The “tingles :)” thread reminded me of this, but I believe my topic is different from what’s being discussed there (then again, maybe not) so I’ll start a new thread.
For as long as I can remember (since I was 4 at the latest), I’ve found that if I silently concentrate on a person performing a task, especially drawing or assembling something, I’ll experience a pleasurable tingling sensation throughout my brain. What’s going on here? Does anyone else experience this? Am I just one step away from bending spoons and flipping cars being driven by John Travolta?
Well, do you like doing (or watching it done, or want to be able to, or just admire people who can) whatever it is that gives you these tingles. Assuming this is not an actual phisical tingle it may just be a sudden increse in the amount of seratonin in your brain.
Not sure what you mean by “physical tingles,” Joey; the sensation itself is a physical sensation by my definition (as opposed to psycho-somatic, I guess). It’s not necessarily that I enjoy doing, watching, etc. the task at hand, although I do enjoy the “brain rush” (I will often give up food and/or sex to watch someone perform a task in an effort to obtain a “brain rush”). The sensation is not isolated to just watching someone draw or assemble; it can be any task as long as there is a low amount of ambient noise. Strange, huh?
Not sure what you mean by “physical tingles,” Joey; the sensation itself is a physical sensation by my definition (as opposed to psycho-somatic, I guess).
Physical tingles being something that physically happens to your brain (or what ever part of the body it happens on) and that someone else could feel if they were to put their hand against it (assuming it was something other then your brain, I guess) like a spasm or twitch, as opposed to something that you “feel” but no one else can (kinda like pain, you feel pain but others can’t feel your pain)
By what you have said this is how I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong) it happens when you watch someone do something with a low ambiant noise, I’m guessing they are doing something fairly calm (assembling a model as opposed to a deck)and that they are working at a fairly constant pace and not exactly acknoledging that you are present (meaning they arn’t stoping to talk to you, explain what they are doing, not really making eye contact with you, just concentrating on their work). It this is about what goes on my guess would be that the calmness, regularity, and dream like (judging from the ambiant music) atmosphere you are in that you may be going into a sort of trance/altered reality type of thing and that is what causes it. Of course I may be WAAAAAY of base here (which I probably am) but it’s a try.
I get brain tingles during an “Aha!” experience (also known as the “eureka!” effect). Also when remembering a pleasant experience or just daydreaming nice stuff.
I think y’all are describing adrenlin boosts. The back of your head gets all tingling, you get mildly excited, and if it’s very strong it will continue down your back and spread through the entire head to your ears with goosebumps and raised hair following, and you feel like you’re ready to do 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. Yep. I know that one.
I get these at very defineable instances. Inspiring music, almost always. I got into music simply to keep replicating this feeling. A burst of inspiration during writing, fairly often, ending with a flurry of typing. And there’s runner’s high, which is a mild version.
Immediate danger also does the same thing, but it’s a different, faster kind of jolt, and not necessarily pleasant. The body is responding to circumstances, filling an order for quick, fast energy. I’m not sure why it does this for music, especially when I’m only listening, not playing an instrument, where there might be a need for sudden inspirational energy.
Also, very interesting - if I think of a particular song, storyline, or past memory, I can replicate the effect on command, and if I really concentrate, I can get an pretty impressive wave of tingling that rivals orgasm. Biofeedback?
MC, barton: for me, the goose bumps and the brain tingles are not the same thing…they may occur simultaneously or they may not.
The brain tingle thing FEELS like it’s happening inside, not on the scalp, and seems to require a thought process
along with an emotional response. The goose bumps are purely physiological, the adrenal response barton alluded to. Cold, pain, fear, and (sometimes)sexual attraction cause the goosebumps; no thinking required.
That’s just me, though.
You described the phenomenon pretty well, Joey, except for the “ambient music” part. However, given the rest of your context, I assume that you were momentarily distracted by the music/tingles idea. The strange thing to me is, despite my love for music (I sing in a choral group) I never get tingles when listening or performing. An emotional rush when performing sometime, but no tingles. The brain tingles occur only as desribed above and, as the term indicates, only in my head.
Also Joey, nope, no one else can feel it by touching me. (That would be freaky as hell!) It’s similar to pain in this regard.
I know exactly what you mean by “brain tingles”. I have often wondered if anyone else had them. For me, it’s always watching someone else do something, without feeling called upon to participate. And what they are doing is a bit idiosyncratic or characteristic of them in some way. And unself-conscious. It doesn’t always happen, though.
I don’t get the tingles from seeing some-one in that way but I do like seeing that. For example my friend Cat. (I want to make sure this is what you are describing) If you were to see just her face you would see (or at least I would see) her as a pot smoking, dead head, tripper, art student. So when I in her dorm room with her, it great to see her sitting on her bed with her (extremely comfortable) GD pants in a (what looks to be “just right”) pile of blankets, doing painting her pink floyd picture and when she looks at you with her beet red eyes and asks if you like her picture, it all seems perfect of her. I hope you kinda get what I’m saying here, I think it’s the same as what you are describing. Also on a side note has anybody else ever see the type (or are the type) of people who whenever you see them always seem to be really “comfortable.”
BTW I really hope this is all coherent. I’m just about to go to bed and I’m falling asleep.
Well, I have always been able to stare at something and I feel tingles, and they seem to run from my head to my legs and back again, lightning-fast.
It doesn’t have to be a person. Hell, I just did it looking at my coffee mug.
I always assumed that this rush was what religious people called “the spirit running through them” though I never really felt any particular divinity about it.
As I sit here and do it, and try to describe it, it is (for me) like a combination of slight sexual arousal and the loss of equilibrium you get when on a large drop on a roller coaster.
Maybe this is not what we’re talking about, but I have to admit it’s nice that I’m not alone in these types of feelings, if nothing else…
Strainger, Lazy, what you’re describing sounds extremely familiar to me. The fact that it’s always somebody doing something with their hands, that it’s unself-conscious, and that I’m not being called upon to directly participate all ring a definite bell. In fact, it makes the experience hard to duplicate, because I can’t really say “now go do this, and let me watch but don’t talk to me.”
I’ll tell you, the ultimate thing for me is to have somebody put my hair into braids or pick the fuzz off the back of my sweater, particularly if I don’t have to interact with them while they’re doing it. But I can even weakly replicate the sensation if I’m talking on the phone with somebody, and they dive into a monologue and I just kind of tune out of what they’re saying, pretend they’re not talking to me.
Touch, sound, sight can all create it for me, but touch definitely brings it on the strongest. I’ve experienced that tingle only three times in my life from somebody touching my hair or back, and I remember all three experiences vividly. And, in fact, I’ve grown my hair long (as a grown-up adult male) in hopes of recreating it sometime.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way if they get mad, you’re already a mile away. And they don’t have any shoes.