An anatomical theory

[resonant]

"When I think about looking at your stitches," the kidlet said, "it gives me a funny feeling in my butt."

"Wow, you too?" I said. "I thought it was only me."

And then suddenly it occurred to me: I'll bet those are muscles trying to tuck in a tail that we don't have.

Comments

[jood.livejournal.com]

HOLY SHIT.

[slythwolf.livejournal.com]

I'll bet you're right about that. Weird.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

...that is EXACTLY what that is like! Holy moly!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

That is entirely possible...

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Also. Feeling it *right now*.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Me too! I don't get the sensation very often -- normal day-to-day squeamishness gets me in the stomach or makes my lips want to curl, but it takes some really really deep squeamishness to make this happen.

[whatifisaidno.livejournal.com]

Wow. I get the feeling in my belly.

[pun.livejournal.com]

Me too. When my grandmother had this horrible black eye (from falling), I couldn't look at it without getting a horrible watery feeling in my belly.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I've felt the watery belly! That's more common for me than the butt thing. I wonder what, exactly, determines whether a thought will have a physical effect, and which physical effect it will have?

[starwatcher]

.
Makes sense to me, though I've never experienced it. But sometimes I feel a prickling at the back of my neck, just below the hairline. I've figured for years that it's vestigial muscles trying to raise my hackles.
.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

The hackle-raising is certainly true.

I'll have to think about the tail thing. It's possible, but that means it's a pre-chimpanzee remnant, which is a *long* time.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yes! I get the hackle-raising thing, too!

I don't know enough science to know whether there's any actual basis for this, but it's weirdly plausible.

[starwatcher]

.
but that means it's a pre-chimpanzee remnant,

True. But, during fetal development, don't we pass through some of the evolutionary steps? These remnants seem to have a habit of hanging around.
.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

You know how infants have an automatic response to grab hold of anything that you put in their hands? I read somewhere that for the first few hours after birth, they have the same response in their feet. But unfortunately I read this too late to test it out on the kidlet.

[marici.livejournal.com]

Thinking about or seeing (usually in movies) serious injury makes a line of hollow aching connecting my inner elbows through my shoulders. Any guesses?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I don't remember ever feeling that one. But now that I'm looking for it, maybe I'll notice.

[ecaterin.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm there with that :D

There are also really clear associations in energetic theory as to why the tail tucks and the sphincters lock :P

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah? Well, the sphincters seem pretty obvious. Tail, not so much.

When I've observed tail-tucking in dogs, it seems to be a response to -- I want to say shame, but that may be anthropomorphizing too much -- earning the displeasure of someone higher than you in the pack hierarchy. It's like a visual representation of your humility.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

well hell...

who knew I was missing my tail?

I imagine it would have been a happy fluffy one...

full of tangles and those sticky seed pods

probably better that I don't have one then...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Aww! Now that you mention it, I'd like to have a tail, too, but I'd rather have a skinny prehensile one. One strong enough to catch a dropped iPod before it hits the floor.

[tevere.livejournal.com]

I always thought that tucking sensation was some weird perversion of the sexual impulse or something -- you know, see something horrible or fear for your life, and feel some primal urge to procreate -- but yours makes so much more sense *g*.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It is vaguely sexual, but anything that moves down there is going to tug on something with a lot of extra nerve endings.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Hm. I tend to get it in my legs (and, if someone won't stop talking about their horrible injury, I also find myself hugging my arms in close to my body as if protecting my wrists). I still like your theory, though.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I've never felt it in the legs, but I certainly have that impulse to pull the arms in -- though to me it feels more like I'm using my arms to protect my delicate internal organs.

[celestialcuming.livejournal.com]

LOL! The kidlet is too cute. Freaky to think we're missing a tail.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel like I ought to have fur. My best friend was born all covered with black fur, and her mother was so embarrassed that they don't have any baby pictures of her, which seems like a terrible waste of blackmail material to me.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

That is AWESOME. A friend just told me a story about her younger (18 months? two years? something like that - and yes, I know they're vastly different ages, I suck) daughter's extreme distress at discovering, not only that she doesn't have a tail and that her mommy doesn't have a tail, but that NOBODY has a tail because they've all DISAPPEARED.

Friend says she can't sing "Three Blind Mice" to the kidlet any more.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Aww! So sad to be deprived of tails! I didn't miss mine until today!

When the kidlet was about six, they had an activity at the fair that year where you could put on a harness with four bungee-jump-type cords and then you'd jump on a trampoline and the harness would exaggerate your jumps almost into flight. And the look on her face when she did that wasn't just happiness but this deep sense of having a belief verified: "I knew this was possible!"

[qe2.livejournal.com]

the look on her face when she did that wasn't just happiness but this deep sense of having a belief verified: "I knew this was possible!"

♥

I had just this reaction Thursday night watching the making-of doc for Onmyogi with the friends who hosted me over Tgiving. One of the leads, Mansai Nomura, had to do some wire work during a fight scene. He was visibly unhappy about it, even through his smiling game face - but I was just consumed with jealousy.

Flying's always been the superpower I wanted the second most, right after telekinesis. Do you ever have the same dreams multiple times? I've had dreams about flying - and about telekinetic weather control - over and over for at least the last twenty-five years of my life. Hm...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow, telekinetic weather control -- that's cool. I've never dreamed about that. I dream about flying all the time, though, and in dreams it's not work, like running; it's fun.

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

huh...love your brain!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's odd in there.

[starfishchick]

Now *I* have a funny feeling in my butt.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I know!

[lyra-sena.livejournal.com]

Okay, this plus the 922 story have absolutely made my day.


(and I hope your finger is getting better!)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's slowly improving. But if I try to write anything in longhand (even address an envelope), it turns bluish!

[cybel]

Seriously weird but oddly compelling conversation to say the least.

I don't know, but isn't the sensation at least partly the tightening of the big muscles of the ass as well as the sphincter around the anus? Couldn't that just be part of a fight/flight response?

Not that I don't like the tail theory better, mind you (especially since I have a birth mark right there myself, and vestigial 'tails'--not real ones since there are no bones in the protuberances--are often discretely snipped at birth), but science really doesn't support the likelihood.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I tried to make it happen again so I could see how much of it was ass-protection and how much might be something else, but the stitches are so old hat now that they don't disgust me any more, so I can't make it happen again!

[cybel]

That's the way with real autonomic responses. They're totally not under a person's conscious control.

Well, look at it this way, you have a whole flist of people on the lookout for the response, so if they ever feel it, you'll be the first to know!