'Fake hand experiment' proves the terrifying way the brain can be tricked into feeling pain
Topics: Science, Health, Mental Health, YouTube, Social Media
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Nino Loner
Topics: Science, Health, Mental Health, YouTube, Social Media
A science experiment has left people gawping over 'hilarious' but also terrifying proof your brain can be trained to believe certain 'illusions' are 'reality'.
A YouTube video shared by Nino Loner has revealed you can 'deceive the human brain with the sense of touch in spite of the healthy sense of sight'.
It sees a teacher and student take part in an experiment, the scientist teacher explaining: "I'm going to train your brain to believe this arm is your arm."
The experiment sees a student sit with one of their hands on one side of a wooden divider and the other concealed on the other side.
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A fake hand is put with one real hand and covered in their sleeve, their other real arm covered with a different piece of material so they can't physically see their right arm.
The scientist then uses two rulers and traces them along the student's right arm and the fake hand so they can feel the ruler on their right arm but only see it on the fake hand.
"It's now becoming one with your mind that this right hand is your right hand. You are believing it as I drag the ruler on your right hand there," the teacher explains. "The sensations line up with each finger, feel the knuckles, feel each digit."
The scientist then does it one more time - however, he doesn't actually touch the ruler on the participant's real hand, just the fake one.
Yet still the student reacts as if he can feel it anyway - spooky right?
"This is nuts," they exclaim, confirming they can feel each tap. The scientist admits they haven't been using the other ruler despite the student believing they could feel it.
The scientist then taps the fake hand's fingers one by one, the student's real fingers popping up one at a time as their brain believes it's really theirs being hit.
And then the big guns are brought out - a hammer.
The echo across the student's real fingers occurs once more, them reporting it feeling 'like an electric shock'.
The scientist then tricks them, whacking the whole hand with the hammer and the student shrieks - and it's not taken long for people to weigh in.
One YouTube user said: "I can't help but imagine a sketch where he actually just hit his left hand instead of his right fake hand and be like 'can you feel it??' while the hand is actually smashed."
"'I'm not actually going to be causing damage to your hand, just your brain'." another wrote.
A third commented: "This is why amputees can actually still feel a missing arm or leg, their brain still believes it's there."
And a fourth resolved: "I love the 'what are you going to do with that??' when he brought out the hammer. The little finger twitches were hilarious."