Hi everyone. Reading through this forum made me think about a particularly oddly powerful psuedoscience/alternative medicine experience I had back in high school and actually prompted me to sign up on this board.

Now, I'm one of the most skeptical people around. I've always been an atheist or at least an agnostic, I can't stand logical fallacies and I just love pointing them out (or having them pointed out to me). So what I experienced and can still experience at times is extremely baffling to me, but I don't often talk about it because people would deem it weird or likely say it was "all in my head," which if it is, scares me a bit and you may see why.
My boyfriend in high school was ALL about alternative medicine, hated Big Pharm and preached all kinds of bullshit at me about how the drugs I was taking for depression and anxiety were putting "toxins" into my body and he kept buying me all of these magical raspberry teas and other nonsense to help me with my various health complaints. I kind of believed him, kind of didn't, mostly remained skeptical.

He's also the one that took me to be "initiated" into the practice of Reiki, which is a pseudoscience that, as I understand it, stems from Vitalism and proports that placing the heads on various parts of the body and letting the "energy" flow through can relieve pain and various ailments.
So my then-boyfriend showed me how it worked by demonstrating it on me one day. He did it before even telling me what it was really, he just pretty much went, "Watch this" and it did something and I was majorly WTF.

He put his hands on my head and I felt heat/pressure, a distinct and often intense sensation that I've always associated with "Reiki," or whatever it really is. No, it wasn't just heat or dampnesss from his hand sitting on my head for a while (I tried that myself many times), it was very much a "the water in the shower is heating up and is also very wet" feeling accompanied by said "wetness" and feeling as though the muscles in the head were doing...something.
He explained what it was as I sat there confused and delirious from the WTF factor, so I went home and tried it on myself. Nothing. I closed my eyes, breathed deep, tried to "channel" my energy...nothing, couldn't do it. Couldn't produce that same intense, crazy heat/pressure that he had.
I tried it repeatedly to try and prove that what he could do was explainable by something other than a totally bizarre, unexplainable experience. I also tried it the night before he took me to get "initiated," which involved a healer/teacher, and couldn't do it. He was paying the hefty fee, so I agreed to it and thought why not, this might be funny.

The ritual involved Reiki work on me, a dimly lit room, lots of spiritual music and crystals and shit, and then the "healer" drawing "symbols" above my head in the air with her hands that would allegedly open my chakras and allow the Reiki to flow more freely.

But I felt it. I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I was sitting there, thinking, "This isn't real, this is irrational" (I remember telling myself that over and over) while I felt intense pressure/heat in my head and that same Reiki "feeling" I'd had with my boyfriend. It was super uncanny, but I realized soon after I was "initiated" that oh wow, I could somehow do it too! I could, at will, FINALLY, heat my palms up gradually but very intensely when they touched certain body parts, and it was and still is accompanied by tension/pressure/pins and needles in my hands with the heat feeling like it's "flowing" from the center of my palms.
I went home and tried it on my mom and sister, who were laughing at me the entire time while I was desperately trying to explain the experience despite how insane it sounded, but they too felt my hands get very, very hot and could feel those weird pressure feelings in their head.

And odder still, I can still "heat" my palms up at will without touching anything, though it helps if I'm touching a living thing. The palms are apparently, as Reiki teaches, the center at which the energy flows from, which "explains" why they heat up.
I've put it in the back of my mind for years, this bizarre experience and fringe layer of my life

So what the FUCK was I and am I experiencing?

Is my sub-conscious really that gullible, or is there something else going on here that might rationally explain the odd but definitely very real sensation of "Reiki"? I hope I can find some scientific answers here besides the answer of "it's just a placebo effect" (or "your hands are hot from holding them on someone for a while") because that alone doesn't satisfy my rational mind as I'm feeling very distinct physical feelings.

And well, if it is a placebo effect, I'm all the more fascinated and want to know exactly how this works! I mean, this must be some kind of magical placebo effect, because while the "Reiki" doesn't necessarily DO anything, I definitely FEEL it and it is accompanied by very-much-present physical sensations.

Thanks for reading. Sorry, I know it sounds totally bonkers, but I can't figure it out.
