Why Can You Not Tickle Yourself?

By Piecesofmyrandomness @NannaPaskesen

I’ve been spending a good part of the day on a personal project that truly baffles me. My boyfriend and I were playing another self-invention of a game the other night. The rules are that player one has to smack their hands on the wall, and guess the name of the film player two is singing the soundtrack to, while being tickled. And under no circumstances connect his/her hands to anything but the wall, until the guess is approved. I personally put tickling in the this-hurts-like-Darth-Vader-hurts-peoples-feelings category. In this category you can also find the bumping-your-toe-into-a-tableleg pain. The thing they have in common is the high peak of annoyance level they take you to. Kind of like when I did the cinnamon challenge without knowing how it devilishly brewed an increasing dry Sahara in my mouth. I was ten, and well annoyed. The thing with tickles though, is, that seem to diffuse giggles all over your annoyance, which tricks you both mentally and physically, similar to the event of a unicorn breaching reality poking your with its giant poking device of a horn. I would giggle a bit however, I’m thinking it would be annoying too, and because of its mythical status, I would be quite confused. However, I managed to bring myself to an even more impressive state of confusion, when I then today re-gained one of my observations as a child. You cannot tickle yourself! And this is what I based my personal project on today. Even if I really scrubbed my fingers with a chinesemassa(cre)ge power against my ribs, it doesn’t do the trick. I wonder if I used someone elses hand to tickle me – but with my hand and movements, would I then be able to create the tickling sensation? I just don’t get it.