Experiment at home

All you need is a friend, a freestanding cardboard screen, and a fake hand. It would be ideal if you had a rubber hand, such as you might buy at a Halloween store, but it will also work if you just trace your hnad on a sheet of blank paper. Lay your real hand on a tabletop a few inches away from the fake one and align them the same (fingertips pointed the same direction, palms either both up or both down). Then place the screen between the two hands so that all you can see is the false one. While you stare at the fake hand, your friend's job is to simultaneously stroke both hands at corresponding points. For example, your friend could stroke both pinkies fromknuckle to nail at the same speed, then issue three quick taps from the second joint of both index fingers with the same timing, then stroke a few light circles on the back of each hand, and so on. After a short time, areas in your brain where visual and somatosensory (body sensing) patters come together - "association areas" become confused.

You will actually feel the sensations being applied to the dummy hand as if it were your own.


-Jeff Hawkins "On Intelligence"