If it's good enough for Archimedes (or how I found my aura the other day)

[Mark Hollis]

Kia ora all.

My name is Mark Hollis and i am a New Zealand trained physiotherapist (practicing for 14 years) who found this site through the circumlocatory route of NOI to saveyourself to bettermovement to humanantigravitysuit (and the final leap from there should be obvious).

I started out mainly focusing on stroke and neurological rehab (having been interested in the brain since reading 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' when I was 16) and since then have used my profession to travel to the UK, Saudi, and Australia via TBI, paeds, geriatric, chronic pain, and neuro rehab. Upon returning to New Zealand I have ended up in a small semirural private practice which mainly deals with what would be considered 'musculoskeletal' issues ... however the nervous system keeps on calling.

I have had a quick lookaround the site and went 'Wow' and have spent time working out the logistics a little but please 'bear with' on any teething problems as I get used to the lay out.

With regardsto the title. I was in the bath the other day trying to work out what the sensation of wet is, I know I have no 'wet' receptors neurally and it's my way of cognitively understanding how i process sensations perceptually (much like biting into a meal and working out the ingredients by taste). So i'm going through the list of sensations (increased pressure under water compared to air, significant thermal differences at the air water interface, a pressure change and direction of movement of water as it drips rolls down etc)with my eyes shut and then opening my eyes to visually correlate when I suddenly feel what I can only presume the nonscientists out there would call an 'aura'.

Eureka.

Everytime I close my eyes and put my finger and thumb together I can 'sense' my finger about to touch my thumb before my skin contacts itself. It definitely feels like it is a noncorporal extension of my thumb (even though i know it is a difference between the neural representation of my memoried thumb and my current proprioceptive thumb). Anyhow this is why I like this site. Pareidolia, I know it exists, I know i experience it, i know it shouldn't be the basis for my interactions with others and there seem to be a lot of people on this site who agree.

Anyhow I am off to spend some time on yellow today. I look forward to talking with you motion poets later.

Mark

[Bas Asselbergs]

Mark, a warm welcome!
I think your first post is a sign of very good things to come from you - more so since you use idiom and expressions not familiar to this Canadian: please tell me what "time on yellow" means.

[Barrett Dorko]

Bas, I assumed it meant that he was going to think about the color - its meaniong, significance and affect upon his sensory apparatus. But I might be wrong.

Welcome Mark.

[ste5e]

Hi Mark and thanks,
I will be considering how my sensoria conjures up 'wet' for some time.
Kind thoughts,
Steve.

[Diane]

Hi Mark,
Welcome to SomaSimple!

(And you brought new games to play!)

[zimney3pt]

Welcome to SS, Mark.

[amacs]

I was in the bath the other day trying to work out what the sensation of wet is, I know I have no 'wet' receptors neurally and it's my way of cognitively understanding how i process sensations perceptually (much like biting into a meal and working out the ingredients by taste). So i'm going through the list of sensations (increased pressure under water compared to air, significant thermal differences at the air water interface, a pressure change and direction of movement of water as it drips rolls down etc)with my eyes shut and then opening my eyes to visually correlate when I suddenly feel what I can only presume the nonscientists out there would call an 'aura'.

Great stuff Mark,

wonderful analogy and thought process.

Look forward to more

ANdy

[Diane]

It sounds like interoceptive pareidolia. Which doesn't mean it wouldn't still be entertaining for those whose brains can attend along those sorts of pathways.

[John W]

Ahhh... am I a "motion poet"? Regardless, it sounds so cool I want to be one.

Welcome, Mark!

If Barrett's right, why yellow?

[Mark Hollis]

Yellow ... because it's my godson's favourite color and he see's a lot of yellow stuff that I don't actively bring to the foreground of my experience but he's able to point out for me and also, as winter is looming over here, I want to get the most out of the autumn colors (and I know I percieve the world as warmer when I diminish grey/blue). This morning I noticed a tree out the back of work that I haven't noticed for a few months because I'd spent some time pre-'yellow'ing my brain (I thought of yellow things, I tried to remember yellow things from my past, then I spent some time looking around for yellow things). Just taking science (electromagnetic wavelength) and seeing what I can do with it (playing). Tomorrow will be red, then blue etc. I sometimes practice guessing the warmth of a wall then touching it to see how 'off' I am. It reminds me that what I expect and and what is are different phenomena and that also I can correlate random things (as if they had an underlying purpose when they don't).

The 'aura' as interoceptive pareidolia is what I am guessing as well. I can subjectively sense something that I objectively know to be untrue and to reach a conclusion I produce an idea (it really feels like how other people decribe aura's). It's definitely a mismatch of where my thumb and finger is (current proprioception), what I expect to feel (the pressure of my thumb on my finger) and my brain trying to match up the previous with the current. I would speculate it's sort of similar to how anorexics feel fat, look thin to others, have the same visual experience as we all do in the mirror (I don't think there's an optic problems) but explain the mismatch (of visual and somatosensory) by accepting one map and not the other. The maps aren't the same, nor do the maps need to be, but there is a piece of the brain which tries to make them be so.

And John W, yes you are a motion poet, you write well.