what do you feel right now? >> it's almost like, imagine when your foot goes to sleep or hand goes to sleep and as it is waking up and you get the sensation back and it's kind of partially numb and kind of tingly, that's kind of the feeling i have almost all the time there. and then on occasion, i'll get kind of these electrical jolts or what seem like twitches in my missing fingers. it's a really bizarre experience to have sensation and pain in a place that doesn't exist. except in your mind, right? >> this is common among amputees. more than 80% still feel their missing limb in the early days after an amputation. it's called phantom limb syndrome. we don't know exactly why or how it happens, but some theories suggest the brain is rewiring itself after the loss of input from an amputated limb. so it reassigns the sensations of that limb to a different part of the body.