Once the energy begins, the healer or receiver usually notices heat sensation, and this is an identifying characteristic of Reiki. After receiving the Reiki 1 attunement and bringing the energy through for the first time in the classroom, hot hands happen in most healings. If what the person receiving the healing needs is cold, however, the healer’s hands will give cold.

Sometimes the healer feels that the hands are very hot, while the receiver of the energy feels coolness, and vice versa. Every healing position, and every healing session can be different.

When the hands are placed on a Reiki position, the healer generally feels a cycle of sensations. Initially, you might feel the warmth of body heat, but as the hands remain in place other feelings begin.

There may be sensations of heat, cold, water flowing, vibrating, trembling, magnetism, static electricity, tingling, color, sound, or (extremely rarely) pain moving through the healer’s hands. The healer may feel as if the hands have gone to sleep, with a pins-and-needles sensation.

The person receiving the healing may feel the same things or different ones, or maybe even nothing. The sensations change from position to position, and healing to healing. They are unpredictable, but there is almost always a sensation of some kind.

These continue for what at first seems like a long time, generally as long as five minutes. Then the sensations and quiet body warmth returns.

This completes the position, and signals the healer to move to the next one. As someone once said, “It goes up, and then it comes down, and then you can move.” I can’t think of a better way to describe what happens. If you don’t move, the cycle simply begins again: body warmth, several minutes of sensations, and body warmth again.

Often, a position takes less than the expected five minutes, and this is fine. Go by the feeling in your hands. Unless the receiver of the healing has back trouble, the positions on the back will probably take less time.

Occasionally, the sensations seem to go on forever, and the healer’s hands feel glued in place. Continue as long as you need to be there.

If your hands feel free to move and the sensations go on and on, however, stay a reasonable time and then move to the next position. More healing needs to be done here, but the pain or problem didn’t develop overnight and one session may not be enough to heal it. This is usually an area or position where much Reiki is needed, but since the full treatment session takes as long as an hour and a half, spending too much time in one place is not beneficial. Honor your intuition, and remember there is no right and wrong.

Generally speaking, the sensations are less distinct, or less intense, in self-healing than in healing others.

There are many different interpretations of the exact nature of the sensations, that cold means this thing and hot means something else entirely. In my experience, the sensations vary from person to person, session to session, need to need, and putting an arbitrary meaning on a particular feeling can be misleading.

It’s best to focus on allowing the energy to flow rather than on analyzing the feel of that flow. Too much thinking can pull you out of that intuitive heartfelt healing moment and put you into a space of judgment and analysis which may or may not be helpful.

For my sources see: Recommended Reading