The sensations become a sense

In the past few months I have made a sort of transition. At first, the sensations I felt were foreign and new. I would feel a buzz from a dc adapter and think "woah! It buzzes!" As of late, though, I have found that I increasingly recognize specific sensations, and can feel subtle variations. This transition has been like the difference between feeling a surface with latex gloves, then with bare skin: I can feel the texture of a field. The field from the power supply inside my alarm clock feels smooth and clean. The DC adapter for my electric razor feels gritty. I found a long lost hard drive magnet under the couch without ever seeing or touching it... I sensed it, even knew which pole was facing my finger!

While technically this ability is an extension of touch, the human perception makes it more than that. A magnetic implant gives the human body the ability to detect and quantify what would otherwise be intangible. Truly, it is a sixth sense.

Finger is better, way to go Parylene coating!

My smashed finger injury has gotten much, much better. The area doesn't feel quite back to normal, but has the familiar "almost healed" feeling to it. It appears the implant survived a pretty hard test, which is one more victory for Parylene coating.

I will say this, though I have said it before. This is a very experimental procedure in which you are implanting an object in to yourself that could potentially be harmful. These magnets are not designed originally for implantation. While you can take every precaution to handle and install them correctly, there is a definite possibility of a compromised coating, and you may be forced to remove fragments of magnet from your finger, or worse. These are risks that myself and the others that have tried have understood from the beginning.

That being said, I think that this is a body modification that has been on the verge of explosion for quite awhile. Purpose-made parylene coated magnets and implantation tools could make this procedure accessible to many, and just may encourage others to find ways to give humans more sensory perception through body modification.