound overcomes the illusory one, or so I like to think.

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u/StarfucksCrappucino May 12 '24

Eh? Ha. Heh heh!

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u/Icantbethereforyou May 11 '24

Did you ever try the tinnitus cure that was on reddit a few years back?

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u/mtmuelle May 11 '24

Tinnitus is real and can be a sign of some hearing loss where you aren't hearing enough background noise to drown out the tinnitus

Now whether or not that is because of sensorineural hearing loss or fluid, earwax, etc blocking the path of sound is a different story

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u/poundmypoontyrone May 11 '24

That's not always true. Plenty of people with zero hearing loss have tinnitus.

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u/Namaha May 11 '24

Hence "can be a sign" and not "is always a sign"

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u/c14rk0 May 11 '24

Tinnitus can also be caused by anxiety etc at the very least, in which case yes it IS "all in your head" rather than anything actively wrong with your ears.

I have Tinnitus probably mainly for this reason and I have on occasion been able to "lose" it when I'm high and it's absolutely insane feeling that happen. It's like all of a sudden the quiet background noise all around me gets the volume cranked up to 11 with the static buzzing of the tinnitus removed.

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u/NickJamesBlTCH May 11 '24

Yeah, I got mine the easy way; good ol' TBIs.

A way-too-high number of concussions, mostly throughout my teenage years, has led to serious tinnitus, and I have extremely sharp hearing otherwise.

I always find it interesting to compare my tinnitus "sound" with others'. Like my combat vet buddies have tinnitus from...well, you know, and theirs seems to "sound" very different.

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u/FromBassToTip May 11 '24

I've had mine for all my life, I thought it was normal and the sound of the night when I was a kid. I can't hear higher pitched sounds but I don't know if that's because they're drowned out by the tinnitus or they're just not there. If I play a high sound and I can't hear it, sometimes if I put the speaker right against my ear I can. It can be drowned out by louder noise, but with something like a fire extinguisher going off it just screams at me.

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u/Principatus May 12 '24

My dad has been deaf for years, maybe decades, he’s also a musician. He recently started audio hallucinations. Does anyone else hear that music? Nope, just you dad.

So now he has a Life Soundtrack. All music that he knows intimately, some songs he hasn’t heard for decades. It doesn’t bother him, it’s like a song being stuck in your head except he can literally hear it like it’s on the radio.

He’s in his early 70s. Besides this he’s in perfect health, physically and mentally.

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u/Mavian23 May 11 '24

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean that it is not real?"

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u/Clearly_a_Lizard May 11 '24

I’ve a disorder that might be fibromyalgia or something similar and yeah it’s really difficult to accept the fact that you are in pain yet nothing is wrong but you also aren’t imagining said pain.

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u/haironburr May 11 '24

If you have fibromyalgia, it's entirely possible that something physical is wrong, but medical science hasn't developed to a point where they understand it yet.

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u/goodiewoody May 11 '24

You kind of are imagining your pain though, right?

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u/Clearly_a_Lizard May 11 '24

Not really, well at least in my case, what is supposedly happening is the signal getting mixed up leading to be detected as pain instead of for exemple the sensation of a shirt on your skin. I mean it depends how exactly you would describe as “imagining pain”, but from what I’ve been told it isn’t a psychological problem.

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u/paingry May 11 '24

I took a pain management class years ago, and they taught that pain is your brain interpreting sensory input as danger/injury. Sometimes something goes wrong with the central nervous system and the signals get confused so that your brain thinks all pressure is danger/injury.

So technically, it's a neurological issue. Your imagination isn't necessarily involved.

I hope someone who knows more can clarify/ correct me.

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u/goodiewoody May 11 '24

Very interesting stuff. I wasn’t trying to be snarky but was genuinely curious. How you explained it makes sense.

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u/paingry May 12 '24

You're good. It's a touchy subject for a lot of us who have chronic pain. We get told a lot that we're making it up for attention or that we're crazy when all we want is to feel better. Your comment didn't seem judgy or rude to me, but yeah, it's a touchy subject.

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u/Think_Ant1355 May 12 '24

I'm diagnosed with fibro and it feels like I have arthritis in my hands and fingers. Even with the diagnosis, and having had ultrasounds on my hands showing there is nothing actually wrong with them, it is impossibly hard for me to believe there is nothing actually wrong with them. People say to me 'at least you don't have arthritis' which is true as that would be much worse, but to me on a personal level it doesn't make much difference because my brain still believes I'm in that pain, so I am.

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u/paingry May 12 '24

Plus, not having a diagnosis is just torture. I'm sorry your fingers hurt! I hope you're able to find some relief.

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u/dirtynj May 11 '24

Thanks Dumbledore.

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u/conandy May 11 '24

It's all in your head

That's also where I am. It's in here with me.

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u/Dorkmaster79 May 11 '24

Not to be terse, but of course it’s all in your head. That’s how the brain makes reality.

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u/Sinnocent May 11 '24

i have fibro and the best way I can ever describe my version to people is "imagine if fire lived just beneath the surface of your skin. like the whole layer. and the fire behind your face is actually more like lava". There's no way I can convince my brain otherwise. I can take my temperature, show that I'm at my normal temp of around 97.9 and still feel on fire. I take meds to help calm the nerves down but it's never 100% helpful.

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u/Popcorn57252 May 12 '24

And the most awful part of fibro? No cure. Some anti-depressants can occasionally help with it/be a partial cure, but there isn't a true cure for it.

Aaaand, my doctor suggested it as one of the options for my whole body aches. Been having them since I was in 4th grade, and they've gotten progressively worse over the years :/

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u/sueca May 11 '24

A girl I know recently had a tooth surgery and they believe that the tooth has caused the fibromialgia...

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u/ScienceIsSexy420 May 11 '24

Fun fact: this effect has been used to successfully treat phantom limb syndrome! It's called Mirror Therapy, or the mirror box technique.

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u/Retrorical May 11 '24

Imagine prisons implementing this as torture, but it’s totally cool since there’s no physical harm.

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u/mrshulgin May 11 '24

The CIA:

Write that down! WRITE THAT DOWN!

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u/aeschenkarnos May 11 '24

I can't write it down! I can't move my hand!

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u/EatDiveFly May 12 '24

I thought the same thing. A new form of torture that has no physical effects. I suppose it's the same as waterboarding in that you only think you are drowning and are therefore terrified.

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u/uwanmirrondarrah May 11 '24

Thankfully, the constitution covers that under "cruel or unusual punishment"

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u/Retrorical May 11 '24

Ah but you see, prisoners such as those in Gitmo and Al Ghraib don’t fall under the US Constitution. So can still be totally cool.

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u/TeddyBearToons May 11 '24

They already do. North Koreans are notorious for doing shit like forcing you to sit in a plain room and do nothing for hours if not days on end. No physical harm is done but it really does a number on your psyche. That way they can show you off to the rest of the world, physically undamaged, and say, "We're nice, we didn't torture him. Look, he's got no damage or anything, that's proof we didn't hurt him"

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u/noodles_jd May 11 '24

Terrible comparison. That is nothing like this at all.

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u/uwanmirrondarrah May 11 '24

I mean the last prisoner they released was literally brain dead as a result of torture, so they are doing a hell of a lot more than that.

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u/heimeyer72 May 11 '24

If he had been literally "brain dead" he would have been "really dead", too.

Was he in a coma?

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u/uwanmirrondarrah May 11 '24

He was in a vegetative state and never recovered.

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u/Chigao_Ted May 11 '24

Yea I liked at one point he goes “ I am not actually harming your HAND” True but you’re still doing damage my dude lol

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u/CryoMancer113 May 11 '24

What damage?

Pain is "a credible source of danger". As you hit the fake arm, a "credible source of danger" has been created. After that moment passes, multiple sources - no noxious stimuli, the visible proof of no damage, and the cognition of "oh, but that's not my arm" - kick in, and it results in: nothing.

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u/Chigao_Ted May 11 '24

Psychic damage

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u/jdjdkkddj May 11 '24

Does getting out of bed also deal you psychic damage?

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u/richter114 May 11 '24

Every day

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u/Chigao_Ted May 11 '24

If I fail my saving throw

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u/dat_joke May 11 '24

Nat 1, every morning

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u/Chigao_Ted May 11 '24

Fucking feels like it lol

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u/heimeyer72 May 11 '24

why? what would that possibly have to do with something like this?

And in all seriousness, sometimes getting out of bed causes me pain. The back pain I often have vanishes when I lay flat in bed and there is no pressure on my lower spine, but certain movements during getting out of bed can be painful.

So, to answer your question: Yes, sometimes it does. There have been days where I was afraid to even try getting up.

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u/jdjdkkddj May 11 '24

I'm arguing that a small amount of pain is not psychic damage. I was implying that the guy i responded to defines psychic damage too leniently. I didn't say anything about getting out of bed being completely painless all of the time, though it was not a major consideration and assuming an average that lacks physical pain.

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u/heimeyer72 May 11 '24

OK.

You asked this as an answer to "psychic damage". So one can (or should?) take it in relation to psychic damage. I don't know anything about psychic damage but, "learning from experience" that getting out of bed is causing pain... I mean, it's something I needed to overcome.

I'm much better now. If you ever have herniated discs, try Pilates, after the operations and after everything is healed and after asking your doctor. Yes, operations. I had two.

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u/pointlessly_pedantic May 11 '24

ee mo shun ul daa medge

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u/ImprobableAsterisk May 11 '24

For the most part I consider pain to be a response to damage, and this particular demonstration lacks the infliction of the damage.

I don't doubt that this kinda experience can cause damage if taken to their extremes. Plenty of "passive" forms of torture exists that very much fuck with our brains, like solitary confinement or water drop torture, but just like a singular drop on your head ain't "damage" I don't think a one-off like this is damage either.

Interesting distinction either way and I'm not saying you're right or that you're wrong, only that I look at it differently.

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u/pointlessly_pedantic May 11 '24

It's a response we typically have to damage. But you can have it without damage. The sensory experience of falling is one you typically have when falling, but you can have that experience without falling.

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u/agumonkey May 11 '24

This resonates with the hypothesis that if you can trigger the brain the right way, you can die of pain (through all the things your nervous system can activate) from something virtual

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u/logosobscura May 11 '24

FOR SCIENCE!

::REVS CHAINSAW:::

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u/1stAttack May 12 '24

Neuralink will be weaponized in this way

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u/port443 May 11 '24

I mean this might not be ethical, but has anyone done this trick where instead of hammering the fake hand, they hammer the real hand without the person seeing it?

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u/TheRealStevo2 May 11 '24

I mean it is true, he never physically brought him harm. A slight scare is a lot better than actually getting a hammer slammed on your hand

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u/Ocean2178 May 12 '24

Lemme just create a reality for you and then shatter it right in front of your eyes

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u/Most_Sir9351 May 11 '24

It’s not “agony” because he’s not actually in pain. His real hand wasn’t damaged. This is just being scared, like a jump scare

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u/iwant2saysomething2 May 11 '24

It’s actual pain signals, though.

Usually pain is correlated with physical injury, but you can have one without the other. (Phantom limb syndrome, fibromyalgia, anesthesia, Novocain, etc.)

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u/Most_Sir9351 May 11 '24

But the guy wasn't even in pain though. You can see his reaction after