Temptation
That’s the tempting itch, the thought of death
that makes a bridge abutment whisper fly.
It’s why I keep no toasters near the bath,
no rope stored on a rafter. Bottled lye
stays at the store. It’s easy to eat earth
or bullets, but too hard to mention why.
Sure, I totally get that urge, to throw myself off a cliff or whatever. Unless my kids are with me, then I’m way too busy imagining them falling off and holding on to their hands so they can’t. They laugh at me, but I’m saving their lives!
I don’t get it: what does your locale for sex have to do with this? 
The Imp of the Perverse is my backseat driver.
At least he’s not your copilot.
I voted yes, but before I tell about it, this was what I was thinking as well. As a matter of fact, I watched that movie last night. 
I used to work downtown, and would walk across an overpass which crossed the interstate. Even though there were high fences meant to keep jumpers from offing themselves, I often felt the urge to go splat right on the pavement some 20 feet below, or if possible, right on someone’s windshield.
I kept walking until the feeling passed. For one thing, it’d be a horrible thing to do to some innocent driver. I’d ruin the person and his/her family, probably, not to mention what it’d do to my family.
I’ve also felt the urge to push someone off a ledge at an overlook, or something. Never even moved my hands to do it though, nor would I. But in my mind? Sure.
I think there is a difference in the urge between doing to others or doing to yourself. (causing someone on a deserted road to go over the edge vs. driving off yourself)
One, I think, is helping to keep you aware of your situation - helping you survive by showing you the possibilities of your actions.
I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which.
Ahahah dammit, that was the word I was looking for! I was like “Hmm…‘shotgun’ doesn’t sound quite right and neither does ‘backseat bitch’…”
For me, it’s not an urge. It’s the chilly sensation of contemplating the consequences.
*I used to work downtown, and would walk across an overpass which crossed the interstate. Even though there were high fences meant to keep jumpers from offing themselves, I often felt the urge to go splat right on the pavement some 20 feet below, or if possible, right on someone’s windshield. *
Oh noooo. I’ve never had the impulse to do that. And I guess that’s the word I should have used in the original post–impulse, not urge. Although to be honest . . . the feeling I had when I wanted to jump into the Niagara was more of an urge. Think about how cool that would be! (Until you died at the end.)
Driving and stopped at a light and knowing that I could instantly seriously hurt or kill someone crossing the street in front of me.
I also feel the pull of throwing my car keys or cell phone in the river when walking across it on a bridge or walking on the shore.
It’s one of those fleeting thoughts that you know you would never act on, but still have them. IANA psychologist/psychiatrist, but I would assume it is fairly normal and nothing more than a curiosity of the human brain. Repeatedly acting on such impulses would probably be characterized as some sort of mental defect or disease, if you didn’t kill yourself first.
I never think about jumping off a cliff or bridge
I only sometimes think about the car off the cliff thing
But I always imagine putting my hands into chainsaws and the belts of running motors. I can’t walk past a table saw without thinking about cutting off my fingers.
I think it comes with the excitement of totally and completely changing my life with one simple stupid move.
I get this. This is why I don’t like heights without railings. I don’t want to jump, but I’m afraid of what would happen if I lost control of that impulse to jump.
You’re sure this isn’t “you might be an astronomer if…”?
I saw a professor from my grad school on one of those “disasters” shows once, talking about gamma ray bursts. He was talking about what would happen if one happened too close to Earth, and how terrible it would be. But you could tell from his face that some part of him thought how cool it would be, too.
Cool song lyric! Also… don`t you live near HELL, Michigan? Reckon a lotta imps be around them parts.
I get this impulse quite a lot too, especially while driving. Especially as a kid, I always wanted to open the door and either jump out or at least watch everything go flying out. (This actually happened once, due to no action of my own, and unfortunately it was as every bit terrifying as I had imagined it would be exciting)
I wouldnt go as far as calling it a strong urge, but its definitely something that takes effort (or rather conscious non-effort) to put out of the mind. It`s part what-if, part fascination of the sheer simplicity of such a terrible act, and part perverse desire for self-annihilation… what a fascinating world we live in!
I’ve felt this “call of the void” (I like that phrase) too. The impulse to throw myself off a dam or into the path of a train, to drive straight into a wall, to cut my finger instead of the carrot I’m slicing. The most recent one that’s been bugging me is that when I’m shaving my armpits I think about taking the razor to my nipples instead. I know that I really don’t want to know what any of these things are like, and I’d never follow through with the urge … but what if I did? It’d only take a momentary slip …
Of all the impulsive and violent urges mentioned in this thread, this is the only one to make me cry out in horror.
Haha! Exactly.
Nah, more on the east side, about 20 minutes from Detroit. And believe me, there are a lot of perverse imps here!