Although a feeling phantom limb is usually a recurringexperience to an amputee, there are fleeting moments when people can experience similar realities in their mind. The most recent experience I can think of is last March, when I cut my hair. Usually cutting hair isn’t much of a big deal to people, a couple inches get taken off. However, my hair was really long at the time (almost down to my waist) and I got six inches cut off.
For the next few days, when I went to tie my hair back into a pony tail, or did that thing where I would run my hair down the ponytail, to straighten it out, my hand kept going. I was so used to having my hair being so long, and would think “Oh yeah… my hair is shorter now”. It was the same way when I brushed my hair, my arm kept going for another few inches, just out of habit.
When your brain is so used to doing something for so long, it kind of goes into “autopilot” when doing everyday tasks. An example of this is when there was problems with the faucet at my house, so my dad took the handle off. The next morning, when I went to get a glass of water, I looked right at where the handle should be, then tried to grab it. Of course, it wasn’t there and I was confused for half a second. However, I was used to doing the same thing everyday, so even when I looked at where the handle should be, it didn’t register that it wasn’t there. Doing things out of habit kind of creates a separate reality for your brain, a reality where things stay constant. So, whether you’re aware something changed, in a way, you really aren’t until you make a new habit to accept that change.
