You’ve probably heard of “phantom limb” syndrome, or even the bizarre “idle hand” disorder, a neurological disorder where one’s hand may seem to act independently of it’s owner. However, what about “Supernatural Phantom Limb” disorder? According tothe Swiss news source Swissinfo.ch, a 64-year-old woman now reports to doctors at a hospital in Geneva that a “milky white” third arm exists, which she is able to “manifest” to perform tasks like scratch itches on various parts of her body.

Doctors who have examined the patient call this “the first case known to doctors of a person being able to feel, see and deliberately move a limb that doesn’t exist.” But how are they sure that, at least to the patient, the limb does indeed exist?  Apparently so… and the results of this experiment thus-far are astounding.

During examination the woman’s brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (essentially, an MRI), doctors tending to the woman’s claims hoped to pinpoint where (and if) the phantom limb might be stimulating the patient’s brain while active. According to the research of doctor Asaid Khateb of the hospital’s experimental neurophysiology laboratory, the results showed conclusively that his patient did actually experience what she was describing.

During the MRI, the patient was asked to move her right hand, as well as to simply imagine doing so, the latter of which resulted in very similar activity (though to a lesser degree) as to what occurred in her brain when actually moving her hand. Interestingly, her left hand is paralyzed (which causes one to consider whether this might have some how instigated the appearance of the phantom limb in the first place), and the same effect was achieved when she thought of moving the immobile hand. Finally, when asked to move the translucent phantom appendage, not only didher brain respond just as it did when her right arm had actually moved, her visual cortex was stimulated as she “watched” the limb move about, according to doctors.

At present, only nine cases of Supernatural Phantom Limbs are known to exist to medical science. Existing research suggests that the phenomenon is caused by a “mismatch between the subject’s well-established sensorimotor representations and a suddenly aberrant pattern of communication between the brain and (a) paralysed limb.” But what other angles could be applied to the phenomenon? Gralien Report correspondent Mobius comments that “if indeed this is true this maybe the best example ever seen of the illusionary universe/mind over matter,” along the same lines as Michael Talbot’s The Holographic Universe. What other implications could this strange phenomenon have, or what other possibilities could it merit?