Yup, I can naturally wiggle my ears and raise my eyebrows. I didn’t even realise that the eyebrow thing was special until a girl went into hysterics about it a few years ago. I must have picked up the standard use of it (generally a visual and sarcastic “uh-huh”) from TV, but it feels so damn right that I’m tempted to say the useage is natural too. I’ve even managed to come up with a facial expression that uses my wiggling ears, namely raising them when I can’t hear somebody.
Anyway, the mind-blowing part: I find it easier to wiggle my left ear independently, and easier to raise my right eyebrow. Curious and curiouser…
I’d always wanted to be able to raise one eyebrow, so I finally taught myself how to do it a couple of years ago. It took a lot of practice, but it was well worth the effort. (Right eyebrow, by the way. Still can’t do the left, but I figure one is really all I need.)
I can do the right one easily with no movement from the left. I can sort of raise the left one as well, but the right one twitches when I do it. I think I used to be better at raising the left one, so maybe there’s an element of practise in it as well.
Same here; been doing the eyebrow bit since fifth grade, the independent ears a few years later. Someone once told me that babies have a range of motion in their muscles that gets lost as the rest of the body develops, and that those of us still able to do these crazy muscular control excercises somehow held on to that.
I’ve found that it bolsters not the resume in any way.
