Yeah, what you're describing with the injury is a skill I'd call empathic absorption. A rib injury is fairly dramatic and eye-opening. I know someone who did something similar with scarlet fever.
It's good to see this surface up here, though it's the kind of stuff I discuss in other communities.
I wrote a bunch of stuff, but then I deleted it and decided to just copy someone better at wording than me:
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
I view materialism much like Newtonian physics. It's a fine approximation for the situations you'll face almost all the time. I just choose not to wear it like a set of blinders, because I don't want to deny the evidence of my senses when they don't fit it.
It's good to see this surface up here, though it's the kind of stuff I discuss in other communities.