Can we consciously stimulate our senses or are they always stimulated?

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Stimulation isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. It all boils down to neurons. They have a finite capacity for stimulation. If you go over that capacity, then the “excess” goes unnoticed and unfelt. Your brain also has a fixed capacity for stimulation too. It also has defenses. If you suddenly lose a limb, for instance, the brain will automatically block out the pain with adrenaline. You’ll start feeling it later when the adrenaline wears off, of course.

Your brain can hallucinate sensations. It can do this with all of your senses. Some of the strongest hallucinations are touch-oriented, because there’s a whole body it can send sensations down and create phantom experiences with.

One interesting thing that’s not really possible is to actually stimulate your retinas so you literally see things that aren’t there. Oh you can have visual hallucinations, but these visuals aren’t actually coming from your eyes, they’re manufactured by the brain. Your mind just believes they’re real, because they’re also typically combined with auditory and touch hallucinatory sensations.

Your ability to believe them can also be affected by drugs and trance states. Trance is a kind of meditation where you progressively disconnect from your senses and the outside world. It typically involves not moving for a long period of time and focusing the mind so it doesn’t get involved in the usual chatter. Eventually your mind blocks out the rest of the world and hallucinations start to take over. It’s just like dreaming only you’re alert and awake. Buddhism teaches similar practices, only they’re more rigorously defined.

What makes these experiences so strong is the fact that your actual senses are not getting stimulated beyond a baseline, so it makes it easy for the mind to override with it’s own content.