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Why It is Nearly Impossible to Tickle Yourself
- guynamedloren 16y agotl;dr - Tickling yourself doesn't work because you're brain is actively anticipating the sensations. There is no element of surprise.
- jeromec 16y agoI liked this line: The Romans used to use continuous tickling of the feet as a form of torture. I'm pretty sure I saw that in a Looney Tunes cartoon.
- noelchurchill 16y agoI feel like I'm more ticklish when I know it's coming.
- RichardPrice 16y agoOne problem for the 'surprise' analysis of ticklishness is that we are still ticklish when we see a 3rd party tickling us, and when there is therefore no surprise as the existence and source of the tactile sensations.
- jeromec 16y agoI think what is happening is that when someone else does the tickling, although we may know it's coming we don't know what exact details to expect. For example, will I tickle you lightly or firmly, and in what exact spot? Will I wriggle my fingers? How long will I persist? When we tickle ourselves not only do we know it's coming, but our brain can answer any of those questions, so it's really difficult to not anticipate any resulting sensation.
- RichardPrice 16y agoGood point, I can definitely see how this could be the case.
- makeramen 16y agoi showed a friend once that he could tickle himself by plucking/poking at the tendon/muscle on your upper inner thigh (pretty much right next to your crotch). he totally had a field day playing with himself.