Engineer Tricks His Brain Into Believing His Hand Is Being Crushed By a Hydraulic Press
Intrusive thoughts — unwanted ideas that can enter our minds unexpectedly — can happen to anybody at any time. If you had the thought "What would happen if crushed my own hand in a hydraulic press?", you would probably try to get your mind off of the question. However, if you were the chemical engineer James Orgill from the YouTube channel The Action Lab, you would probably make a video about it.
In this video, the science experiment aficionado tries to deceive his brain into thinking that a rubber hand is part of his own body, and then, after his brain is thoroughly tricked, he smashes the rubber hand in a hydraulic press while his brain still believes that it is his own hand. Trippy!
According to the description box, the way the brain is tricked is called the rubber hand illusion, dubbed RHI. Stroking a visible rubber hand synchronously to the participant's own occluded hand induces the sensation that a rubber hand belongs to one's body. The Action Lab takes this illusion to the next level to see if it still works when the rubber hand in question is being crushed. Make sure not to miss out on this video.