Pain

Pain is not simply the sensation of touch - which may be felt when, for example, a local anaesthetic dulls awareness of pain during an operation. It is said to be the necessary consequence of consciousness, and may vary in intensity from a mild headache to third degree burns. Pain threshold's vary from person to person and analgesics actually work by raising the threshold of pain. Not so much a mode of awareness itself, it nonetheless may act as a means of understanding the deep significance of life; and pain has been used by ascetics and mystics to induce altered states and feelings of transcendence.