The connection between what our brain believes to be true and reality can be quite strange sometimes. This is never more evident than with a good illusion.

There are many optical illusions where we see one thing when really we should be seeing something else, but what about optical illusions where you see one thing and know that it’s not true but your brain believes it’s true anyway?

One video posted to Twitter is getting a lot of attention for its false hand demonstration. During this illusion, a person’s brain comes to believe that a fake hand is their real hand, and their brain even feels sensation in the fake hand when it is being touched even though their real hand is not being touched.

At the beginning of the video, we see a man sitting at a desk when the person doing the demonstration hits a fake hand with a hammer. The person at the desk reacts in shock and pain as if his real hand had been hit. In fact, he was not physically harmed in any way. Then the video shows us what happened prior to this incident and how the person came to believe that he was feeling pain in a fake hand.

It all starts with a divider, a towel and two rulers. We could try to explain what happens next, but it’s honestly something you have to see to believe. Watch the video below to see how this man came to believe that he felt pain in a fake hand.

Once the illusion is established it is difficult to disconnect it.In fact it becomes reinforced.Listen and watch as this plays out.This is the classic false hand demonstration and it is quite powerful.pic.twitter.com/9cmhMAJHSS

— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) May 24, 2022

Does it surprise you how our brain can trick us into believing that something that isn’t real is real?