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Phantom Leg Pain Email c. 1997 from Bobby Matherne to Doyle Henderson
Edited to use in doyletics.com August 15, 2000

Dear Doyle,

So guess who gets my first E-mail from my new Pentium 166 system? You! It's been kind of a pain in the rear to get it working on-line, which brings me to the next subject.

I've had diarrhea due to stomach virus for a couple of days and although it's gone, I had a little rectal itching that usually accompanies the diarrhea for me, up until now. This morning I applied A&D ointment, which prompted Del to say, "Why not do a doyle trace? The A&D is what I did with my boys in those times."

So I did. At about 2 years old the worst part of the itching was gone, so I ended the trace. I was left with only a barely noticeable irritation which, within a hour, completely disappeared. As I saw it, the slight irritation was the stimulus that triggered the more irritating doylic itching that I found so annoying. No big deal, but certainly an improvement, and one that will be permanent, since the itching doyles are gone for good, which is a big deal.

I drove to Walgreen's to pick up a perscription for my wife before she left for NJ with her mom. On the way back I was thinking how ALL the itching was gone and how marvelous your theory was. That's when I got to thinking of the similarity of my itching with phantom leg pain.

That's when the brainstorm hit me!! Certainly phantom leg pains are doyles; I think we've discussed it and traded stories. The phantom pain is real pain triggered by a memory that activates the sensory cortex. Just found someone who's confirmed that memories can activate the sensory cortex. [See: http://www.hhmi.org/news/buckner.html for details on the work of Buckner etal]

Here's the big deal about my insight:

IF YOU HAVE PHANTOM LEG PAIN,

AND YOU HAVE A LEG, YOU CALL IT REAL PAIN ! ! !

UP UNTIL NOW, UP UNTIL DOYLETICS!

If I didn't have a butt, I would have called it "phantom butt pain," but I did have one, so I called it real pain. So, my very smart friend and cyber-neighbor, you have shown the world that feelings are phantom pains! Painful emotions are phantom pains! All emotions are of the same structure as phantom pains. A phantom pain is a 3-D reconstructed pain created over the actual body [like a phantom] so that it has the semblance, the actuality, of a REAL PAIN. Likewise all emotions have the same structure. If my wife experiences a painful emotion, she feels as a constriction in her chest. Since she has a chest, she calls it a real pain in her chest.

Anyhow, the phantom leg pain gives us a whole new tack for explaining to the public about Doyletics.

Remember my basic tenet, heck, I don't even have a name for it, up until now: "If one person has done something, we all can do it, and are doing it all the time, out of our awareness." [Matherne's Pervasion of Process Principle, that's a possible name]

Applying the MPPP to phantom leg pain: if an amputee can experience phantom pain in a limb that's not there, a non-amputee can experience phantom pain in a limb that IS there. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but doesn't this highlight the importance of Doyletics in a totally new way?


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