An introduction to phantom limbs

[frameacloud]

Page number 6 of Theri There, originally posted on October 3, 2005.

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Image description: One page of a comic.
Narration: "A 'phantom limb' is the sensation that a limb is physically present when it's not.
"Neurological explanation: the relevant portion of the brain is still there, so it feels as if the limb is still there, too.
"Spiritual explanation: the spirit also stays intact, even if the body doesn't. This has to do with chakras and the astral plane."
The illustration shows a person with no left arm, but a phantom left arm.
"Phantom limbs are also experienced by therianthropes and otherkin. The difference is that these don't follow a human-shaped template. We may feel wings, tail, or any such thing."
The illustration shows a therianthrope with a human physical body, and a gryphon-shaped phantom outline. "We know there's no physical counterpart to these limbs. They're not visible to plain sight, and they pass right through everything, like a ghost."
The same therianthrope goes on a walk, their wing passing through the wall of a nearby building. "However, there are odd exceptions where a phantom limb responds to a physical object as if both were equally tangible." The therianthrope's wing hits a lamppost, making them stumble, saying, "Ow!?"
"There are also instances where people respond to the limbs as if they could see them."
The therianthrope stretches out a wing, and other passerby walk around it.
"Rarest of all, sometimes physical objects respond to the limb's presence."
A dragon therianthrope steps into an elevator, their phantom tail trailing behind them. The door closes on their tail. Someone else says, "Hey, what's jamming the elevator door open?"
End description.

Note from 2005: This is a short introduction to phantom limbs of therianthropes. There is much more to say about them, whether the best known kind (felt by people who have had amputations) as shown in panel 1, or the kind experienced by therianthropes. Panel 4 was suggested by a phoenix who wishes to remain anonymous. Panel 6 was suggested by a friend who had it happen as shown, and I’ve heard very few anecdotes about a paranormal phenomenon of that kind.

Note from 2015: Several folks have asked me about the phrase “phantom limbs,” which I used in my old Theri There comics. In 2005, that was the only name therians gave to that experience of theirs. Now, readers were concerned that it might be wrong to use that name for that experience. It’s a sensitive issue, but it’s also important to address, so I wrote a long blog entry about it: https://frameacloud.tumblr.com/post/731842421775859712/regarding-phantom-limbs

Note from 2023: I updated the link to that blog entry with some new commentary that I wrote today. For another thing, back when I drew this page, I thought of phantom limbs as a paranormal phenomenon. That fit with how my worldview used to embrace the paranormal. My personal worldview has changed and become generally more skeptical as I've continued to ask questions and learn. I still acknowledge that part of the range of these experiences are ones that are strange and difficult to explain.

[Edit October 21, 2023: Added local images, links, and transcript.]

Comments

[a-leprechaun.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Has anyone here actually had that "physical object reacting to a phantom limb" thing happen to them?

[kistaro]

Well, I know that last example is straight out of a personal account at draconic.com- a tail jamming an elevator door. I've had people detour around my limbs fairly frequently, had unpleasant moments of a tail in a rear bicycle wheel (yes, OW), and a computer my left wing passed through spontaneously rebooted in the CEC a while back.

What's not mentioned here is when people don't detour around phantom limbs. It sucks to have one's tail stepped upon.

[forestdweller.livejournal.com]

I've had the experience of wind catching my wings and lifting me up (and almost knocking me over as I was too surprised to react), as well as one instance of an elevator door that paused and reopened when my back was to it and my wings not pulled tightly against me.

[frameacloud]

Yes. kistaro donated the idea for that panel, from his personal experience.

[silvernyte.livejournal.com]

I knocked a popcan (nearly full, and it was RED pop) off a coffee table once with my tail... it was a goof 16 inches from the edge, too... and it fell onto my friend's parents' white carpet. I was SO embrarassed... but at least I didn't get in trouble, since as far as they knew it just randomly happened.

[thassalante.livejournal.com]

Hehe, that would be me. Just the other day I was walking by a pile of stuff that had been laying there stably for weeks and weeks, but just when I walk by it all topples down as if I'd smacked it with my wing.

[frameacloud]

"I've been known to feel people with my tail(s) behind me when I did not even realise them to be there to begin with."


Watch out for kitsune, their butts have extrasensory perception!

...Hey, maybe I should use that for a comic. Shall I? :)

[cloakable.livejournal.com]

There was also one incident at a Korean-run dollar store where I was followed around and driven out by an elderly Korean woman who kept pointing at my butt and speaking in Korean. Needless to say I bid a hasty retreat.
I've only just read this. Haha. I wonder what she was saying.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

I'd point out here that not all people, and certainly not all therians/'kin, believe in chakras and stuff, but I think you already know that :}. In any case, I love your explanations of things. I'm a very visually-oriented person, and even though I know what these things are already, it's good to be able to see them :D.

[frameacloud]

Nope, the various spiritual terminologies in the first panel (chakras, etc) are not required beliefs to be an otherkin or therianthrope. (I didn't even believe in chakras until very recently.) They're some of the traditional explanations for [human] phantom limbs, and needed inclusion for context and historical interest, if nothing else.

One of the articles I was reading told about phantom limbs experienced by wounded samurai, what people in feudal Japan believed the phantom limbs were (more spiritual than neurological, as you would expect), and the therapy used to relieve samurai from phantom pains. It was mirror-box therapy, basically the same as is used to help amputees in modern day; it uses optical illusions to trick the brain into going, "Oh, I have this many limbs now, I get it." As I said, fascinating stuff.

Hmmf... I have the article links around here somewhere, so you can read more. Most of 'em are about neurology, but it's always neat to find out what various ol' cultures made of the phenomena. Ah! Here they are...

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web1/Dawsonandoh.html
My favorite article. Beautifully complete and well-spoken.
http://www.phantomlimb.org.uk/
More to-the-point.
http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/Phantom/homepage.html
Eyeburningly bad, senselessly ugly and stupid site design. Surprisingly, the content isn't stupid at all; it's quite well-researched, with lots of good diagrams and case studies.
http://hubel.sfasu.edu/courseinfo/SL98/phantom4.html

I'm glad that the visual stuff helps!

Wow.

[meirya.livejournal.com]

Very nice. I'm glad my phantom limbs all correspond fairly well to my body. *heh* The worst I've got to deal with is a beak. Wings correspond with my arms, though it means my shoulders feel out of place and such... but at least they aren't catching in stuff. o_o

Though a phantom beak can be quite aggravating if you're trying to make out with someone...

Re: Wow.

[frameacloud]

Aligning your wings with your arms... that's interesting. I've heard a few people talk about aligning non-human-body-part phantom limbs with their real limbs. Someone (Grygon, I think, on alt.lifestyle.furry in the summer of 2000?) said that xe'd aligned xir tail with one of her legs, with the amusing effect that when xe was happy, xe would wag xir foot.

Though a phantom beak can be quite aggravating if you're trying to make out with someone...
Yikes! That'd be a gruesome version of the typing with talons comic. o_o;;

[kalanco.livejournal.com]

This keeps getting better and better. Any hints on the next one in line?

Also, and I know this has to have happened to somebody, who here has had somebody else feel your phantom limbs?

[frameacloud]

No hints on upcoming comics, if I can help it. I'd prefer them all to be surprises, like presents to unwrap every Monday morning.

*raises hand*

[meirya.livejournal.com]

Me! The boyfriend has felt the beak before. I've had people see bird too when I've shifted - a seer friend has looked at me very oddly from across the table at a restaurant, then started poking a mutual friend and pointing at my face. Was rather amusing. He'd known about the bird thing, but only half believed it and had never "seen" it really, I guess, so . . . it surprised him.

I've felt other peoples' phantom limbs before. I used to tease a western dragon I knew. "Heeeere leezard-leezard-leezard!" And come up behind him and start poking or scritching his wings or toeing his tail. He'd twitch and look around and go "Stop that!" Drove him nuts. It was highly amusing.

[slupine.livejournal.com]

I've never had anything react to phantom limbs physically, though I do tend to keep things pulled tight when I feel crowded or claustrophobic (which I do easily). I will allow people to get closer to me from the front than from behind, except with a couple select people.

The thing that confuses me quite often is that I have multiple "forms" (for lack of a better term), that can express themselves one at a time, or sometimes mix (which is when it's really weird to try and explain what I am to close friends). The wolf being the most commonly expressed, I usually refer to myself as that. Does anybody else get anything like that or am I like a total freak? o.o;; I've never really heard of anybody having more than one when they aren't cohabitating, but as far as I can tell there's only one of me in here.

Oy, even around like-minded folks I still worry I'm gonna be thought of as bonkers. >.

multiple forms

[frameacloud]

Multiple "forms," but one self, and not cohabitating: I've heard quite a few people describe things similar to that. Not bonkers at all, it's actually pretty common. :) It does seem harder to describe in a concise way, oddly enough. People feeling more (say) feline one day, feeling more deer-ish the next, and just sort of wandering between those specific two depending upon circumstances, and maybe one being more frequent than the other. This may be somewhere between animal totemism and therianthropy, as described in Galenorn's book, "Totem Magick," which sounded a lot more like therianthropy to me than most books about animal totemism I've read.

Some people stick to the idea of having only one trueform and call anything else a "cameo shift," where you feel like you're something completely different, but it only happens once. (For example, a self-identified lion who has one weird incident of feeling more like a fox.) There's also people who have two or more specific theriotypes and call themselves polyweres.

For me, m-shifting is part of the process of remembering a past life. Since I've been rather a lot of different people and things in my past lives, it figures that I'd have experienced a pretty varied lot of m-shifts into different species. They're all me, although they're how I looked and felt in different parts of time.

[westly.livejournal.com]

Hi,

I've got multiple forms, within my co-habitating group.

My Wolf has an anthro form and a non anthro form, as does the Hyena. And the vampire is a shapeshifter (Within his usual range of shifting ability)

So, you're not alone!

[slupine.livejournal.com]

Oh, and one question: this "xe" thing, how is it properly pronounced, and is this like a gender-neutral pronoun? I've actually never heard it before. I'm used to shi and hir, which I rather dislike but they were the only alternatives I had heard (oh why couldn't the english language have a better option for a substitute?). Just kinda wondering about that.

[frameacloud]

Yes, "xe" is another set of alternative gender-neutral pronouns, just like shi and hir.

Personally, I pronounce "xe" like "zee." I wouldn't be surprised if other people pronounced it "ksee" or (uselessly) "she." It works better in text than aloud. In text, it's readily understood that the X represents a crossing-out of the initial consonant S or H. That's what I like about it, above other gender-neutral pronouns.

I used sie and hir in a roleplaying campaign once, but they sound exactly like female pronouns when you say them aloud, and I kept accidentally spelling them as such.

"They," "it," and "he" are all supposedly standard English gender-neutral pronouns. I dislike them, for various reasons, but where would one find a truly satisfactory gender-neutral pronoun, anyway?

There's a list of pretty much all attempted gender neutral pronouns... or several lists, maybe, and their history, success and unsuccess, and some opinions on them, and stuff. Here's one:
http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/listing.html

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Not just limbs for me... When I'm in an excited state, I sometimes feel my cockatoo-ish crest raising. :)

[frameacloud]

Metaphysifoof!

[silverscalenaga.livejournal.com]

ive felt my tailbody and my hood as well occsionally. i often feel pain if someone touches the space where my hood would be as its extremely sensitive.

[nyokirrr04.livejournal.com]

I'm Fen Gryphon. I used to feel phantom wings, and wind blowing into them!

There's a reasonable explanation, quite close to your comics. The identification to the were side (for me, the anthro Gryphon) is so deep that your brain produces the ENERGY to make you feel wings, tail, feathers... All is electric, neuron activity! That's a kind of psychosomatic sensation, yups. So aye, you feel your were side is like a SECOND SKIN, and it seems so real!

But something imortant however: I don't think you'll feel your wings wounded if you close the door, except if you're REALLY sure of that (a psychosomatic pain in this case), and most important, ONLY YOURSELF are able to feel the wings on your back! Others will NEVER notice you feel wings on your back.
Something you can add to your researches. };>

Thanks for the comics again - Nyo.

Ouchie

[kinjouten.livejournal.com]

The "tail caught in door" thing blows signifigantly. Used to happen to someone close to me all the time. (The 'ow' factor, not the 'jam' factor.)

I'm loving this strip. Keep up the good work. :)

[klitaka.livejournal.com]

I tend to avoid chairs without open backs (or at least sit forward in regular chairs) because it is always awkward to sit on one's tail.

I actually had that happen in class the other day. I unwitting chose a chair with a closed-back, and sat back in it, jumping forward involuntarily, though I had not sat back all the way.

Awesome comic, by the way.