Can you feel your brain?

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I get these weird dizzy spells all the time that I can only describe as a "brain spasm". I felt like I was falling fowards the other day but I was sitting perfectaly still.

Okay, Pseudo. I could accept the idea that increased blood flow to an area could cause the sensations that I describe. I also could believe that it's simply due to feelings of the muscles and sinuses. It's all very interesting. I have a friend who works in a sleep lab and I always wanted to go have her hook me up to her machines and let me get into one of my "zones" to see if we could sense any different areas of the brain activating. Sort of like when people are in REM sleep and such. Again, it's all very interesting to me, and I would love to see data or have a chance to play with something like that one day. Thanks for your input on the subject.

when in deep thought, or in spiritual "force sensitive" mode yes, It's unpleasant, Although being around people I don't freak out, I imagine that I can "absorb" their emotions their sensory fields, and my brain is overloading (you know that rabid feeling when some hero is facing mortal danger and they show a shot of his or her pupils? Ie Indiana Jones Last Crusade where the tank goes off the cliff?). That's what my brain feels like wild and rabid. Although I have some semblance to civilized thinking, or sentient feeling.

I would say this is akin to being very very very "happy drunk". I used to drink to calm such energies. Certain music tends to excite my brain like this. My head would feel extremely warm physically (more blood rusing to it?, excited enrapture of fight or flight hormones?).

I went to World Youth Day in Toronto. Wow, I was unexpectedly manic enjoy soaking up the ambient enthusiasm. But I usually like to keep to myself. I bet my cat scan would have read heck broke the machine. It felt like my brain was on fire like Ghost rider Marvel comic.

I think Aspies can tolerate some wild sounds and some large groups and like stimulation, but it's not preferred. Because that a candle burns bright burns half as long....

That sounds like those brain shocks you can get if you miss taking Effexor

I'm not on Effexor. I've never even herd of it.

You missed my point. I'll try to be more clear. I don't think that definition of hallucination is a good one. To me, a hallucination is a false attribution of a subjective sensation to an external agent. If I'm merely describing the subjective feeling of a sensation and not attributing an external agent then I'm not describing a hallucination. By your definition the physical sensations that accompany emotional responses would be categorized as hallucinations because there is no external agent causing them. If I'm experiencing extreme anxiety and describe a "sinking feeling in my gut" the thing I'm describing doesn't count as a hallucination. If I literally thought my stomach was accelerating downward that would be a hallucination.

A sensation isn't synonymous with nerve communication. Internal neurological/psychological processes can also lead to sensations. See my previous example.

I said "it's possible". I didn't say I had proof. You're the one making a positive statement by claiming that it's "impossible" to sense brain activity. By "typical nerve signals" I'm referring to signals transmitted by nerve cells outside the brain. I believe any subjective sensation will ultimately have an electrical tracer (whether we have the technology to see it is another matter). I don't believe in a mind-body dualism.

No I'm not. Not all sensations come from data outside the brain. You say "the brain interprets" but I think that's kind of sloppy language that goes back to an implicit belief in mind-body dualism. "Processes" is a much better term IMO. What I'm saying is that within the brain there is processing of both internal and external data. Sometimes a sensation is partially or entirely brought on by internal processing. Yet I wouldn't call the sensation a "distortion" or "hallucination" unless there's an instinctive cognitive attribution to some external agent that doesn't exist.

I would classify most emotions as sensations brought on by internal processing, at least at the root before we add extra layers of abstraction.

Wow, I thought I was the only one too. With noise or anxiety/stress it feels like my brain is being electrocuted. I've always described it as such and people think I'm being metaphorical or something, but I'm not, that's what I really feel.

Marshall, thank you for clarifying your position. I see now where the source of confusion lies. We are approaching the question from different perspectives and with different language. And until now neither of us noticed we were having separate discussions.

I am approaching from known medical science and you from what seems to be philosophical theory. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but that is not the discussion I thought we were having. I stopped reading philosophy when I was 14, and have only the slightest idea what mind-body dualism is. I do not believe that this, or any mental phenomena, is non-physical. As you said, I am the one who made the "positive statement" that you cannot receive true sense-data were there are no sensors to receive it with. I don't know how that can be any less non-physical.

I do know were the nerves are, and I know how they work, and I know that medical science allows for say, butterflies in the stomach, as part of an emotional response without calling it an hallucination. It is a wonderfully complex cascade, but there is no need for undiscovered "electric tracers" to explain this, from my perspective. Of course, physiological sensation to emotion was not the original topic.

I have offered the science as best I understand it and in as simple a manner as I can for anyone who is curious about this topic of "feeling" the brain. I welcome any corrections on the facts, but I have no desire to defend that information in a philosophical debate. I concede all points in that arena to you, marshall. And I apologize for the misunderstanding.

I think I can feel my brain if I shake my head really fast. It's like I can feel something from the inside hitting my skull.

Can you feel your brain?

Simplest answer: no (for me).

Have experienced an occasional, very short headache over the many years. That's about as close to feeling the brain I've experienced.

On very rare occasions I've heard my heartbeat or blood pulsing through a blood vessel near an ear.

when I have taken ritalin or hydrocodone, I can definitely feel something happening in the direct center of my head, where the only thing present could be brain tissue. At least I hope it's still there... Like a loosening up, or sometimes a kind of a flowing, watery feeling. The pharms are turning my brain to mush!
But to say there is no potential for feeling is not true, in my experience. Though possibly, its only pharmacologically induced.

This makes my brain feel weird!! !

I can feel all the lobes of my brain, all at once. It feels like I only have a brain and eyes, sometimes.

I think I know that feeling, or maybe it's just my head tingling. It usually comes when I get overloaded.

I have this too. It usually get worse when I focus on it. I can also direct it, when I can't sleep at night I move the tingling from the back to the front and I can feel the energy moving through my brain that way. I find it kinda scary, sometimes I think it's bugs that are in my brain (that's what it feels like) or that it's some kind of superpower. The feeling is induced by music, emotions and/or drugs.

I have come upon this web-discussion (sadly several years old) while searching the internet for reporting by others of the sort of brain-buzzing I have felt at very powerful ah-ha moments: my eyes cloud over, my ears plug, and I have a sensation of tingling in my brain. I've had three such experiences, all after a powerful revelation that something I'd always believed about my family was undeniably wrong. All occurred when I was working on a memoir and thinking deeply about past patterns of behavior. Suddenly, some underlying essential inconsistency became apparent, and I could see the falseness of a life-long false assumption. These revelations had emotional aspects (mostly positive), but the brain sensation is something different -- and has only happened to me in this special circumstance. What I experience feels like my brain is laying down new neural pathways. From the discussion between Pseudonymous and Marshall, I gather this is physiologically impossible. I assume, therefore, that I am feeling some increase in the blood supply to one part of my brain. (How drab an explanation for the physical expression of such an extraordinary moment.)

I was very excited to find this discussion and am intrigued that it should be in your (I am neuro-typical) community and nowhere else that I've been able to find. Why should this be? I can't be that what we have experienced is that unusual. Why don't more people describe this phenomenon?