Can you feel your brain?

[alt_f13]

I swear I can feel my cerebral cortex when I think for too long or there is a lack of stimuli in my immediate surroundings. Feels warm/tense.

 

Is this possible, or am I special?

 

Many people say math hurts their head. When I do complex calculations that are not strait foreward (problem solving for trig) and/or coding, I swear I can feel the inner-front part of my brain tightening (well, thats what the sensation feels like.)

 

Again, is this possible?

[NavajoEverclear]

sometimes i swear i have similar sensations, though i dont really know much about propper names and what parts do what. Could just be an illusion, or maybe we really can sense the general flow of electricity. I know what you mean with that math thing, i've never felt any pain, but after doing a certain kind of work (math or another task), at some point it becomes tedious, until progressively i can even think about any more--- what it feels like more to me is that part of my brain (come to think of it, usually the front) has become static, and simply cant function any more with out resting and restoring

[alt_f13]

YES

 

Navajo -

So what I feel, but I haven't felt that for a few years b/c it was SO annoying, I stopped thinking. Seriousely. It could explain the drop from 100% in the first two months to 60% after the final.

 

I've since gotton over it though b/c I like coding too much.

[NSX]

I don't know if I cant feel my brain, excpet if a headache counts.

 

 

When I get bored, I usually know it, and then I find fascination in the smallest things.

[fafalone]

And when you have a headache I believe its the blood vessels you're feeling rather than actual nervous tissue.

[NSX]

Originally posted by fafalone

And when you have a headache I believe its the blood vessels you're feeling rather than actual nervous tissue.

 

Ooh..interesting;

How come I don't feel it when I'm not have a headache then?

[fafalone]

Because of the pressure.

[alt_f13]

What about when you think too much or too hard on something... thats when I get it, like deeper than skull feeling.

 

Can ones brain get tired?

[Glider]

No, you can't feel your brain. There are no sensory nerve endings in the cortex. This is why brain surgery can be performed without anaesthetic (beyond a local, injected into the scalp, which does have sensory nerve endings). Headaches are more often due to tension in the scalp, or as Fafalone said, baroreceptors in deep blood vessels.

 

Can your brain get tired? Yes. People can live longer without food than they can without sleep. Deprive somebody of sleep for long enough, and they will die.

[NSX]

Originally posted by Glider

Can your brain get tired? Yes. People can live longer without food than they can without sleep. Deprive somebody of sleep for long enough, and they will die.

 

That doesn't sound good for all-nighters

[aman]

It's possible the only reason the feeling is in the brain is because it is behind overstressed eyes.

I travelled in the Colombian Andes once having to go without sleep for five days. I probably in delerium slept for instants sitting or standing at the end but kept a briefcase safe through my travels and weapons ready. It helped that I'm 6'5" and it seemed I was in the land of munchkins. No offense to the natives about them being smaller. It was just a psych advantage and maybe my imagining it helped me survive. But the thing is I actually went from a Monday morning till a Friday late afternoon travelling and working nonstop without drugs other than coffee and still dealt with some snafus on the end. After that I slept over 24 straight hours. I remember the travel but I have no idea what happened for the next few days after I woke up. Strange but it's a first hand experience and I hope some a ya find it useful.

Just aman

[YT2095]

exactly what Glider said, he`s 100% on the mark there.

the reason "maths" or any intensive concern creates feelings "in" your head is because of blood pressure alone causing vaso-constriction of the vessels within your head and on the surface, it also effects the sinus cavities, the brain itself as an entitiy is incappable of such feeling (imagine how insane you`de get if you had a brain itch!) sounds silly sure, but that`s the reason WHY it feels nothing

[Dudde]

it also helps with what aman said, the stress you put on your eyes poring over math equations can cause them to become overtired; this could easily give you a headache

[NavajoEverclear]

i'll give an example of brain feelings---- the otherday i was reading oliver twist, i have to finish it along with some other books as pre school homework for honors english---- i had been reading a while and eventually i am having no emotion connected with the words I am reading (which is not good for remembering things) and i can hardly even process what the book is saying. Not that its anymore difficult wording and such wise, just because i've been reading too long. When this happens, i feel like the front of my brain has gone static (no fluctuation and such), so i lay back to rest from that type of thinking (perhaps excersising another type of brain use would be a better use, but just doing nothing works somewhat too) and when i do this it feels that the focus of my function, has traveled more toward the back on the sides of my brain. I don't know if this would be consistent or inconsistent with whatever those parts of the brain do-- but thats what it feels. I admit this could be an illusion, but YT2095 explanation of blood pressure rising doesn't feel right, because my blood pressure didn't rise in this process (as far as i could detect) it was my head, not my heart. Even if there are no nerve endings, isn't there someway the brain can feel itself? Obviosly theres some sort of spacial distinctions made by the brain itself, as different brain parts have different tasks--- so if it doesn't feel how does it make such differences anyway? So blood pressure doesn't seem to explain away what i feel as an illusion

[alt_f13]

Originally posted by YT2095

exactly what Glider said, he`s 100% on the mark there.

the reason "maths" or any intensive concern creates feelings "in" your head is because of blood pressure alone causing vaso-constriction of the vessels within your head and on the surface, it also effects the sinus cavities, the brain itself as an entitiy is incappable of such feeling (imagine how insane you`de get if you had a brain itch!) sounds silly sure, but that`s the reason WHY it feels nothing

 

What causes the blood pressure rise?

 

All I'm doing is sitting there with my eyes closed trying to come up with a solution to some kind of code problem.

 

Edit - Is it the activity in the brain causing the rise? I feel nothing in the rest of my body.

[Skye]

"People can live longer without food than they can without sleep."

 

I haven't heard of anyone actually dying of a lack of sleep, though I think severe sleep disorders have caused fairly serious damage to vital organs. Animals have died in experiments of course, just hadn't read of a human case being put down to lack of sleep.

[IMI]

If you want to feel your brain simply remove your skull-cap and wa-la! But seriously, as Glider already said, "...no sensory nerve endings..." This is why people who suffer gunshot wounds to the brain feel no pain.

[Dudde]

that and the fact that they're probably dead rather quickly

[Glider]

Skye said in post #16 :

"People can live longer without food than they can without sleep."

 

I haven't heard of anyone actually dying of a lack of sleep, though I think severe sleep disorders have caused fairly serious damage to vital organs. Animals have died in experiments of course, just hadn't read of a human case being put down to lack of sleep.

Read up on sleep deprivation studies carried out by the Japanese and Germans during WWII.

[IMI]

Dudde said in post #18 :

that and the fact that they're probably dead rather quickly

 

Not all people who are shot in the head die. I read one story of a woman who had been shot in the head during an airliner hijacking. She felt no pain. I knew a Vietnam Veteran who had been shot in the back of the head by an AK-47. No pain. Neither of these individuals suffered any long term effects from having been shot in the head either. It obviously matters what parts of the brain are damaged, but the brain is sometimes able to re-route certain functions that become disabled due to trauma.

[YT2095]

heavy concentration requires Beta brain waves, they in turn stimulate a rise in blood pressure amongst other physiological changes, the brain uses up to 90% of the bodys Glucose to function, and so you can feel physicaly tired and also lose weight/calories simply by thinking!

inversely Alpha brain waves (relaxed state) can be used to lower blood pressure also.