Frisson or 'Skin Orgasm' - What causes a thrill, followed by a chill?
Have you ever been listening to a great piece of music and felt a chill run up your spine? Or goosebumps tickle your arms and shoulders?
Listening to emotionally moving music is the most common trigger of frisson, but some feel it while looking at beautiful artwork, watching a particularly moving scene in a movie or having physical contact with another person. Studies have shown that roughly two-thirds of the population feels frisson.
While scientists are still unlocking the secrets of this phenomenon, a large body of research over the past five decades has traced the origins of frisson to how we emotionally react to unexpected stimuli in our environment, particularly music.
Musical passages that include unexpected harmonies, sudden changes in volume or the moving entrance of a soloist are particularly common triggers for frisson because they violate listeners’ expectations in a positive way.
Scientists have found that the pleasurable experience of listening to music releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain important for more tangible pleasures associated with rewards such as food, drugs and sex.
Scientists measured dopamine release in response to music that elicited "chills," changes in skin conductance, heart rate, breathing, and temperature that were correlated with pleasurability ratings of the music. 'Chills' or 'musical frisson' is a well established marker of peak emotional responses to music.
A novel combination of PET and fMRI brain imaging techniques, revealed that dopamine release is greater for pleasurable versus neutral music, and that levels of release are correlated with the extent of emotional arousal and pleasurability ratings. Dopamine is known to play a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining behavior that is biologically necessary.
References:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112111117.htm
http://theconversation.com/chills-and-thrills-why-some-people-love-music-and-others-dont-24007
Papers:
http://pom.sagepub.com/content/19/2/110.a
#neuroscience #musicalfrisson #research #science
I get it sometimes. Some things can just get to a person emotionally and this can be one of the side effects.
ReplyDeletePeople can cause that too - "I got chills, they're multiplying" is certainly a good way of describing it
In the Buddhist meditation tradition, these sensations are called pīti or prīti (in Pāli and Sanskrit respectively, the two main languages of Indian Buddhist texts). It's associated with a state of relaxation, mindful attentiveness, and emotional engagement.
ReplyDeletePīti doesn't just have to affect the skin, and can take place in the muscles as well (possibly in other tissues as well, but I've no way of knowing). It can affect limited parts of the body, such as the hands, where it might be experienced as a sense of tingling, flowing energy. It can manifest as an orgasmic rush of sensation through the trunk. Or it can be a stable sense of tingling throughout the entire body.
Pīti is a characteristic of what's called "jhāna," which is a kind of meditative "flow" state, in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's terms.
I first became interested in meditation precisely because of experiences of pīti and joy that arose while listening to classical music. I enjoyed these altered states, and was curious about exploring them in other ways.
That was informative, thanks Bodhipaksa .
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Corina Marinescu. And thanks for sharing so many interesting articles!
ReplyDeleteCorina Marinescu does this mean that pleasurable music is as addictive as cocaine? LOLOLOL Seems like that would be a good clickbait headline for it, don't you think? After all, anything that stimulates the pleasure centers in the brain seems to be considered addictive in the popular press these days.
ReplyDeleteCharles Payet , I don't think so...but then again I've never tried cocaine. I can't say for sure ;)
ReplyDeleteCorina Marinescu true, but I thought sex and sugar had both been shown to be addictive, right? :-P
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you know that I'm just pulling your leg, of course. I'd bet most anything those kinds of "studies" and the associated "journalism" boost your blood pressure a few points like they do mine out of pure irritation.