Curious physiological question. The other day I heard a radio report about some VIP undergoing knee surgery. As I listened, I felt my own knees begin to throb - clearly a mental reaction to the report.
Question is, what is actually happening in such instances? Is the brain sending a message to the knees to throb, and some reaction is actually taking place in the knees, which is then sent back to the brain which interprets the feeling? Or is the entire process confined to the brain, which pretends to itself that it is receiving feelings from the knees that it never actually receives (similar to amputees feeling phantom pain in their non-existent limbs)?
Having said that, I think it’s a very interesting question. Kind of like men pressing their legs together when reading an MPSIMS thread about slipping off your bike pedals, eh?
Maybe next time, you could spice up the thread title a bit. You know, something like “I just had wild monkey sex with Salma Hayek!”. Increases the view count, and thus increases the likelyhood of someone competent reading your post. Voila, instant responses
but seriously, it’s a good question as to what is actually going on. medical science probably does not know. I would guess it’s all in the brain, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.
I think there is a difference between an empathetic reaction (“sympathy pains”) and psychosomatic illness.
Sympathy pains are evidently emotion-related.
Psychosomatic illnesses are much less obviously so, and indeed, IMHO, there’s a very fine line between stress-related symptoms and psychosomatic symptoms. Yet, we tend to dismiss psychosomatic symptoms (“It’s all in your head”) but we take stress-related symptoms very seriously.
