I don't know about you, gentlemen, but I am terribly afraid of pain. Under torture, God save me from this misfortune, I will certainly betray all military secrets. That is why people who know how to control pain and not feel bodily suffering seem to me to be real magicians and cause genuine envy: "I wish I could learn this way too."
TORTURE WITH THE ALGEZIMETER
Depending on the characteristics of the perception of pain, nature has divided people into four types. To find out which of them a particular person belongs to, doctors are helped by a special pain meter - an algesimeter.
By gradually increasing the strength of the electric current, the intensity of pressure or by heating a certain area of the skin, the device detects the strength of the stimulus, which causes the first, very weak feeling of pain.
This is the so-called pain threshold. After it, the unpleasant sensations will increase as long as you have enough patience. Your personal best is pain tolerance. With this term, experts have designated the most powerful impact that you are able to withstand. The interval between these two values is also called the pain tolerance interval.
An examination with an algesimeter is like a real torture. And is it worth it if, instead, you can just go … to the dentist, smear the wound with iodine or pluck the eyebrows at worst.
It will immediately become clear whether your pain threshold is low or high. In the first case, from any of the above procedures, you immediately faint. In the second, you won't even feel anything.
Promotional video:
Princess and the Pea - low pain threshold and pain tolerance interval. Suffering is categorically contraindicated for you! You perceive pain sharply and by nature you are not able to endure it. You are vulnerable and impressionable, prone to melancholy and loneliness. Entering a treatment room is like crossing the threshold of a torture chamber.
The Little Mermaid - low pain threshold, but high pain tolerance interval. People of this kind are also extremely sensitive to pain, but they compare favorably with representatives of the first type in their ability to courageously endure suffering.
Sleeping beauty - high pain threshold, but low pain tolerance interval. People of this type may initially seem insensitive: they do not notice a slight pain, but as soon as it becomes a little sharper, a violent reaction immediately follows. Such a person has practically no reserves of patience.
Steadfast Tin Soldier - high pain threshold and pain interval. howl portability. You don’t have a fear of pain. You even flaunt your indifference to her. Remove the tooth? You are welcome! Do you have an operation? No anesthesia! And all because you have a weak susceptibility to unpleasant sensations and a lot of patience.
Anna Akhmatova belonged to this group of people. In May 1940, doctors discovered she had a benign tumor and sent her for surgery. To the question of Lydia Chukovskaya, under what anesthesia the surgical intervention will be performed, Anna Andreevna calmly answered:
"I do not know. And I'm not interested in knowing. It doesn't matter to me. Even without anesthesia at all. I have never been afraid of physical pain. Once my friend said that he was afraid to remove a tooth without anesthesia, and immediately ceased to be of interest to me. I don't know how to respect such people!"
By the way, scientists have noticed that people who panic in the dentist's office, even novocaine does not save them from pain. Such poor fellows usually treat their teeth under anesthesia. And those who know how to control themselves do not need local anesthesia. From this they concluded that the ability to endure physical pain resiliently depends not only on genetic predisposition, but also on the emotional state.
WINNER PAIN
The famous To-Rama was one of these unique ones. He performed in circuses in Europe in the 1920s. Despite his Hindu name, he was Austrian.
As eyewitnesses testify, this person has learned to completely suppress pain sensitivity in himself.
Punctures through the palms, forearms, shoulders, cheeks, produced by a long and thick needle, really did not cause any objective signs of perceived pain in him: the recording of the pulse, blood pressure did not show any changes, even reflex narrowing of the pupils - a reliable sign of hidden pain.
To-Rama said that at the end of the First World War he was seriously wounded by a grenade fragment. In a field hospital, his condition was declared hopeless. The doctors spoke about it. He heard that he was put on death row.
“Then,” said To-Rama, “something rebelled in me … I gritted my teeth, and I had only one thought:“You must stay alive, you will not die, you do not feel any pain,”and all in the same kind.
I repeated this to myself an infinite number of times, until this thought entered my flesh and blood so much that I finally ceased to feel pain. I don't know how it happened, but something incredible happened. The doctors shook their heads.
My condition began to improve from day to day. So I survived only with the help of will. Two months later, in one of the Viennese hospitals, I underwent a small operation without general anesthesia and even without local anesthesia, one self-hypnosis was enough.
And when I fully recovered, I developed my own system of victory over myself and went so far in this respect that I do not experience suffering at all, if I do not want to experience it."
As follows from the story of this phenomenal man, he acquired insensitivity to pain through self-hypnosis. In some cases, the same result gives a state of ecstasy, as evidenced by the exploits of religious fanatics, fakirs, medieval witches and sorcerers.
In a state of ecstasy, they lost their pain sensitivity and endured the most incredible self-torture and torture with amazing resistance. It is quite possible that in this case one or another degree of self-hypnosis, suggesting the action of fanatical faith or self-hypnosis, played some role.
FAKIR FROM DONETSK
Valeriy Lavrinenko, 60, from Donetsk, did a lot to prove that he is completely insensitive to pain. Pass an electric current through your body? You are welcome. Get a spoon out of the boiling water with your hand? Excuse me.
To stop your heart of your own accord? And this is possible. But to prick yourself with knitting needles in front of the audience is too much.
“Valery, taking off his jacket, rolls up the sleeves of his shirt above the elbow. With a long thin, about a millimeter thick, a knitting needle begins to pierce the arm at the very elbow bend. The needle passes through the skin, as if it passes between the muscle and the bone, and now you can see how the skin on the other side of the hand stretches, a bump appears, the skin breaks through, settles, and the needle comes out. Not a drop of blood.
- Painfully? - the audience asks him.
- No, - Lavrinenko answers. - If there are those willing, I can pierce them too …
A girl came out. The piercing operation proceeds in the same way. True, beforehand Valery quietly says something in her ear and draws a certain vicious circle on her hand with his finger. Again, not a drop of blood.
- Painfully? - bewildered viewers ask her.
- No, - she laughs, - not a bit …
What is this? Yogic hardening? Fakir tricks ^ Or a completely modern auto-training, the ability to completely control your body? What was he whispering in her ear and why did he draw a circle on her hand?
It is clear that it was not without auto-training. But why was there no blood and pain?
“I just said that there would be no pain and that she believed in it. Having drawn a circle on the skin of his hand with his finger, he suggested focusing on this particular area so that she knew that blood would not appear. There is one trick here: there are certain areas on the body that can be punctured painlessly.
Of course, a lot here also depends on the subject himself - he must decide on such an operation, be able to gather, concentrate. The girl succeeded. Therefore, her damaged capillaries quickly clogged."
Daria SHTIL, magazine "Mysteries of the XX century" №21, 2016
