• Question: Why is it that if you tickle yourself it doesn't tickle, but if someone else tickles you, you cannot stand it?

    Asked by forrestgump to Alex, Jools, Lynz, Matt, Rika on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by emcgough09.
    • Photo: Lyndsey Fox

      Lyndsey Fox answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I can still tickle my own feet. Maybe my body is just wierd?

      But I think the reaction to tickling is the brain’s response to an unexpected stimulus. If you try and tickle yourself, your brain is expecting it.

    • Photo: Julie Greensmith

      Julie Greensmith answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I think this is a case of having “feedback” from your own sensors in your fingers. If you try and tickle yourself with your hands, its difficult. This is because the touch sensors in your hands are activated, so your brain knows what is tickling you. If it is something else, your brain does not immediately know what it is or what is going to happen, so you squirm and giggle. What your body is doing is actually trying to get more information about the stimulus.

      Try it – try tickling yourself with a feather or with your fingers and see if there is a difference. Let us know what you find out. Bear in mind that different people are more sensitive to this than others!

      Lynz, you must have very sensitive feet!

      What a cool and slightly random question!

    • Photo: Matthew Dickinson

      Matthew Dickinson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I read in a book by Pro Robert Winston that when the tickle process is a factor that was to protect use when we were cave men, what this is able to do is alert use to and small possible creators wliming on use, it has been found that some sipers can judge the wind and force by the hairs on there body kind of like a tickle process.

    • Photo: Chandrika Nair

      Chandrika Nair answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      You cannot tickle yourself because your brain realises you are the one doing the tickling. Interestingly, schizophrenic patients can tickle themselves! 🙂

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