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Comment by Slimbo | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't everyone get this sensation?

Roughly estimating from conversations I have had about this with people over the years, I'd say most people do. Perhaps the headline should have been;

>If music doesn't give you goosebumps, your brain might be special

edit - however, then the word 'special' tends to flip to its contranym, so they probably wouldn't want to run with that.

>Roughly estimating from conversations I have had about this with people over the years, I'd say most people do.

Literal goosebumps or figure of speech? I don't think most people get literal goosebumps from music...

I get literal goosebumps from music. Not a figure of speech in the slightest.

Sure, I don't doubt people do. I doubt the parent's estimate that "most people" do.

I know it is self selecting, but from the responses here it seems to be most people.

The overall feeling is often called "frisson", and some people describe it as the feeling when you're on a swingset and it hits its peak and starts to come back down. I get literal goosebumps from some music, and some movies too, but that's probably just triggered by the soundtrack. Blade Runner 2049 and Annihilation always do it even though I've seen them almost a dozen times each.

The sound of The Shimmer from the trailer and in the movie (See here https://youtu.be/89OP78l9oF0?t=54) makes my skin shiver every time I hear it. Also I loved Annihilation both in book and movie form. Have you seen its spiritual predecessor, Roadside Picnic?

No! I've never heard of that film. I'll have to watch it ASAP, thanks for the rec!

For me it's the Charge of the Rohirrim at the battle of the Pelennor fields when Theoden makes his speech to his riders:

"Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! spear shall be shaken, shield shall be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world's ending! Death! Death! Death! Forth Eorlingas!"

Just typing that gave me goosebumps.

Told my wife a few years ago that I do get goosebumps and she wouldn't believe me, so I know of at least one person who doesn't

Possibly -- but who is going to share the article when it tells them they're not special?

Of a sample of 20 people, 10 participants self-reported experiencing goosebumps when listening to music, 10 didn't; the DTI brain machine finds they have different connectivity between certain regions of the brain.

Who gets to be _the special_ out of two sets with an equal number of members? :)

I suspect the sample was chosen to get two equal sets, as for an experiment like this you want to maximise the data from the two groups, as you are not trying to measure the incidence of the effect but rather the differences from the effect.

I think many people understand this is as a figure of speech, not as literal goosebumps.

edit: Yes, some people get literal goosebumps! Just highlighting there are two groups here.

I get literal goosebumps for certain songs, and it is kind of all over the place (music wise). If someone puts on Adele's Rolling in the Deep, the part where she belts out in the chorus, I always get physical goosebumps.

I never realized not everyone can do this, but I also can wiggle my ears, another useless genetic trait.

They are literal for me. Happens infrequently and only certain types of songs.

yes literally, sometimes coupled with an overwhelming rush of emotions that makes my eyes well up (doesn't have to be in a sad way, and depends on the situation and music).

I was already coming here to comment (even before you said this) on how this seems to rhyme with picturing something in your mind's eye, which I always grokked as being figurative speech.

I realized through my relationship with my partner and later a coworker that some people picture things with extraordinary acuity (so much so that I can trigger revolt or disgust by just describing something), but I thought they were the special ones. It wasn't until I read about Derek Parfit having aphantasia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) that I realized I was sitting somewhere out in the long tail of human experience.

This is similar to a conversation I had with my wife about inner dialog. I had always considered that one's inner dialog was literally conscious thought until I learned that some don't have that at all.

While I have the conscious ability to create both images and entire 3d animated systems in my head, it also comes with my subconscious flashing images at me, from animal forms through to mandalas (sometimes combined with buzzing noises), having extremely intrusive visual memories that can be triggered unexpectedly off a host of random things, and experiencing fireworks whenever I have a migraine. I think I might be sitting in a tail somewhere too. Hi, how's your tail doing? This one is very brightly coloured but tends to move around a lot.

There are two axes here! Phantasia does not imply involuntary imagining! I don't imagine/picture involuntarily, and for many many years I didn't understand that most people do involuntarily imagine what they hear. Forbidden-while-eating topics are no longer a mystery to me.

Interesting.

My own mental model (sigh...) is that these are all roughly related to (if not literal types of) the crossover/cross-polination (sigh...) that manifests in synesthesia.

I think synesthesia is definitionally involuntary, but your statement did make me go search "voluntary synesthesia", though I'm not done reading results yet.

I would guess it's a lot harder to identify people who can electively conjure anything akin to what synesthetes experience. It probably feels less distressing or noteworthy, happens less often, and would be a lot harder to study...

I don't think I have ever experienced this. I do however experience something like the opposite: music I don't like can evoke anything from a mild sense of dread to an almost caged-animal level of irritation - a very physical level of tension I feel all over. Especially horrid are the highly repetitive songs with vapid lyrics which inevitably go on to punish me by becoming an ear-worm infection for hours on end leaving me feeling exhausted. It makes the day seem unendurably long.

I am a bit of an odd duck when it comes to music though. I often go for weeks and weeks without actively seeking out any music at all. Not that I don't like music, I do, but I don't regularly experience that need for it that so many others seem to have. But, when I am programming and need to go into hyper-focus mode, I often find fast-paced Metal is the ticket, energizing and stimulating.

I've never once gotten goosebumps from music (Or movies or really anything other than the temperature).

I bet most get that feeling of intense excitement, but only few get actual, legit goosebumps.

I just thought this was normal.

Everyone's special :)

I don't.

Apparently not.

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