Yup, agree.
What would be even cooler would be if there were a way to retrofit the study to pre-internet.

Before the internet I was a Navy man.
I've written a great many of "Love Letters" to sweethearts back home.
I always wondered if they felt the same connection reading them I had while writing them.

Has our connectivity really changed over the years?
I have always been able to express myself, my feelings with words.
Does the method of expression effect the connectivity?

Does the diary pull you into the person writing it?
Or... is it just words that are read without inflection or passion?

Does a letter written friend to friend have a different connection than one written from friend to love interest?

Is it that connection of synchronicity in alpha mu bands the deciding factor that causes pen-pals to become love interests?
A sorta "Remote Biorhythm" connection?

Its kinda like a specialized sensory dep tank.
In the 80s I experimented with sensory deprivation.
When all other senses are muted the ones not muted gain focus and are vivid.
Is that the case with written online interactions?
Do the written words gain some quality they don't normally have?

Yes, that would be interesting.

I know with some books I've read I connected with one of the characters and it was as if I was that person experiencing the adventure.

I have felt the intensity of emotions reading what others have written as well. Other times it is just words. Right now I'm losing focus because I'm tired and can't think straight. Maybe our ability to clear our minds and be receptive to the message has a lot to do with how well we receive the message on an emotional or empathic level as well.

Lots of food for thought... for tomorrow, I need some sleep.

Goodnight

I hope you find a loving touch Tom. This sounds way better than medication.

OP, do you have snakes for hair or will I turn to stone if I gaze upon you?

Love your topics!!!

tom i know i have felt it,both emotionally and physically.
as for virtually i can say i have felt something. how much was self projected i'm not sure

Holding hands makes you feel like a million dollars, so yes I would well imagine it eases pain, even if only for a time.

Been having a rough patch lately and this thread got buried, sorry for the long delay in the discussion.

I read a lot. What you say about emphasizing with the authors words I feel too. If the author has skill in writing. Fictional characters, when well written, are based on real people's nuances.
I've studied creative writing and many character profile worksheets. Plus there are world-building worksheets that set up scenarios that mimic real life ones.
People who express themselves well online, have creative writing patterns that can draw you into their words.
Even works written a hundred years ago can have emotional power, Someone should set up a study to see if there is physical benefits from reading.

Can words be written in such a way that they project healing effects across time and space?


Thanx, I hope so too. In my younger, healthier days I subscribed to the Christian Science belief on healing. I believed that the body could heal itself and for the most part, it did. I was never sick more than just a flu or cold and it seemed my body healed fractures and sprains and cuts pretty fast.
Then, over time, it started to get slower and slower.
Now, I depend on meds to keep me alive. My resistance to automotive chemicals failed and I basically was poisoned by my work, an allergic reaction nearly killed me and between that reaction and the meds they put me on, it damaged my system to the point of no return. My existence has become hell. Its hard to push back the pain and sickness I feel every moment. Being sick and alone focuses the illness. Being close to someone special allows me to focus on something besides the pain.


I love women that talk like that!
So sexy!
Being a health care provider I imagine you see some of the most awful conditions people experience. Is there a two way connection?
When you touch someone in pain and sickness does it also effect you? Most of my nurses have a soothing effect but when I get to see the doctors that soothing effect diminishes. Are they blocking that empathy? Can the empathy be a two way connection?

I'm having trouble putting this idea to words. Bear with me as I try to explain.

I've seen some science fiction where someone has healing abilities and touches a person and the injury fades from the person being touched and appears on the healer, then fades away.
Is it possible that when you hold someones hand and you 'sync', that their feeling of relief is because you are actually pulling some of their pain away and absorbing it? Does it build up over time? Are you absorbing and releasing because you are healthier? Able to make that pain fade away?

This study focuses on pain being lessened with intimate contact but did they look at the other person and see if their conditions changed too?

My X was a CNA and dealt with people dying. She would come home an emotional wreck and all I could do was try to comfort her. I can remember feeling exhausted from it. While she recovered from her experience, I recovered more quickly and was able to make it fade.
Was it a chain of pain and misery that was taken by her from the one dying, then taken by me from the X? Makes me wonder...


LOL, use a mirror.
Thanx, I try to inspire thought.


I think many people experience it. This study just brings confirmation to what we already know. For me, it made me think about other aspects of it and that got me curious. This study warrants a whole range of studies that could reveal even deeper understanding of the human condition.


See, my point exactly. We know it happens, this study confirms what we already know. Now there is actual data on the subject that proves it.

What I suspect is that we are connected in ways we know but can't prove. This study suggests that there may be even more connections to different degrees. What's so intriguing is that if this can be tested and quantified, other connections might also be tested and quantified.

Then there is the aspect of soothing effects from inanimate objects and pictures.
For any study, a control group must be present.
Say the connection properties of you to a toaster.
However, people are soothed by pictures of waterfalls and flowers.
Can a picture of a puppy make you feel better?
I say yes.
What then, does it say about the human condition?
Can we push our pain onto an inanimate object?
Where does it go?
Does it really go anywhere?

When I wake in the morning, I bite back the pain so I can function. I am able to push the pain out as long as I focus on pushing it out. Some days it is too great for me to push away.
When I am with someone I love, I am not focusing on pushing the pain out but I still feel less pain. Is the pain less or is the pain still there, still the same, but something else is hiding it from me? I know that when they leave, the pain returns and the process always starts over upon waking.

Clearly there is more to this.

Holdings is nice and show affection and kindness, when it is with someone you like or love very much.

Holding hands is nice and shows affection and kindness, when it is with someone you like or love very much.

Yup, but what I want to know is if that connection is restricted only to loved ones or is it a fundamental condition?

Can it happen remotely?

Does it happen with strangers?

Is there an effect with inantimate objects or photos?

Is it a two-way connection?
Or, does it flow in a certain direction?

i'd say yes to none intimates ability tom. case in point i was in new york for my brothers' father in laws' services. i a nephew for the first time that day and yes i had an effect on his emotional pain.

Definitely, I've experienced this as well in a grieving workshop. And also at my son's funeral. People I didn't know came up to me to sooth me and I ended up easing their pain instead just by touching their hand or shoulder.

There are many aspects to comfort that isn't understood.
This article in the OP is just touching the surface as far as I'm concerned.

For example. is it the person lightening the pain or is it the distractions refocusing the mind?

I know that when the pain gets unbearable if I distract my focus from it, it becomes bearable to a certain degree.
The distraction might be someone I love holding my hand or it could be watching a video of laughing babies or reading what my friends on M2 relate.

When the distraction is removed, the pain returns.
Right now my pain is a physical pain but when I was fighting depression it was emotional.
My counselor told me to remove my painful thinking and I had a lot of problems doing that until I was put on the right medicine that allowed me to have control of my thoughts and feelings.
The meds changed my brain's process. My dedication to change established thinking patterns that cause the meds changes to become set, and the meds were no longer needed for fighting my depression.

Even tho I still fight the depression related to chronic degenerating health, I am not mentally depressed. I could go there but I fear it gaining control again, so I purposely avoid the depressive thoughts.

Are these things related to each other? Is pain, emotional or physical, dictated by our perceptions? Our experience?
I say yes, but there was no proof of concept till now.

Its studies like this that might cause future generations to cope with discomfort as a process based on physically proven reality.
I see the study as significant but incomplete.

I'm sorry you had to experience that. I have been fortunate not to.

When you think about it, what we experience we take as reality without proof. That is the significance of this study, it provides justification for what we already experience, with proof. Measurable proof.

It gives a type of clarity to our human condition. A Justification, in a sense.

Knowing that holding hands with someone you love gives them a sense of well being, is wonderful. Knowing that kind words on a screen could have the same effect to a certain degree is also wonderful but would have more significance if it were determined to be a fact.

By the same determination, if kind words on a screen can illicit favorable emotional states in strangers, wouldn't hostile words do the opposite? If more people were aware there is a factual connection, might they be more careful while conversing online?

Thanks Tom.

I believe hostile words actually do work opposite, even when virtual. Although it could depend on the person and their level of sensitivity. I'm very empathic and sensitive. I feel both positive and negative energy/words at a higher than average intensity. This has happened with face to face interactions, as well as with phone calls and online with mere words.

I agree but there has been no study, till now, that looks at the physical manifestations of such interactions. Previously everyone just took it as a given, without proof.

I just responded to a message on the subject.
Something that occurred to me is that science does not acknowledge telepathy. Mainly because of our impression of what telepathy is, projecting organized thoughts and feelings to others. We couldn't justify it because we didn't have a set method. No proof.

Using these methods to test for physical changes from any interaction might reveal the reality of a type of human telepathy.
A telepathy not restricted to proximity, time or space. A telepathy of 'effect' that exerts a change in the physical body.

I put my thoughts on paper. 200 years from now, someone reading those thoughts are calmed by my words. It already happens. We know it happens but till now, couldn't prove it because we didn't know how to look for the changes. We now have the ability to prove it.
To me, that is very significant.

Yes I agree, that is very significant. Knowing something "appears" to be true or real is a lot different that knowing something has been "proven" to be true or real. It seems to have a different effect on how we act with people who say they can feel something others can not, if it can be proved scientifically that is.

And it could have a great impact in the professional fields in helping those with pain to heal or ease their pain.

With the actual proof maybe more natural remedies can be implemented and which will lessen some of the need for pharmaceutical drugs.

Another thought I'm having is the way it will change the idea that we don't need others in order to feel good. I believe we do need others in our lives, it improves our quality of life. I believe it can become unhealthy when we believe we can't survive without someone, but that's different that the basic need for nurturing and touch.

There were studies done that I read about in college. Infants who were touched more than those who weren't tended to be healthier physically as well as emotionally.

that last i have seen 1st hand p. my next brother was a late term adoption. he was 10 months old and given up at birth. so he was a crib baby. so much so that he actually had a flat spot on the back of his head yes it did grow out lol. and later studies supported the things my family experienced with him. all stemming from the lack of maternal bonding and attention at birth.

That's a shame Eric, it happens a lot with babies who are raised in dysfunctional families as well.

Hopefully now with the studies and information out there it will be lessened with future babies, especially those who are raised in orphanages.

Makes me wonder sometimes if some of my neediness and being challenged emotionally stems from my early childhood, before my Aunt took us away from it.

Wow, I also ready about the infant nurturing studies.
If I recall correctly, the results were suggestions made by observation of personality. I don't remember physiological measurements being made.

I've recently seen quite a few scientific break-thrus concerning chemical reactions related to mental capacity. Even research into the criminal gene. Our biological science is beginning a new chapter in understanding how our bodies work. We can detect subtle differences that were beyond our abilities just a few years ago.

These new techniques allow us to make new associations between stimuli and physical reaction.

Everyone has heard of audio soothing and meditation. Fewer people know of color therapy. Science is gaining the ability to put those therapies to scientific proof. I find it fascinating.

Our scientific understanding of how the mind and brain actually work is relatively small in the scope of things. While we have mapped the mind and understand rudimentary functions, the mind is a complex human condition.

Just like when we touch a hot surface we jerky our hand away, we also secrete substances in our brains as a reaction. Measuring those substances is only part of the equation. Its a chain reaction that we are just beginning to map out.

Empathy is thought of as a spiritual ability. What if there is a physical aspect to it that can be measured and duplicated? A physical ability like coordination? Can it be honed to precision?

Is this the beginning of a new era of enlightenment for our species? What if it is common in all lifeforms? A connection with other species?