Have you ever listened to a piece of music and felt your arms break out in goosebumps? You may be prone to frisson
MITCHELL COLVER, THE CONVERSATION SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2016 07:00 AM -0700
found at: http://www.salon.com/2016/05/29/an_orgasm_for_the_skin_partner

In response to the above article found in Salon.com in the Comments Section:

J.Hamilton          2 days ago
There is a story that Native Americans were sought for tracking and other stealth activities during the Vietnam War but lost “their edge” once they received military haircuts.  There is also an extensive paper from Columbia University written in 1922 (Are Inventions Inevitable) that demonstrates human beings are receivers, i.e., most inventions, discoveries and processes of the past 400 years were documented to have been discovered by multiple parties simultaneously unbeknownst to each other. Obviously, their ideas and inventions “came to them.”

Clearly artists, philosophers, inventors, discovers and other sorts of sensitives receive their insights. (Does anyone deny Edgar Casey existed?) Frank Lloyd Wright is to have said that his drawings came from the cuff of his shirt; that he shook them from the cuff of his drawing hand.

Clearly there is a portion of the population that readily experiences frisson as a product of high coherence, i.e., a witnessing of the many variations of the best of music, art and otherwise, human experience. Frisson is the experience of amplifying one’s sensitivity, i.e. one’s radar, one’s subtle listening and receiving, to continue to experience/reach for the subtleties of the experience.

I would suggest that humanity (individually and collectively) is a receiver and as one’s sensitivity climbs, one experiences more. What happens during a particular type of orgasm? Are your senses on edge? Do you “reach” to experience more? Do you bask in the experience and as you learn how to let go “reach for the subtly of the experience?” If you do, you are using your senses in a more refined manner (which by the way is not as mental as you might think 🙂

It is my suggestion that frisson is the extending of the nervous system to experience more of what it has already latched on to, looking to refine and extend the experience.. to soak up more!

PS Do your hairs stand up when you are afraid? Are you sensing when you are afraid? You bet you are!

PPS I would also suggest when you experience “knowningness;” when you experience something that is true (Susan Boyle*), you experience frissson. You are always sensing, sensing, sensing..
* almost 200 million views!

Treehouselibrary             2 days ago
@J.Hamilton Composers experience frisson when hearing their yet-to-be played music in their own heads. That’s not sensing.

And I’ve never bought into the idea that intensely valuable aesthetic experiences must somehow be cognitive. I don’t think that our value of abstract composition (melodies, for example) corresponds to any external orderliness in the world. It seems like we could probably alter our brains such that a composition that presently looks or sounds aesthetically inconsequential would be extremely consequential. For any possible composition, there’s probably a physical ordering of the brain that would account for the same composition seeming just as powerful (or more) than any experience any human has ever had (that makes it sound like I equate physical activity with consciousness, which is not true). Anyway, though it wouldn’t surprise me if frisson heightened our sensory,cognitive, and/or interpretative abilities, I just don’t think frisson necessarily IS any such heightening.

J.Hamilton          2 days ago
@treehouselibrary @J.Hamilton thanking you for responding and begging to differ.. “yet to be played music in their own heads” is exactly sensing; the cognitive function is the last place it shows up. They receive their insights, aka music, ideas, inventions and particularly when they have knowingness, their nervous system is titillated, i.e., they can feel the accuracy/coherence of the object of their attention. While many argue music prodigies are products of “past lives,” I am more of the persuasion they “channel” the music they hear–they receive the music they hear. I attended a concert by Emily Bear (13yrs old) and she transformed the entire audience with her music, some of it written as young as 3 years of age. It is my contention that she has a open channel to the celestial spheres and dutifully writes and plays what she hears.. If you are not familiar with sacred geometry, when applied to music, it begins to match the world of nature, something much larger than the mind.

J.Hamilton          2 days ago
@treehouselibrary tell me what you experience when you hear this Emily Bear-Bumble Bee? Your nervous system is enlived to the point (for me) of tears of joy! There is so much we don’t know about ourselves.. We assume the nervous system is for telling us when we put our finger on a hot burner!  Frisson is an opening to a better understanding of our very nature.  EmilyBear.com

Treehouselibrary             18 hours ago
@J.Hamilton @treehouselibrary I like it, but my allergies are a problem for me today. It’s not an ideal day for me to try to enjoy music.

I would guess that your appreciation of the performer’s virtuosity has something to do with your level of joy, too. There’s nothing wrong with that, and, anyway, there’s no divorcing meaning from perception. But virtuosity doesn’t factor much into my own love of music.

Treehouselibrary             18 hours ago
@J.Hamilton @treehouselibrary If you think that imagining is an example of sensing, then you have a conception of sensing that contradicts what sensing means to biologists.

J.Hamilton                          just now
@treehouselibrary @J.Hamilton Absolutely! And thanks for being open-minded… In my work, I use the example of getting into your automobile; your senses extending to the outermost corners of the vehicle, adjusting your mirrors, etc., and then driving off. Same thing with a big RV or airplane or tractor trailer truck rig. You nervous system’s sensing has to extend to the size of what you are driving to have command over the vehicle. Obviously, a lot of people jumping into a big tractor trailer would be totally overwhelmed by the prospect of driving such a big rig until they acclimate–until they extend their nervous system’s sensing of the size of the vehicle.. slowly assimilating their new charge..

(Some of course, never do/won’t assimilate the responsibility of driving something so big.. their senses are in absolute overwhelm and they know they don’t want to do it.)

Similarly, as one drives, sensing through the rear view and side view mirrors, sensing via the speedometer and sensing through the windshield “watching/assessing” traffic, they merge with many others doing the same thing.. and everyone goes along–everyone sensing.

And then it becomes night time and their sensing is diminished by the darkness.. Until they turn on their headlights and their sensing extends into the darkness through the headlight beams! We sense out and we receive information back! this is where symphonies and bridges and art and inventions and discoveries come from..

While not exactly the same thing as imagining.. I can design a bridge in my head, or a web page and sense its appeal as I adjust my sense of its acceptance. I can also attempt to sense your sense of acceptance or rejection of my thoughts.. More so, I can sense my capacity to express what I am attempting to convey.

I see them both as extensions of that faculty of sensing that most have not yet subtly discerned.. PS our nervous system is our center. As we learn how to clean it up, meditation for example, our sensing becomes more refined 🙂

By the way, as I first began to write the above, the hairs on my arms momentarily rose up. Could I have been calling in my sensing for my attempting to effectively communicate with you?

Thanks for your thoughts and wishing you well on your allergies, a product of overload on your body’s inability “to process/digest” incoming information 🙂