vibrating touch

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by ultimushomo, Apr 23, 2014.

  1. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    Hello all, I have an event that happened to me about seven years ago that has stuck with me. My entire life I have been very close to my grandmother, since I was a little girl she would usually put me to sleep by a light tickle on my arms or legs. So, one day at the age of 20 I was sitting on the couch next to her and asked if she would tickle my arm, as she was moving her nails and hand slowly back and forth on my arm I began to feel something strange. About two minutes into tickling my arm I began to feel a vibrating sensation on the upper part of my arm. We looked at each other in disbelief, and began to laugh. It was so odd, she kept tickling my arm where I said I felt the vibration the strongest and at times when she would drag her fingertips over a certain part of my arm you could actually hear the sound of a strong vibration, as well as feel it. She also said she could feel the vibrations in her fingertips and also heard the sound of vibration. Also, This was before smart phones were invited, so my greatest regret was I could never document the occurrence. She continued to tickle my arm for about thirty minutes and then we finally just stopped, she said her hand was getting tired and I agreed that although it was the coolest/strangest thing that has happened to me, I felt that our odd moment was over. So long story short is there any way this occurrence can be explained? We live far away from each other but when we do get together we try to re-do the event, but unfortunately it has not happened yet (and I have a smart phone now too

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    so i can try to document it) I must add that when I was 10 we (my grandmother and I) lived in biloxi, while living in a house by the beach we had a really bad thunder storm one night. While watching cartoons, I assume a lighting strike hit something connected to our television and released this ball of electricity. I know sounds crazy but it happened. Imagine a 90's television box, pretty standard size not very big but had the bulky back side to it, while watching cartoons I heard a loud clap and saw a ball a perfect sphere of blue and silver electricity come from the screen, pass very close to my face and shoot down our hall and the "ball" did not leave a trace on the wall where it "went through". the ball was about the size of a basketball too. Ok so there it is, If anyone can clue me in on what this two odd occurrences were and if the can maybe relate in some way it would be greatly appreciated. I am tired of driving myself crazy thinking of what it could be, I lack the knowledge. Thank you very much and I will appreciate any help.
     
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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    The first part was probably just your muscles twitching. Some of your muscle fibers begain to contract and relax due to the stimulation of you grandmothers figernails. I somtimes will have my muscles twitch, it is completely involuntary and I can actually see the movement - it is infrequent but it is usually a few hours after some physical activity. The twitching will be very localized, like one little section of my tricep or quad (a couple of centimeters or so).

    As far as ball lightning - I don't know. I am skeptical of ball lightning but many others are not, I might even be in the minority on that.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2014
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  5. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    Thank you very much for your input, I can agree with you. The sound and feeling was very localized in that area (the tricept). It is hard to believe that it can sound so rapid, but I can understand the many fiber in my muscles twitching and "vibrating" as it did. So thank you very much and as far as the ball of whatever, maybe electricity or static? who knows. But I will say this I wish I had never witnessed it. haha I laugh because it was so odd and when you see something like that I feel my brain tried to understand it. But unfortunately My brain cannot, but it knows it happened and will not let it go. So in a way its aggravating, like, what was seen cannot be unseen sorta thing. But in my experience it happened and it was a sphere of certain color of blueish/silver in was in constant motion as well. It reminded me off the clear bouncing balls that stores sell with water, a bit of color dye and glitter and when it bounces the inner stuff mixes and moves around. That is the best way I can describe it. Anyways thanks again, very much appreciated!
     
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  7. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    The "ball of lightning" I'm not sure what to think... it could have been a burst of silicon or aluminum "gas" that was burning... but why that left no marks on the wall I have no idea.
     
  8. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I've actually seen ball lightning. It was in the tank farm of an oil plant where I worked and occurred after a lightning strike. A slowly moving ball of light could be seen for a few seconds which disappeared before I could get to it. I am not given to superstition or to visions and had previously been sceptical about ball lightning. But of course, as ever, the problem is lack of reproducibility of the phenomenon. And no mobile phone photos in those days, sadly.
     
  9. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    So I just called my grandmother to talk about the "Great Ball" haha and she gave me her interpretation of the account. She said that it was more red/yellow than what I had thought was blue/silver. Granted she was older than I was ( she says I was about 6 or 7, my grandmother being about 45)
    So I would say her description is more accurate. But I do remember the wall that it passed through was a white, we lived in military housing and the insides are all painted this cream white. But we both investigated the wall and it had no marks, no heat, it seemed untouched. She also told me that the entire apartment complex lost power, but when the electricity was turned back, she said some neighbor were complaint that some different electronics were fried. She said a ladies microwave didn't work another neighbor said that their toaster didn't work, along with other peoples electronics. I asked if she heard of any mutant fire balls in others houses and she said no, no one said they had seen that. She called in heat lighting, she also told me that there was no thunderstorm and it wasn't raining either. So, Thanks again for responding and I appreciate all input, also I apologize for changing some key points in my story of the lighting, I called my grandmother to get her side and it seemed that we recalled different views of the events.
     
  10. elte Valued Senior Member

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    Something I recently heard doesn't account for an actual physical vibration except if maybe some kind of feedback loop got established between your nervous system and your arm muscles. It was something to the effect that there are nerves that detect vibrations, and these can react to physical stimulus, even if no physical vibration is present. Maybe the speaker was off when saying that there isn't a real vibration present when this process happens if a feedback loop between the nerves and muscles causes the muscle to vibrate.

    Sometimes observers miss everything going on. I saw a cellar spider and a small cobweb spider trying to court. I tried to look this up online and all I saw was mention that a spider might try to mimic an insect to trick another spider. Yet it was very apparent the small cobweb spider began courting the cellar spider when the latter entered the web, and the cellar spider then courted also. The courtship became mutual, and probably the cobweb spider was female. The cellar spider was male, noticeable because they have slender bodies here (female cellar spiders have shorter, more round bodies here).

    I was wondering if that ball lightning did any damage to electronic devices. Once a lightning strike happened here, but it wasn't ball lightning, but rather it was an out-of-the-blue strike that fried a lot of my stuff.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2014
  11. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    11,888
    I respect your level headedness, but I remain skeptical because I don't see how it could form or persist and as you say it can't be reproduced. There have been so many reports of ball lightning, Saint Elmos fire and such that I would not be shocked (ha ha) at all that one day I may be forced to change my mind on this.
     
  12. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    Yes it was a slow movement in my experience too it traveled about 16 feet in about 20-30 seconds.
     
  13. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    there was no damage in our home, except the loss of electricity but we lived in an apartment complex and other occupants had damaged electronics. Our tv still worked after the event, surprisingly….. I hated it too because my grandmother never trusted that tv again but we were to "poor" to buy a new one. Also, that was the day that my grandmother enforced the don't sit in front of the tv rule (which I hated) not because it will "damage" your vision but because maybe a ball of concertrated electricity will shoot out of it and vaporize me. hahah my younger brother also hated and blamed me for the rule too, he didn't understand the whole fuss over it. haha
     
  14. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, grandmas are the best.

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  15. elte Valued Senior Member

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    Fer sure, if there was damage to electronics, especially in other apartments (and not yours), that points to the notion that it was lightning and not the TV that was to blame.
     
  16. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Humans give off radiation. Humans give off mostly infrared radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation with a frequency lower than visible light. This effect is not unique to humans. All objects with a non-zero temperature give off thermal radiation. And because a temperature of exactly absolute zero is physically impossible, all objects give off thermal radiation. We have to be careful here. Thermal radiation is not the exact same thing as infrared radiation.

    “Thermal radiation” is all the electromagnetic waves given off by an object because of its temperature, and includes radio waves, infrared waves, and even visible light. Infrared waves are only one part of thermal radiation. The two tend to get confused because most of the thermal radiation is infrared radiation for temperatures that are comfortable to humans. As an object gets hotter, the peak of its thermal radiation shifts to higher frequencies. The sun is hot enough that most of its thermal radiation is emitted as visible light and near infrared waves.


    Thermal radiation only transports heat and indicates the temperature of its source. Different people at different times give off different amounts of radiation. But these differences just indicate who is hotter, and not who is fatter, taller, sadder, or more saintly. Thermal images of a person captured using an infrared camera just indicate the temperature of the person’s skin, and cannot be used to diagnose diseases happening below the skin. Clothes tend to block infrared radiation, so a man with his shirt off emits more radiation than when it is on. Anybody who has tinkered with an infrared camera can attest to this fact.

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    So when you both are touching each other there could be a tingling due to the electromagnetic energy being given off by you both.
     
  17. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    Like I said early I called my grandmother to recall her memory of the questions I asked on here. When telling her what some had said about our vibrating touch we shared that day, She said she did not believe that vibrations that we shared were due to muscle spams or a twitch. she said that it had happened before, She said she use to rub my back as an infant and it would happen, she also said that it happened randomly through out my life. I had no knowledge of this, so I figured it was just a one time thing. Thank you so much for your detailed explanation, I just wrote a paper on sunlight and I am familiar with the types of radiation you suggested it could be, so that helps me to understand what you are suggesting. I can't wait to tell my grandmother, because she believes in her heart that it was more of a electromagnetic energy rather than the twitch discussed earlier, as do I. So once again thank you!
     
  18. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    Also with it suggesting thermal radiation I have always been warmer than most people around me. My family always thought I was feverish growing up and even now my husband always tell me before we go to sleep how warm my skin is. Its always been a norm for me though…..hmmmmmm interesting, just as long as I do not start glowing and mutating, then I should be fine.

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    all in all, I don't know, It could be a million things to attribute to this happening, but if I do not ask then this two questions will drive me crazy for my entire existence haha
     
  19. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    It sounds like you want it to be something magical instead of a normal mundane thing. Believing in magical things is fun I guess, but I think the universe is pretty damn amazing as it is without pretending in magic and the supernatural. You can believe what you want.
     
  20. ultimushomo Registered Member

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    I agree, I once believed in magic as a child and it was an amazing feeling. Then I pursed my science degree and realized how small my mind was. I would have loved to find out that me and my 70 year old grandmother had some super natural power of skin vibration but unfortunately we don't. So I shall hang up my super hero costume…. …….for now…. and for the record I believe in science and humanity.
     

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