Can you develop phantom touch?

[Glue]

Some of my friends have it, but not me. I think it sounds like a cool experience. Has anyone developed it after playing for a while? Or is it something you just do or don't have?

[Chewy102]

If you have someone else next to you in the real world and a friend in game. They can train you to have phantom sense by syncing up their actions. Sin offers another way as getting high/drunk makes you think less and allows the brain to assume touch based off of sight alone. Or it can just be pure immersion and instinct.

My phantom touch is more instinct and immersion based. My first phantom sense was with a smoke trail. As Iv lived with smokers for the vast majority of my life, it became instinct to wave off smoke in the air. I did just that in game, but I also sworn I SMELT IT! Just for a moment, but I smelt that smoke. Over time my phantom sense is building up due to owning an Index and full body tracking out of pure immersion. The better I can see the avatar as my body, the more my brain is assuming it is. Most things interacting with my eyes/face I get a good feeling for. Chest and arms isn't as strong, but still gives a clear feeling. Legs are the weakest for phantom touch, I have "some" feeling in legs but it is the weakest. Mostly because I see them the least.

A few things I think helps building phantom sense are.

1, stick to a main avatar. The longer you stick in 1 avatar the more you start to recognize it as your body.
2, booze. If you're old enough to drink, it help loosen you up. Drink with friends though.
3, hours. It just takes time for some folks to get phantom sense.
4, luck. Some people just aren't able to get it.
5, don't force it. Simple enough, just let it happen if it will.

[X e r 0]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Glue]

Originally posted by Chewy102:

1, stick to a main avatar. The longer you stick in 1 avatar the more you start to recognize it as your body.
2, booze. If you're old enough to drink, it help loosen you up. Drink with friends though.
3, hours. It just takes time for some folks to get phantom sense.
4, luck. Some people just aren't able to get it.
5, don't force it. Simple enough, just let it happen if it will.

I change up my avatar every once in a while, I guess I'll try to stick to my custom one when its done.
I've been drunk in VR before but never felt anything during.
I have full body with an index as well, which init of itself is pretty amazing to have.
I'm still building hours, so I'm really hoping its something I can gain with time.

I'm curious, did you have PT from the start, or did you start feeling it after a while of playing? Just knowing that at least a few people developed it later on would give me some hope of gaining it myself.
I'm probably one of the unlucky ones though, seems like I got the short end of the stick in pretty much every other aspect of my neurology.

[Chewy102]

Originally posted by Glue:

Originally posted by Chewy102:

1, stick to a main avatar. The longer you stick in 1 avatar the more you start to recognize it as your body.
2, booze. If you're old enough to drink, it help loosen you up. Drink with friends though.
3, hours. It just takes time for some folks to get phantom sense.
4, luck. Some people just aren't able to get it.
5, don't force it. Simple enough, just let it happen if it will.

I change up my avatar every once in a while, I guess I'll try to stick to my custom one when its done.
I've been drunk in VR before but never felt anything during.
I have full body with an index as well, which init of itself is pretty amazing to have.
I'm still building hours, so I'm really hoping its something I can gain with time.

I'm curious, did you have PT from the start, or did you start feeling it after a while of playing? Just knowing that at least a few people developed it later on would give me some hope of gaining it myself.
I'm probably one of the unlucky ones though, seems like I got the short end of the stick in pretty much every other aspect of my neurology.

Took a couple hundred hours before I first noticed PT. Back then I played the majority of my time sitting down and didn't have FBT yet. Had a custom main avatar for some time though. As said, I was just sitting in a world hanging out and it simply happened. The smoke trail came to my face, I waved it off, thought I smelt it, then a few seconds later it hit me. That wasn't real, but I "felt" it.

Skipping to now at nearly 700 hours in game and my PT is more or less a proper thing. Slight tingles when being touched/punched by others. Fuzzy/warm feeling from head pats/rubs. Freaky cringe worthy chills from being licked. Legit warmth from hugs. And I somewhat expect to feel objects that I touch.

It's frankly weird.

[VerrucktMedic]

Phantom touch is a placebo experience that you force on yourself mostly. You need to have conscious thought about it to some degree, kind of like hypnosis.

It's not a real thing that your body just develops over time, you kind of have to want it.

[Dranenk]

you can actively learn it. there are tutorials on reddit how to do it.

in short:

1. get a friend in vr to join you.
2. he should use a smaller avatar then you with small hands/fingers
3. he should stand in front of you, looking at you and start to pet you in your face, slowly
4. area most sensitive for most people is the small part between the upper lips and the bottom of the nose - especially to the left and right of the center
5. slowly, fast stuff is not working
6. you can repeat this when he stands behind you in front of a mirror, reaching around your face doing the same

this is how i developed it. also i think young people making outrageous claims about having massive phantom touch are just bragging. this feeling is subtle, especially in the beginning.

[Glue]

Originally posted by Dranenk:

you can actively learn it. there are tutorials on reddit how to do it.

in short:

1. get a friend in vr to join you.
2. he should use a smaller avatar then you with small hands/fingers
3. he should stand in front of you, looking at you and start to pet you in your face, slowly
4. area most sensitive for most people is the small part between the upper lips and the bottom of the nose - especially to the left and right of the center
5. slowly, fast stuff is not working
6. you can repeat this when he stands behind you in front of a mirror, reaching around your face doing the same

this is how i developed it. also i think young people making outrageous claims about having massive phantom touch are just bragging. this feeling is subtle, especially in the beginning.

I chill with a group of very touchy furries. I’ve been touched all over my face and arms. I have had a few moments I think I might have felt something, like a warm sensation on my lip when someone accidentally walked through me, and a tingling on my forehead when they touched my face. That’s all I’ve felt so far, and I’m pretty sure the warmth on my lip was just my breath bouncing off my headset. Still, I hope it means I might be at least capable of developing it.

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by Glue:

Some of my friends have it, but not me. I think it sounds like a cool experience. Has anyone developed it after playing for a while? Or is it something you just do or don't have?

Phantom touch? As in "almost" feeling someone touching you?
Getting it is pretty easy. Anyone can do that. Just immerse yourself as far as possible:
1) Stop treating the game as a "computer fun with a giant hot display on your head". Fool yourself into thinking of more realism. Maps with realistic light/darker maps might help you a bit with that.
2) More imagination on feels, smells and etc. This will launch your process of thinking into "completing" things around you.
3) "Grow" with your virtual body, so you stop seeing it as something external. Teach yourself into feeling your virtual hand. Pick avatars that have hands look as almost yours(don't have to be exact, just to fool yourself when you're not looking directly at them). The more times you mistake your virtual hands for real hands, the better. Standing in front of the mirror to see your virtual self move, see you move your virtual hands, see you move your virtual head and observe your vision tilt with your virtual head might induce the effect even further.
4) Being VERY calm for a long time, and then observing someone attempting to touch you might do the trick in giving you the right feel, so you can remember and recreate it later.

[a damp Bounty® wipe in a pocket]

I thought I was the only of my friends who didn't have it, but realized standing in walls in beat saber makes me feel slimy. Ughhhoandljnsffnad;jw;ofja so gross, ♥♥♥♥ walls. It's 100% something you can develop and people just like to brag and overstate their experiences.

[skyfish]

Originally posted by Your_White_Knight:

Originally posted by Glue:

Can you develop phantom touch?

Some of my friends have it, but not me. I think it sounds like a cool experience. Has anyone developed it after playing for a while? Or is it something you just do or don't have?

No... it's total BS...

i agree, i've only seen it being "used" by people as an excuse to innapropriately touch each other... (minors and not). if anything it's disturbing people think this is real.

[Bluegills]

method acting and just being immersed

[Shadowbrodie]

Originally posted by kawayan:

Originally posted by Your_White_Knight:

No... it's total BS...

i agree, i've only seen it being "used" by people as an excuse to innapropriately touch each other... (minors and not). if anything it's disturbing people think this is real.

It is real though, I have friends that have it, just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it's not real. Unless you think the thousands of vr users who say they have it are all liars.

[skyfish]

Originally posted by Shadowbrodie:

Originally posted by kawayan:

i agree, i've only seen it being "used" by people as an excuse to innapropriately touch each other... (minors and not). if anything it's disturbing people think this is real.

It is real though, I have friends that have it, just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it's not real. Unless you think the thousands of vr users who say they have it are all liars.

I've watched people "apply" it to others, I've had people try to do it to me and I have no doubt that it's something you just think you're feeling and it. I'm not at all saying the people who "have it" are "liars" but instead people who have convinced themselves they have it out of peer pressure and thinking the slightest breeze of wind on their face means they have it.

[QP]

Originally posted by kawayan:

I've watched people "apply" it to others, I've had people try to do it to me and I have no doubt that it's something you just think you're feeling and it. I'm not at all saying the people who "have it" are "liars" but instead people who have convinced themselves they have it out of peer pressure and thinking the slightest breeze of wind on their face means they have it.

It's just a very common form of hypnosis. There's a common magic trick (called the rubber hand trick, of which there are videos of on youtube) where a person can take a fake hand, put the person's real hand in a place where it cannot be seen, and then lightly brush the fake hand (or both hands) with a paintbrush until they feel it. Then, the magician pulls out a hammer and smashes the fake hand. The person reacts as if their real hand has been smashed.

However, just like some people cannot be hypnotized, for some people, this trick simply won't work. The person simply cannot accept the fake hand as their own. There's some science behind it, and some skeptics to the scientific explanation for it, but that's that.

Phantom touch in VR is pretty much the same thing. In a way, you are correct, the people experiencing it have fooled their mind into thinking they feel it, but that's exactly the way it works.

[Ackranome]

Depersonalization has been seen with VR. Be careful.