Well at least a dozen times in my life when I’d been kind of be daydreaming and what I was thinking about would seem quite profound and I’d suddenly feel tingling sensations in my whole body (head, lower legs, arms, etc) and it would last for maybe a minute. BTW, the only drugs I’ve done was marijuana and that was two or maybe three times in my life. I also have practically no alcohol, but I’ve gotten drunk once or twice in my life. I also was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 18, then bipolar disorder at the age of 22, but I had these tingling moments even when I was a kid.
The most recent one happened today. Since I got my car a few months ago, I always had no music at all on - to try and concentrate on driving more. But today I thought I’d turn on the radio (which my Dad or sister had tuned in) and there was Pink’s song “…If God Is A DJ, Life Is A Dance Floor, You Get What You’re Given, It’s All How You Use It…”… During that part the thing started happening. When I had heard that song when it first came out maybe a year ago I had liked the song - it’s got a pretty nice tune. I don’t even believe in God, but the song still spoke to me somehow… I mean the song is about seeing things in new ways. But this is what I thinking right now. When I heard that song today I was mostly thinking like “I like this song” and “I like tingling feelings” and “It’s weird that I don’t even believe in God” (I used to be a young-earth creationist though)
In the past the thing has mostly happened during epiphanies where I’m just daydreaming philosophically about something and come to a conclusion that seems quite profound somehow.
So what’s the science and is there a name for this thing?
I don’t know what they’re called, but I’ve gotten them, too–and usually with what I’d call religious or spiritual epiphanies. It’s like you’ve been touched by something or someone, and your body is suddenly awash in goosepimples and tingling.
BTW, today when it happened, I was driving at the same time. I didn’t feel any numbness, just a kind of pleasant tingling, and this time it wasn’t in every little area of the body… I mean I don’t think it was in my hands or the middle of my body. But I guess all of the times I can remember my state of consciousness was kind of altered. (I wasn’t feeling irritable, or anxious, etc)
Alessan:
I did a search for “adrenaline rush” and “tingling” and it mainly have results that involved the spine tingling… maybe the tingling feeling I had started in the spine…
But the thing is I felt a little spaced out rather than was highly focused…
In times when I may have had an “adrenaline rush” - e.g. when I got pretty excited at theme parks I don’t remember feeling any tingling. (Or maybe I didn’t notice it somehow ?)
It just happened again… not very strongly though. (it was in my feet in somewhere in my upper body)
“Outback Jack” is only beginning to be shown in Australia, and the episode about the girls voting off Marissa was on. Jack said that he had the strongest connection with Marissa. During the show there was a chance for immunity from the voting, but Marissa didn’t get immunity. When I got to the TV I saw that Jack was saying goodbye to her and they were hugging for a long time, etc. And they walked away and the other girls went on a camel and walked away. Then later the host said it was unfortunate she had to go, but she’d be like a boomerang, and boomerangs, come back. Even typing that last bit made me feel a tiny bit of tingling in parts of my head. I think the theme of these tinglings it that it involves things falling into place - things that I care about - in a way I didn’t really have much control over. There is a sense that something is very “right”. Well I probably won’t bother reporting any more of these things in the future in this thread just in case it happens a lot and nothing changes much…
kanicbird:
Maybe there was some numbness. If there was, it wasn’t very noticeable and especially not major - like when I have local anaesthetic and my mouth has no feeling.
Sounds like a severe case of goosebumps to me (whatever the body function behind it is). you get them when you hear a hook in a song or think about someone you’re hot for or when you have an epiphany, etc. Some folks are more sensitive, cardiovascularly speaking, in this way.
I get that too, but it usually accompanies a case of mild embarrassment mixed with unvoiced defensiveness. Let’s take a hypothetical example, so that I don’t compromise myself by telling the truth.
Let’s say Broadway musicals are one of my guilty, and secret, little pleasures. (Nothing could be further from the truth, and when I get on Jeopardy!, this will be the Final Jeopardy category that will kill me). Since it’s a guilty pleasure, I feel a little embarrassed by it. If i’m flipping through the channels and land on some “behind the scenes” show about Cats, and my wife is there watching with me, I would get that feeling. Even though she doesn’t know I love this stuff, I’m being confronted with my own secret. The newly-increased risk of exposure seems to create this kind of tingly adrenaline ruch.
I also get this feeling when a particulary tear-jerking, heartstring-pulling, or patriotic song is played. Weird…
Google gives about 500,000 results for “psychosomatic” and about the same number for “neuralgia” - but no matches for “psychosomatic neuralgia” - it looks like you made up that term… also, the feelings are pleasurable - I don’t want them to stop.
BTW, neuralgia seems to mean “Sharp, severe paroxysmal pain extending along a nerve or group of nerves”… I have never felt any pain when this stuff happened.
Also, other people have mentioned goosebumps… well in the past (not today) the feeling can get very deep and widespread and I think I had lots of goosebumps.
Psychosomatic is a perfectly good modifier for neuralgia. This link Psychosomatic aspects of trigeminal neuralgia as seen in dentistry could easily have been titled “Psychosomatic neuralgia as seen in dentistry.”
With the tingling happening as often as you say, there might well be a neural or hormonal component behind it.
Squink:
Yeah I was thinking that the term might make sense later, but I can’t edit my posts…
But still, neuralgia seems to involve sharp and possibly severe pain - but there is no pain involved. Goosebumps, tingling - but no pain.
I agree… it’s maybe more neural though since it happens very soon after I recognise that something is pretty profound… it sometimes doesn’t happen for at least a year or two. The different thing about me at the moment is that I’m not on my anti-depressants any more, but I’m still on my mood stabilizers. Another thing that’s happened lately is that I can begin to get tears far more readily than usual… I cry very often in movies - half the time it’s because the scene just involves some a person changing themselves in order to become a better person.
I’ve had this same feeling… I’d be surprised if there were many posters who hadn’t had some experience with it.
Since this is General Questions, and not Great Debates, I will try to keep this discussion as scientific as possible. Unfortunately, I doubt that I will be able to provide cites.
First off, this is indeed a ‘good’ sensation, in that it feels wonderful. Tingly like a ‘sleeping’ limb waking up, but in a pleasant way, and it runs down the spine and out to the limbs.
I tend to feel it when I reach an epiphany… or witness something particularly joyful… or am just very happy about something.
The connection to epiphanies made me consider something I saw on PBS a while back, regarding the discovery that certain religous people seem to have differing brain chemestry… that there is, in fact, a ‘religous extascy’ lobe in the brain. Triggering this lobe gives the feeling that many have described as being in the presence of the lord, or what have you.
I’d like to note also that this, to my recollection, was NOT the lobe typically associated with the reports of alien abductions/sleep terrors. While stimulating that lobe does give the recipient an intense sensation of being ‘in the presence of’ something, the religion lobe is more specific.
Not being the religous type, I have to assume this is similar to the feelings they get.
Although I can only recall feeling this sort of full-body tingle while under the influence of drugs, I remember several occasions where I experienced a similar phenomenon when in moments of great satisfaction or joy; a full-body wave of warmth.
I am sure its related to pleasure. Whether its induced via mental or physical or a combination of both. I get this after, well, really really good oral. I am tingly all over.
Being a religious type, I can tell you that you’re partially right.
Some Christians call it “feeling the anointing” which is kinda funny because you don’t have to “feel” anything to be anointed: you can be anointed (which I’m not going to define here) and not feel anything.
Those I know who do “feel the anointing” (I hate that phrase but it’s the only way I can convey it) feel it in different ways. My husband gets a sensation on his hands and shoulders, like someone’s blowing air on them. When I feel it, it’s like someone’s dumping a bucket of water on my head (there’s no actual water, of course); other times it’s like heat on my head. (The first time I felt it I was in high school, didn’t know what the anointing was and I thought I was going to pass out. It was scary.) Others I know get a burning/tingly sensation in their hands.
It varies, AFAICT.
The brain thing on TV you mentioned is interesting and makes sense to me (I wish I’d seen it), although I see it from a spiritual viewpoint. It could be that religious sorts have a part of their brain activated (by God) that others don’t. It would follow, then, that someone whose “God lobe” hadn’t been activated would never feel the “presence” that those who believe would experience. Which is why those who aren’t religious think those who do feel God’s presence are nuts. They *can’t * understand.
Would be interesting to see an in-depth study done on this, anyway.