tactile hallucination?

[sharonsthere]

I have been reading posts and I see that my question is not even important on the radar here.

But it is a question that I have been unable to come even remotely close to answering. Someone suggested I come here.
I'd like to find out if anyone has experienced the following: It started when I was a kid, not sure how old, it's always been there. When someone touched something that belonged to me (and it had to be a soft touch, not like throwing something across the room) or if someone did someone else's hair, or even brushed/petted the dog I got a feeling that was a band around the top of my head, starting in the back. It was pleasant and made me immediately drowsy, or quite rather quite physically relaxed. I'd seek it out as I got older, perhaps by loaning my notebook or pen to someone in school, stuff like that.

I'm mentioned it to therapists in the past. No one I've described it to has ever heard of it. Now, at 50 yrs old it is still a factor, not a problem or anything like that. It still happens, and I have some control over it. I can recall an incident and get real close to feeling the sensation again, on occasion.


Thanks in advance
Sharon

[clinicalguru3]

Well it is not so difficult to explain what you are feeling in terms of what we know about the psychology of conditioning.

To put it in a nutshell, it is probable that the original feeling you had when people touched your stuff was some kind of a coincidence, but the association you made between the touching of your stuff (the "trigger" and the feeling was strong enough to join up the areas in your brain which linked that feeling with the trigger.

In other words, the very fact that you believe that you will experience the feeling when the trigger happens, means that you will feel it in response to the trigger...this is similar to the placebo effect that people get when they believe a drug will work against a headache for example it often does (even though the drug is just a fake empty pill).

hope that helps