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Comment by sizzle | Hacker News Reader

How does this compare to an orgasm?

I get this too. I call it eargasm and have a folder full of music files that have triggered it. Anytime I hear a new one I save it in my eargasm playlist.

It's a different kind of experience, but definitely clustered in the "feelings of intense pleasure" cluster. I'd say that musical frisson is much more of an emotionally driven feeling that encompasses a much larger part of the body. The intensity ranges all over the place from a small feeling of "nice!" to intense, almost physically disabling, feelings of absolute bliss that have left me weeping like I'd just experienced an overwhelming introduction to an infinite god. But most of the time it happens it's just a crawling feeling of pleasure waves along the upper back, shoulders, back of the neck and arms and a general feeling of happiness and joy.

In my case, there's sometimes feelings of "consciousness expansion", and "universal connection", similar to stories I've read from among various drug users or people who've experienced intense religious experiences -- at times I've felt intense focus, explosive creativity, and an "overclocked" sensation like my brain had been turned up to a faster performance ratio -- often for those moments of he frisson I can be intensely productive in creative pursuits. But it falls away as the frisson dissipates. I do not know if this is universal or not, there's pitifully little understanding of this phenomenon and sharing of information.

It's a very personal feeling, I don't know that I could ever do it with other people around, and it's tied to very specific passages of music that seem unique to the frissoner. As you can guess it's very addictive, and when I was younger I would spend hours auditioning albums looking for "frissonable" moments I would play over and over again for hours -- usually just a few seconds of some passage that would trigger it. However, pursuing this seems to "use-up" the feeling and after a while the passage would lose its triggering power.

If the universe was about to end, and I was allowed to have one final pleasurable experience replayed, selected from any orgasm of frisson I've ever had, I'd definitely pick from among my most intense frissons.

Do you mind sharing what kind of music triggers this in you? The closest to this for me has been late 60's psychedelic music.

Yeah sure, it's a huge range of things that are paradoxically highly specific to a few moments.

Certain classical moments are pretty reliable.

For example, the first few seconds of the Paganini variation here at around 23:00 minutes. https://youtu.be/c33q87s03h4?t=1375 except not this recording. I used to have a recording of it I inherited from my great grandfather and it was that specific recording that used to send me off.

The opening of Beethoven's 7th - 2nd movement (right until the main theme changes up until about 2:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgHxmAsINDk

Non-classical:

The main theme of this a about 1:07 https://youtu.be/YQJSnMvIKM4?t=68

Certain long notes in this song (kind of hard to explain, but certain notes she holds in sustenato): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FrWoVC6SZ8&list=PL91bz63WYu...

This William Ackerman song has some great passages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jles3aPfeI

Some moments in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV9Ow4kOA4E

Asucultation by the Antidote used to be a favorite (it doesn't work anymore :() https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWs2R6W5vCc

Many of the pieces of Solar Fields' Movements album are fantastic but especially this song https://youtu.be/yQjove0nzss?t=1096

All I Need by Radiohead, especially the main bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LlfGrP4n6E

Mree's cover of Blood, something with her phrasing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMe_5O0mYj0

Several pieces by Steve Reich seem to hack the phenomenon for me and run just underneath the trigger: Six Pianos, Music for 18 Musicians, etc.

It can also depend on the context, some of the passages won't "work" without other surrounding song context...like the contrast of the triggering passages and the non-triggering is what sort of does it.

There's actually an entire subreddit dedicated to this, but I've not found much in other people's music that kicks it off. https://www.reddit.com/r/frisson

It's an entirely different feeling of liking music or finding it pleasurable, for which I believe I'm fairly conventional.

Thank you very much! I shall investigate these!

Thanks for the thoughtful comment! I experienced a lesser version of this phenomenon relistening to some music I hadn't heard since undergrad with a good friend that passed away. It was like I was transported back to that time and had goosebumps cascading my entire body. It only happens when I haven't heard a track in a while and I can't force it. Music is truly a human experience.

It's maybe a little like the aftershocks of one, or someone nibbling on your ear / nipple. It's an all-over skin tingle, felt especially on the arms and scalp, and a transcendental emotional feeling.

> and a transcendental emotional feeling

Yeah, the feelings along those lines are really really powerful...and slippery, they slide away as the frisson goes away. :(

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