# Can anyone teach me how to shoot a wave of energy from my hand? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 22, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470 "2004-02-22T05:04:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teemingONE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@teemingONE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teemingONE)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/1 "2004-02-22T05:04:32Z")
Not to the exaggerated degree seen in some cartoons of course. But is something even close to that even remotely possible? A while back I read of some monks that dried wet sheets on their backs by raising their heat (or something like that). If thats possible, couldn’t it also be possible concentrate the energy to a point causing heat there? Are there any documented (pseudo-documented), tall tales, and the whatnot of energy being shot or thrown? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/2 "2004-02-22T05:10:08Z")
Tall tales, maybe. Whatnot, almost certainly. Reality, absolutely not. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/3 "2004-02-22T05:32:58Z")
1. Buy one of those little battery powered laser pointers. 2. Put it in your hand, facing outwards. 3. Push the “on” button. **CAUTION** Examining the resulting energy wavefront too closely may cause it to exhibit particle-like behavior! ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/4 "2004-02-22T05:38:23Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > 1. Buy one of those little battery powered laser pointers. > 2. Put it in your hand, facing outwards. > 3. Push the “on” button. > > **CAUTION** > Examining the resulting energy wavefront too closely > may cause it to exhibit particle-like behavior! I was going to say “flashlight”, but **Squink** ’s is much better. Actually, your hand gives off energy in the form of heat, but that’s not what you want, is it? Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/5 "2004-02-22T06:03:16Z")
You could clap your hands, or snap your fingers, and thus cause your hand(s)\* to give off a wave of sonic energy. \*What is the sound of one hand clapping… ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/6 "2004-02-22T08:03:14Z")
I would suggest pulling the trigger on an oversized handgun. You’ll get **MEBuckner** ’s sound wave in spades, **mangeorge** ’s flashlight effect, and a far more lethal hydroshock effect should you happen to hit the right sort of target. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/7 "2004-02-22T08:34:21Z")
The answer is obvious. You just need to douse yourself in GC-161. Careful though, it has some weird side effects. [Cite.](http://www.nick.com/all_nick/tv_shows/shows.jhtml?propertyId=547) I miss that show. ---
**Author:** ![Arturius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Arturius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arturius)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/8 "2004-02-22T10:58:02Z")
> [@teemingONE](#): > > Not to the exaggerated degree seen in some cartoons of course. > > But is something even close to that even remotely possible? > > A while back I read of some monks that dried wet sheets on their backs by raising their heat (or something like that). If thats possible, couldn’t it also be possible concentrate the energy to a point causing heat there? > > Are there any documented (pseudo-documented), tall tales, and the whatnot of energy being shot or thrown? how about a one inch punch? Hit people and cause them to fly across the room. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/9 "2004-02-22T12:26:18Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > You could clap your hands, or snap your fingers, and thus cause your hand(s)\* to give off a wave of sonic energy. Well, it’s a good idea. I think EM is the only sort of force likely to give the desired effect. But I think the OP was looking for something more devestating. My advice is to supplement this wave with a matter wave which boosts it, acting as a carrier. Then the force of your punch can be propagated with inertia and speed almost preserved. I plan to patent this technique as **Throwing Rocks[sup]TM[/sup]**. ---
**Author:** ![Uncivil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ccd318/32.png) [@Uncivil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncivil)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/10 "2004-02-22T13:27:28Z")
rofl@this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/11 "2004-02-22T13:32:47Z")
Certainly it’s possible. 1. Get in good with Aaron Spelling. 2. Convince Holly Marie Combs to retire from her role as Piper Halliwell. 3. Get cast as the new Halliwell sibling with her powers. What could be simpler? ---
**Author:** ![lucwarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/12 "2004-02-22T14:28:04Z")
A martial arts book I once read gave something like the following instructions: Light a candle, and practice flicking your finger at it from an inch or two away until you can make the candle go out. Once you’ve mastered that, start practicing from further and further away. After a few years, you should be able to make the candle go out from across the room. Next, go through the same exercise except with a piece of paper in front of the candle. With a great deal of practice, you should be able to put the candle out without tearing the paper. Next, start using harder materials up to and including glass. After many more years of practice, you should be able to put out a flame from across the room even though the flame is enclosed by glass. If you can do this WITHOUT BREAKING THE GLASS, then you’ve mastered the technique. Now, you can kill your enemies at a distance by stopping their hearts with a flick of a finger. Of course you should use your skills very responsibly. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/13 "2004-02-22T14:55:09Z")
> [@teemingONE](#): > > A while back I read of some monks that dried wet sheets on their backs by raising their heat (or something like that). If thats possible, couldn’t it also be possible concentrate the energy to a point causing heat there? All these monks are doing is taking conscious control of their capillary dilation to increase their skin temperature. When exposed to cold temperatures, your body automatically contracts your capillaries to conserve your body heat; in hot temperatures, your capillaries expand to more efficiently radiate heat into the environment. It’s possible to learn to override your body’s automatic systems and change your skin temperature to approach your body temperature. (Don’t have a cite-but I learned to do this myself a number of years ago, it’s not terribly complicated, once you’ve learned some self-hypnosis.) There isn’t, as far as I know, any bodily mechanism for generating more heat at a particular point of your skin than this. I would conclude that what you’re looking for is not possible … ---
**Author:** ![universe.zip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@universe.zip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/universe.zip)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/14 "2004-02-22T15:21:04Z")
**SCSimmons** , I learned it with biofeedback, it´s probably also possible without the equipment. (But it makes it easier, as you can monitor even minute temperature changes and thus learn the process.) Cites abound; if anyone´s interested, google for _temperature biofeedback Raynaud_ to avoid the quack sites. (Raynaud´s disease is one of the fields of application, as Raynaud´s causes a drop in finger temperature.) Haven´t tried drying sheets yet, but I can raise the temperature of my fingers by several degrees. No energy rays, though, sorry. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/15 "2004-02-22T15:52:01Z")
> [@universe.zip](#): > > **SCSimmons** , I learned it with biofeedback, it´s probably also possible without the equipment. (But it makes it easier, as you can monitor even minute temperature changes and thus learn the process.) Cites abound; if anyone´s interested, google for _temperature biofeedback Raynaud_ to avoid the quack sites. (Raynaud´s disease is one of the fields of application, as Raynaud´s causes a drop in finger temperature.) > Haven´t tried drying sheets yet, but I can raise the temperature of my fingers by several degrees. No energy rays, though, sorry. 😉 Thanks, u.z! The person who taught the technique to me had learned it with biofeedback, in fact. I was successful on my first try without biofeedback, if a single-blind trial using someone else’s hands as the thermometer is considered sufficient evidence of that. 🙂 I’d spent a lot of time & effort learning other self-hypnosis ‘tricks’, though-no doubt, biofeedback equipment would have made it a lot easier to learn overall. I imagine it would a lot harder to maintain the needed concentration with a cold, wet sheet laid across your back. (Not to mention sitting naked in the snow-I’ve seen alleged pictures of monks & fakirs doing that …) But a cloistered Buddhist monk has a lot of time on his hands for perfecting his meditation techniques-it doesn’t look beyond the realm of possibility to me. But I don’t see how you’d get an energy ray out of it either. But a man can dream, right? ZAP!!! ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/16 "2004-02-22T15:59:21Z")
Check [this](http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html) out. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/17 "2004-02-22T16:36:48Z")
From **x-ray vision** ’s cite, the Harvard University Gazette: > [@](#): > > In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators’ shoulders… > But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour… > During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat… > In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery “Benson” is Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Not exactly the Weekly World News, this looks to have had some brains looking at it. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/18 "2004-02-22T17:11:36Z")
I spent a few years working for a company selling medical sensors and biofeedback equipment and software. Autoperipheral hand warming and related techniques are useful for many things (increasing circulation in the digits of diabetics, dilating vessels in a specific area to generate warmth and ease the pain of an arthritic joint or sore muscle). But, you won’t be shooting Skaran thermal blasts. These techniques are not generating more heat, just redirecting it. It is possible to increase the amount of heat generated by the body- exercise or a fever will do it. Unless the researchers are lying (and having read many of the books we sold, I doubt that they are.), this would seem to be what the monks are doing. ---
**Author:** ![pope\_hentai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pope\_hentai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pope_hentai)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/19 "2004-02-22T17:13:25Z")
> [@](#): > > how about a one inch punch? i’ve seen a friend of mine take down a 350lb man with a one inch punch on a bet. that was a sight to behold, like something out of a kung fu movie. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470/20 "2004-02-22T17:21:12Z")
The “one inch punch” is all about proper punching tecnique and proper target selection. Anyone can do it, but it’ll take some practice. There are also limits to what it can do. Forget about kung-fu movie type results. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-teach-me-how-to-shoot-a-wave-of-energy-from-my-hand/230470.md?page=2)