Does anyone here have experience with voluntarily numbing himself or herself? Has anyone here encountered testimony in the mystic literature about the ability to voluntarily numb oneself?
This ability would be very useful for getting through stressful or painful situations.
There are two times I can remember now that I certainly went numb for a second. One time was when I was climbing a rope. The other time was when I was when I was doing a difficult march with heavy baggage. I also seem to recall going numb during meditation or immediately before sleeping.
All these situations are not ones in which I directly and voluntarily numbed myself. Perhaps there were some voluntary aspects to the situations however, since I voluntarily put myself in conditions leading to numbness.
One mystic who suggests an ability to numb oneself is Maimonides. He writes:
"Some consider... all wants of the body as shame, disgrace, and defect to which they are compelled to attend; this is chiefly the case with the sense of touch, which is a disgrace to us according to Aristotle, and which is the cause of our desire for eating, drinking, and sensuality. Intelligent persons must, as much as possible, reduce these wants, guard against them, abstain from speaking of them, discussing them, and attending to them in company of others. Man must have control over all these desires, reduce them as much as possible, and only retain of them as much as is indispensable. His aim must be the aim of man as man, viz., the formation of ideas, and nothing else. The best and sublimest among them is the idea which man forms of God, angels, and the rest of the creation according to his capacity. Such men are always with God, and of them it is said, 'Ye are princes, and all of you are children of the Most High.' (Ps. lxxxii. 6) This is man's task and purpose."
––The Guide of the Perplexed of Maimonides, Volume 3, 1885 translation by Michael Friedländer. Part III, Chapter 8.
In the quoted passage Maimonides identifies the sense of touch as the cause of bodily wants. He tells us that to obtain one's ultimate purpose of contemplating God and creation one should reduce these wants. If he is right that the sense of touch is the cause of these wants, to reduce one's wants one should, according to him, be reducing one's sense of touch. If according to him one should be reducing one's sense of touch, then, since his passage is giving practical advice, he is presupposing that one has the ability to reduce one's sense of touch. One who reduces one's sense of touch numbs oneself. So if one has the ability to reduce one's sense of touch, one has the ability to numb oneself. So Maimonides is here suggesting an ability to numb oneself.
