[embodiment] briefly, on interoception

[kaberett]

... i.e. "the sense of the internal state of the body": in conversation the other day, cardiac interoception -- awareness of heartbeat and pulse -- came up.

I have intermittently been quietly perplexed at people expressing dismay at Feeling Their Pulse Somewhere Unusual in ways that were intrusive/distracting/whatever -- I can feel my pulse basically anywhere in my body by pausing and paying attention to it for a few seconds. I use counting my heart beats as part of putting myself to sleep.

(I've been having... a certain amount of fun with this, today/this week, because this amitriptyline dose increase is being pretty rough -- five days in and my heart rate is jumping by >25 bpm when I stand from sitting, we established today, with a max observed rate of 115 and pretty significant variations in blood pressure as well. But, hey, it's kind of nice to be feeling quantifiably shitty! And also eating a bunch of salt and continuing to work on hydration has Helped.)

But! Apparently the word for this is "interoception"! Apparently there's a whole bunch of research on, specifically, cardiac interoception! Apparently I am in fact atypically aware of my body under normal circumstances, in ways that are probably directly related to my ability to describe physical symptoms in a level of detail that often mildly discombobulates medical professionals! And now if I want to do more reading about the ways in which my bodily awareness is Weird, I can, much more easily!

Gosh but the experience of being human is multifaceted and various and deeply strange.

Comments

[tei]

Ooh, this is so interesting! I’d never heard of this before.

[vass]

It really is.

I'm more familiar with the opposite autistic trait of being less aware of my body's internal state, but it can go either way (both for me personally and in general.)

I can feel my pulse basically anywhere in my body by pausing and paying attention to it for a few seconds.

Wanna be more baffled? There are areas of my body that I can't feel at all just by paying attention to. Not just not pulse, but no skin awareness, no muscle awareness. I have to actually touch them or move them or in some other way send them a ping before I can get data from them.

afaict there's nothing wrong with the nerves in those regions, my bodymind is just not accustomed to listening on that port and has to start up the daemon again.

[indywind]

Same! I have an idiosyncratic collection of places I have automatic interroception which is occasionally intrusively non-ignorable, and places/sensations where I have none and can't notice anything unless I prompt for it, and sometimes not even then.

Also a lot of body sensations are, like, not properly labeled for me: I can notice something but have to do a greater or lesser amount of deduction to figure out what.

[kaberett]

BODIES ARE SO WEIRD.

(hi I'm closing tabs <3)

[vass]

THEY REALLY ARE

(hi I'm sorting emails <3)

[azurelunatic]

When I'm feeling the motion of my pulse, some areas are much "louder" than others, and they can overshadow nearby areas that are quieter.

[lunabee34]

This is really interesting!

I do not like it when I notice my internal bodily processes like my heartbeat or pulse or whatever.

My husband has a really strong heartbeat and his pulse can be felt everywhere just by touching him and that has curtailed our snuggling over the years because I hate feeling his pulse jump on the side of my face. *is bad snuggler* LOL

[kaberett]

Oh noooooo, much sympathy.

(Working on closing tabs!)

[lunabee34]

:)

[oracne]

I am currently re-reading a lot of Vonda McIntyre and she has people using biofeedback techniques in a lot of her work.

[kaberett]

Oh that is cool! (Hi I'm closing tabs.)

[sfred]

Interesting! I don't think I have that.

[kaberett]

Datapoint very much appreciated! (Hello I am closing some tabs that have been open for far too long...)

[shanaqui]

My interoception is shockingly bad (I don't know when I'm thirsty; I barely know when I'm hungry until abruptly I'm sick and shaky) and I don't know why. Particularly with the not being thirsty, I really damage myself this way. And mostly what I get when I try to talk to medical people about it is "that's not possible, everyone knows when they're thirsty" (while in the same breath telling me that I really have to try to remember to drink more).

So, um, if you find anything about thirst specifically, I would be interested.

[shanaqui]

ALSO my dad is like you, except because he spent ~6 months hooked up to a heart monitor in a hospital, he learnt to control his heartbeat because he could see and feel the feedback very clearly. When my mother was studying for her medical degree, he could actually imitate some heart arrhythmias for her to practice listening to them, because he has that much control. (The family joke[? it's funny to us anyway] is that she stopped short of asking him to do a heart attack because he probably would but you generally don't get to practice that first from that side of the equation.)

He is an idiot, but he is also an idiot who can deliberately raise the temperature of just one arm so I can warm my hands on it (since I have Raynaud's disease). So you know, you could have superpowers.

[indywind]

shanaqui, maybe the reverse of the way I deduce the cause or label for physical sensations could help you train yourself to start recognizing thirst?

I notice sensations, but I don't automatically recognize what they mean, I often have to deduce, for instance, "why does belly feel this particular kind of funny this time?" among different options like hungry, anxious, ate something a bit difficult to digest like spicy or fatty, ate something dodgy and got a bit of food poisoning/ microbial gastroenteritis, motion sickness, could be a migraine coming on, not 'hungry' per se but just finished digesting a large/heavy meal and my system is re-acclimating to not feeling oversatiated, irritable bowel flareup, communicable illness symptom, something else I can't think of...
I have to distinguish between possibilities by what other sensations or information I have, and what happens when I try various tests/treatments/home remedies.

Maybe you could do the reverse of that by identifying a time when you're definitely thirsty (though you didn't notice it; use assistance if needed, such as medical monitoring or a friend/partner observing/prompting, or a timer since the last time you ingested liquid), and mapping the sensations that attend that state until they get familiar, then picking some ones that are relatively easy to notice and training yourself to check for them specifically at regular intervals?

This is more or less what my partner has done to learn to notice being hungry-- except she has a hard time distinguishing hungry from anxiety on basis of sensation alone (there is a lot of symptom overlap for her), so she'll treat either one with either food or calming techniques depending on what's more accessible in that situation, and if that doesn't help, then it's figured out by process of elimination and she can address the other at the next opportunity.

Anyway I hope you get a handle on it one way or the other. I'm sympathy-cheering for you from across the internet.

[kaberett]

I have utterly failed to actually go digging, I'm afraid, but offer you lots of sympathy and much gratitude for the data point! (Hiiiii I am closing tabs.)

[macey]

I wonder if this is in part an autism thing? I can definitely choose to feel my pulse in my chest, throat, or wrists easily at any time, and with a bit more effort in other places if there's something it's pressed against - but then, I can also dilate my pupils at will (again with effort), so who knows! bodily variation sure is wide.

[kaberett]

If so, it's a "there are two kinds of autistic" thing (which wouldn't actually be surprising) - A has to find a pulse point and feel with his fingers to find out what his heart's doing!