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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if you’re one of the 1 in 1499 people that can do this?

160 replies

SoniaFouler · 26/10/2021 00:48

It’s called Voluntarily Generated Piloerection (VGP)—the ability to consciously give one’s self goosebumps. I’ve never met anybody else in real life that can do this so thought surely there must be at least one other person on here who can! If you can, how do you trigger yours? Mine is a form of what I can only describe as electric energy at the back of my head which I force down the entire length of my spine, I do it about two or three times rapidly one after the other and the skin on my arms, legs and chest immediately flare up with really strong visible goosebumps Confused - almost like a plucked chicken Blush The example given in the article says the guy moves his head from side to side to trigger it but i do it completely still, just concentrating on making my muscles send the sensation down my back.

Please join me, fellow freaks of nature:

A mammal’s hair follicle clings to the skin via a tiny muscle. When this muscle contracts, the hair will stand, the skin around it will undergo bump-shaped distortion, and voila—goosebumps.

For the 1499 people in this statistical metaphor, goosebumps are completely involuntary. The tiny muscle, called the arrector pili, is made of smooth muscle fibers. And like other smooth muscles of the body—those that handle digestion, blood flow, respiration, and so on—they are unconsciously regulated. The nerves attached to them lie in the autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system dedicated to managing bodily functions you aren’t supposed to control consciously, like heart rate or pupil dilation.

www.mentalfloss.com/article/622399/people-can-control-their-goosebumps

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 28/10/2021 19:19

@chocolatecronetta

Haha, who else could possibly 'Whoregasm' with a cotton bud gently poked in their left ear? Grin
I've tried but realise I'm poking in the right ear. Not barking up the wrong tree though.
crossstitchingnana · 28/10/2021 19:27

I have no idea what you're all going on about! 🤣

chocolatecronetta · 28/10/2021 19:34

limitedperiodonly

I tried too but realised I was wearing my Opera Gloves so it made it was awkward, I opened the glove compartment of the new Range Rover and threw all those damn cotton buds out of the window along with the gloves, we were on the motorway at the time so my incredibly sexy DH couldn't stop me, not that he'd have wanted to.

Stroopwaffle5000 · 28/10/2021 20:25

I experience ASMR but can't do the goosebumps thing.

HereWeGoAgains · 28/10/2021 21:41

@limitedperiodonly I also taught myself to raise one eyebrow when I was a child! 🤣 I can only raise the left one. I can also raise the left side of my top lip (like in disgust). Clearly the left side of my face is the best side. Grin

whatisthisinhere · 28/10/2021 22:07

Yes, I can do this. I sort of create an internal pressure and breath out through my nose, which makes me shiver, I do it 3 or 4 times and I get goosebumps. I thought not many people could do it, but not that it was so rare

whatisthisinhere · 28/10/2021 22:12

I can also recall smells and then make myself somehow smell it again in the moment.I can move my ears, and raise an eye brow. I also have a weird indent on my wrist, and I can feel the nerves under my skin pulling as I make it appear, it freaks my children out.

limitedperiodonly · 29/10/2021 10:32

My mum could bend the top knuckles on her fingers while keeping the middle knuckles straight. That's inheritable but none of us three can do it. She said her mother could do it but none of her three siblings could.

limitedperiodonly · 29/10/2021 10:37

@HereWeGoAgains I can curl the left side of my lip but not the right. I wonder why and wonder if there are people who can only do the right side.

SoniaFouler · 29/10/2021 13:34

I’ve just caught up on this Grin

We should all band together and form a touring circus, i could do with some extra cash for Christmas. How about it!?

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