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I can tickle myself too and do it frequently. It always surprises me though. I can’t tickle myself intentionally. I can come very close! I can get the physical
by eyelidlessness 4y ago
I can tickle myself too and do it frequently. It always surprises me though. I can’t tickle myself intentionally. I can come very close! I can get the physical sensation, but not the tickle reaction that’s involuntary.
- tsimionescu 4y agoI am very curious - when you say that, do you mean that you get that same sensation on your skin as when someone else is tickling you, possibly with a need to scratch afterwards, or do you get the full laughing and avoidance response?
- eyelidlessness 4y agoI get the skin surface sensation like I’ve brushed against something soft and delicate that isn’t my own intention, but it is my own body so I realize what’s happening processing the same moment. I don’t have a laugh response or the kind of abandon I remember in childhood being tickled. It’s like a shiver or goosebumps and a mental giggle when I realize what I did to me.
- Izkata 4y agoThe laugh response is what the aricle/researchers and everyone else means when they say "you can't tickle yourself", I'm pretty sure most people don't realize this and are, like you, referring to just the skin sensation. > As planned, Subject 1 couldn’t help but laugh. The fact that they couldn’t help it is what has drawn Michael Brecht, leader of the research group from Humboldt University, to the neuroscience of tickling and play. It’s funny, but it’s also deeply mysterious—and understudied. People tend to come up with a variety of words to describe just the skin sensation when challenged on this (just scroll through other responses in this thread now that they've started responding), and "tickle" just seems to be a fallback when they don't think about it.