Here are some of the strangest feelings in the world!
12 - Lightning Strikes Without a doubt, being struck by lightning
isn’t the best sensation out there.
Not too many people can actually talk about what it actually feels like!
First things first – even if you do get hit by lightning, you’re likely to survive.
What happens after you’re struck by lightning can vary dramatically depending on whether
or not you’re hit directly or indirectly.
South Carolina man Melvin Roberts says he's been struck by lightning a total of ten times.
At least that’s what he claims.
He made headlines back in 2011 when he was struck by lightning for the SIXTH confirmed
time!
Roy Sullivan still holds the Guinness World record for most times getting struck by lightning.
According to him, when the lightning hits you, it's like being hit by a freight train.
It knocks you out and it knocks you down.
Apparently, you can tell what's around and what’s happening, you just don't have any
control over your body.
He compares the feeling to being zapped inside a microwave.
Um......what does THAT feel like?!
It’s apparently like grabbing an electrical cord – you don't feel the burns until it's
over with.
And nope, these are feelings we’re not familiar with!
Immediately after being struck by lightning, there can be issues with your vision and hearing,
because of the bright flash of lightning and the boom from the thunder.
11 - CT scan Who here had a CT scan and felt weirded out
by what was happening during the exam?
The most common complaints are a weird taste in the mouth, feeling coldness rushing through
your veins, and feeling like you’re going to pee your pants?!
The reason for all of those sensations isn’t the CT scan itself, but rather it’s the
contrast dye used for imaging internal organs.
Contrast materials are used to improve pictures of the inside of the body and they help doctors
to distinguish normal from abnormal conditions of your body.
Don’t worry, contrast materials aren’t dyes that permanently discolor your internal
organs or anything like that!
They’re substances that temporarily change the way imaging tools interact with the body.
Once technicians administer the contrast, you feel both cold and warmth spreading through
your body – the cold goes through your veins and the warm sensation is felt in the bladder.
If the tech doesn’t warn you beforehand, you would probably think that you’re gonna
lose control of your bladder!
That feeling goes away pretty quickly though.
And the best part it is, there’s no pain at any other point during the exam.
10 - Hypnic jerks You’re drifting off to sleep, and you’re
getting closer towards dreamland.
But all of a sudden you feel yourself falling and then you abruptly become awake because
you’ve jerked yourself awake!
Sometimes, it feels like you’re in free fall or maybe you’re floating.
But of course, that’s not happening.
What’s going on?
Technically, you experienced what’s called a hypnic jerk.
Scientists actually don’t know for sure what causes hypnic jerks.
But they have a few ideas.
One theory is that they represent the side effects of a hidden battle for control in
the brain between wakefulness and dreams.
Hypnic jerks are the last gasps of normal daytime motor control!
In other words, when the effects of sleep are just beginning to take over your body
and brain, your waking self seems to creep back in unexpectedly sometimes, startling
you awake.
Another theory is that your body thinks it’s falling and it’s an evolutionary theory.
Our primate ancestors often had to sleep in trees.
Psychologists have suggested that a hypnic jerk could be an archaic reflex in our brain.
It misinterprets the muscle relaxation accompanying the onset of sleep as a signal that we’re
falling out of a tree!
9 - Waking up For years, anesthesia awareness has been shrouded
in mystery.
Although extreme experiences are rare, there’s now evidence that around 5% of people wake
up on the operating table!
That’s actually scary.
But most people aren’t able to remember anything about it because of the amnesia effect
of the anesthesia.
Whether or not that’s something we should be concerned about is both a practical and
a philosophical question.
There are the people who DO remember waking up in the middle of their own surgery.
As you would expect, the experience was terrifying!
Patients who’ve woken up during surgery say that the temporary paralysis is the most
distressing part of the event.
Most patients feel no pain but some of them do, and they end up lying on the table, unable
to move anything!
8 - ASMR What’s up with all the slime-poking or plastic-crinkling
content on YouTube lately?
To some people, it’s a whole lot of weirdness.
But to those who experience ASMR, it’s a convenient form of self-care.
They watch these videos to relax.
ASMR stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response”, a term that was made up in 2010.
Real-life experiences, such as having your hair shampooed and styled, can set off brain
tingles similar to ASMR.
But even just watching videos with certain sounds and visuals trigger an ASMR response
in some people.
It can be hard to wrap your mind around ASMR if you haven’t personally experienced the
apparent head buzz that certain sights and sounds can cause.
People watch ASMR videos for the deeply calming, brain-tingling sensation that it produces
and swear ASMR videos help them relax and fall asleep.
Apparently, a deeply relaxing sensation with tingling in the scalp is the result of a certain
stimulus—often a gentle sound.
Some say the feeling cascades down their spine to their limbs.
Some research suggests that ASMR may overlap with synesthesia, an unusual condition that
involves hearing colors or textures, for example, or seeing or tasting sounds.
But don’t confuse ASMR with the goosebumps you get when you hear music that moves you.
That’s apparently called frisson, a French word for shiver!
7 - Sleep paralysis This so-called “sleep demon” has been
happening to humans for thousands of years, although science has only managed to explain
it within the last century.
Approximately 6-8 percent of people will experience sleep paralysis at some point during their
lives.
The crazy thing is that sleep paralysis is actually a hallucination?!
This occurs when you’re jolted awake in the middle of the rapid eye movement phase
of sleep right in the middle of a dream.
During the dream phase, your brain typically shuts off signals to the rest of the body
so you don’t act out on your dreams.
Obviously, acting out our dreams can sometimes be dangerous.
However, stress can disrupt the sleep cycle and jerk you out of your dream early, while
your body is still in this “lockdown” mode!
This would leave you fully conscious but unable to move after waking from a dream state.
An episode of paralysis would leave you unable to speak or move your body.
Even though you’re FULLY aware of what’s happening.
You’re still able to breathe normally, but some people feel weight on their chest and
struggle to catch their breath.
Basically, your brain is still dreaming and it’s projecting your dreams into the real
world.
An episode can last for seconds or minutes!
So would you get out of it?
The episode usually ends on its own, but a small percentage of people can only snap out
of it with help!
They can only wake up when someone else touches them or talks to them.
6 - Bladder Brewery Now and then a bizarre case study comes along
that reminds us how unbelievable AND unpredictable, the human body can be!
One of the most bizarre feelings that can be experienced is the sensation of your very
own body becoming…….....a brewery.
Yes, your body can theoretically do this!
There was a case of a lady where her body produced its own alcohol.
Yes, that’s right she produced and got rid of alcohol by peeing.
And no, she wasn’t drinking any alcohol, although it took her doctors a while to believe
it!
Two teams of medical experts thought that the unidentified 61-year-old lady was hiding
a problem from them.
All her urine tests came back positive for alcohol!
She was also suffering from cirrhosis, a liver condition associated with heavy drinkers.
She was on the waiting list for a liver transplant.
But after specialists from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center got involved,
the woman was FINALLY correctly diagnosed.
They found out that her bladder actually was fermenting alcohol!
It’s so rare, she’s actually the first person in the world to have been diagnosed
with it.
After numerous tests, doctors realized that the woman had high levels of yeast in her
bladder.
This is yeast produced naturally by the body, and it’s similar to a fungus known as brewer's
yeast.
Beer makers use it to convert carbohydrates in grains into alcohol.
The same type of conversion process was taking place inside her bladder when she ate foods
containing sugar.
And it was taking its toll on her liver, which had to try and get rid of the yeast!
5 - Déjà vu & Deja reve Déjà vu is the phenomenon that a person
experiences when they feel that they’ve experienced an event in their past.
We don’t think that we need to say that Deja Vus don’t actually tell the future.
But they’re a very real feeling because it’s a little trick the brain does.
Déjà vu was thought to be caused by the brain making false memories, but research
now suggests this is wrong.
A team of scientists did a few experiments and managed to trigger déjà vu in volunteers,
and they got to some interesting conclusions.
It was expected that areas of the brain involved in memories, such as the hippocampus, would
be active during this phenomenon.
However, that wasn’t the case!
The team found that the frontal lobe was active instead!
These findings suggest that déjà vu is a sign that your brain is doing a little test.
Researchers think that the brain is probably checking through our memories, and sending
signals if there’s some kind of memory error.
Basically, a conflict between what we’ve actually experienced and what we think we’ve
experienced.
Déjà vu may be a sign that your brain’s memory checking system is working well.
If you get deja vu a lot, you’re probably less likely to misremember events!
On the other side, there’s déjà rêvé, which means “already dreamed.”
It’s a lot like deja vu but instead it’s something that you dreamt, but it happens
in real life!
The déjà rêvé phenomenon apparently feels like a dream that controls you.
It feels like you’re living in a dream except you’re awake!
4 - That sinking feeling You know that sinking feeling you get in your
stomach as the plane takes off?
That happens when the airplane levels off after takeoff.
That feeling is a result of negative vertical acceleration.
It can also happen at other times during the flight, such as during turbulence or when
starting a descent.
And it’s a feeling either you love or you hate, there doesn’t seem to be an in between!
Basically, you and the airplane are both in a steady climb.
When the plane levels off, you continue to move up faster and the seatbelt decelerates
your own personal vertical climb!
What you feel is your stomach floating up a little inside your body.
While the seat belt is holding you down, it doesn't hold your stomach in place!
Another more familiar example happens anytime that you are traveling in a car.
If you’re in a car moving at a constant speed, of course, you’re moving at the same
speed along with it.
When the car slows down, your body will want to keep moving.
This is of course much more noticeable when the brakes are applied harder.
The deceleration of the car is more extreme.
In an airplane, the exact same thing is happening.
Except, it’s in a vertical direction instead of a horizontal direction like in the car.
3 - Cryotherapy Whole-body cryotherapy is the latest craze.
In the simplest terms, it’s a short, sharp temperature shock.
You stand in a chamber at sub-zero temperatures, and, as the theory goes, you get a ton of
healthy benefits.
The frigid temperatures are supposed to improve healing times for sports injuries.
But studies investigating cryotherapy’s ability to speed up recovery suggest that
an ice pack probably has the same benefits.
But, people don’t do it only for medical relief!
It’s also supposed to provide a sense of adrenaline-fueled euphoria!
You get some safety equipment when you go in, such as thermal socks, a pair of shorts,
and a surgical face mask to protect your airways from the cold.
People who’ve undergone cryotherapy describe the experience as unusual and not particularly
pleasant.
The hairs on your body turn into tiny icicles and your eyelashes freeze!
And oh yeah.
You’re extremely cold.
The cryotherapy chamber is nothing like being outside though.
There’s no wind and virtually no moisture in the booth.
If there’s even a slight breeze and damp air, you’re DEFINITELY not in for a good
time because of the wind chill factor!
2 - Nasopharynx swab COVID tests are all the buzz right now.
And it completely makes sense.
Maybe you’ve had one, maybe you haven’t.
What does it actually feel like to ACTUALLY undergo one of the nasal swab tests for COVID-19?!
Well, let’s just say – it’s not comfortable.
It’s not pain like you’d feel from a shot or something like that.
Think about how it feels when you get chlorinated water up your nose in a swimming pool.
The reason for this awkward feeling is because of the complex nerve endings in your nose
that tells your brain, this isn’t right!
That burning sensation makes you want to blow the water right back out.
Turns out, the swab test for COVID-19 is more intense than that.
Some people who’ve undergone it describe it as a deep burning sensation that often
gives you tears.
And sometimes it makes you cough.
Some people describe it as a weird ticklish feeling that they’ve never felt before.
The reason why they have to reach all the way back there is because that’s where the
viruses like to hang out, in the nasopharynx!
It’s located about three inches straight back into the throat, or in the turbinate
area, about an inch inside the nose.
Once the swab is inserted, it needs to be swirled around for a bit!
The discomfort you feel typically goes away quickly, and don’t worry, it’s just a
feeling.
President Donald Trump, who’s been tested at least a couple times, described it as quote
“not something I want to do every day, I can tell you that.”
1 - Zero-gravity What do people feel in a zero-gravity environment?
Does it feel like falling endlessly, or like being on a roller coaster?
Apparently the feeling is completely different from being on a roller coaster.
It is more like motionlessness than movement.
The most comparable feeling is floating in water without the sensation of water on your
skin.
Because you feel so light, you can move around with the slightest amount of effort.
Pushing off a surface too hard, which is the common mistake of all first-time free-floaters,
results in you bouncing around like a Ping-Pong ball.
Nice and easy does the trick.
Here’s what’s next!