When we are being tickled?

I too, once wondered this question & have since then, done some research on it. As surprising as this may come to you, the reason you laugh/giggle when tickled is because you & your body are in a state of panic. When somebody tickles you & you laugh & squirm, although you may not realize it, your body is actually in a state of panic & doesn't know what to do. It has an element of surprise to you. The reason you squirm is because your body is trying to escape from whatever is tickling it, not knowing whether or not it's going to come to any harm. As for the laughing/giggling, you may not know this, but your nerves that feel the sensation of tickling are also your nerves that feel the sensation of pain.


This next part may be a little confusing to explain, so here goes:. Since soft touches don't hurt you but they still tickle, your body & nerves become confused & can't tell whether or not you are in any real danger, even if you consciously know you're only in a playful tickle-fight, for example. Therefore, your body doesn't know whether to laugh or scream, so you kinda end up doing both, depending on how ticklish you are. Confusing?

Or to explain it another way:



If the thought of being tickled sends you into a fit of laughter than you'd think tickling yourself should do the same. Although we laugh when we are tickled, what we feel is panic which is natural considering it feels like spiders and other creepy insects are crawling on us. There's also the fear and unease of someone touching you and you never know where they are gonna tickle you next.

The main reason anyone can be tickled is the element of surprise and the feelings that follow - panic, laughter and sensation. When we tickle ourselves we have lost the surprise factor. Our brain knows what is happening so there's no reason to laugh. We can blame this on our cerebellum. The cerebellum is the part of our brain that watches our movements and knows what kind of feelings to expect. When you tickle yourself the cerebellum tells the rest of your brain, "It's just you so don't get excited."

Because it is more polite than biting someone???

I don't laugh- i usually scream and try to get away. but my son says it feels funny and that is why he laughts- yeah i asked him lol

Darwin theorized within "The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals," there was a link between ticking and laughter because of the anticipation of pleasure. Because we cannot tickle ourselves and cause laughter, Darwin speculated surprise from another person touching a sensitive spot must cause laughter.

Further explorations to understand tickling and laughter were conducted by Christenfeld and Harris. Within "The Mystery of Ticklish Laughter" and "Can a Machine Tickle," they explained that people laughed equally the same whether tickled by a machine or by a person. The participants were not aware of whom or what was tickling them; however, the laughter was equally resounded.

Suggested is tickling response is a reflex, which like Darwin suggested earlier, is dependent on the element of surprise.

SUMMARY

Nerve fibers associated with pain and pleasure and sense of touch are believed to cause the tickling combined with the element of surprise.

So why do we laugh when tickled? The element of surprise combined with gentle to heavy movement on our ticklish spots cause laughter. Whether unbeknown we are tickled by a machine or by another person we may giggle, laugh, or roll with laughter.

I think its the alternative to begging.

I'm not ticklish...........

k i got this one

pretty sure

here goes:


you laugh when ure being tickled bc MOST ppl were tickled when they were children...I dunno, say 2 months to 4 years old?

and what did you do then? you laughed, giggled and just smiled


so when you get tickled now you revert back to your childlike tendencies and laugh, giggle or smile again...as you did then

which is why you cannot really tickle yourself and cause yourself to laugh, giggle or smile...

I don't laugh

To me it is torture!!!

so it's habit?
and those who are not ticklish just feel like they are being tortured like gossipmpm says..so laughter is better than feeling helpless

I wouldnt say its "habit"...but I guess thats what I'm saying


Because I mean...we also probably enjoyed throwing dirt at girls/boys when we were little and laughed at that. But we don't throw dirt now. Now we say things like, "Do you use oil on your feet?" Right ET?

But, its one of those repressed memories or something. I don't get much into Frued or Darwin or whatever Wolf19 was saying.

What I mean is that somewhere in all of us is that same "person" we were when we were a child. Our mind remembers how it "feels" to be tickled and we associate it with the last feeling it gave us.

That is why some of us don't like it.

Maybe Gossip Mom was tickled by the wrong person?

And newark maybe just wasn't tickled enough when he was a kid?

I've never been ticklish either

it is mostly just irritating to me for people to dig their fingers into my side and think I'm gonna laugh

So with Billy's theory you weren't tickled enough as a child....

Because I am ticklish specially if a woman is doing the tickling

that's cause when I was a child and people tried to tickle me I would get mad and hit em with a brick

bricks are the x factor in my "dirt" theory up there

It depends on where you tickle me...

and with what.

If you tickle my feet with your hands...

ill laugh..

if you tickle my ****with a feather, ill moan!

****'s are so fun