Mobile Phone (Vibrating thigh Syndrome)

Being a Traditional Chinese Medicine (you know, acupuncture for the laymen) specialist and practioner, this could very well be the quite strong energy of the phone messing up some energy channel (TCM contends that our body is covered in a network of energy channels, through which Qi, lets call it bioelectricity, circulates). This kind of feeling is quite normal while taking acupuncture, together with stuff like feeling numbness, weight, sensations of temperature etc. Sometimes even electric shocks are experienced. I have to start asking my patients about this, shame I never had anyone complain of something similar!

On a related note, ever since I started practicing Qi Gong (a sort of energy manipulation exercise), each time I so much as hold an active phone, I feel all sorts of weird sensations, very unpleasant as well. When I REALLY REALLY have to use a mobile phone and hold it near my head, It gets really bad, you can feel a nasty "static" effect, as well as tingling of the skin. TOOL OF THE DEVIL!

I used to get it constantly at work when my phone was in my pocket. It was as if I was getting a text message every 5 minutes! I thought it was just me, glad (and sort of concerned) that it isn't just me.

I think it's because when you have a phone in a dangly pocket, you tend to concentrate for that familiar vibration just in case... you could've leaned forward and the phone tilted in the pocket slack away from your skin... it's psychological.. i get it all the time like when i'm cooking.

Count another YES for the Phantom Tingle!! Upper thigh - identical to the mobile vibration...

However i can beat just the tingle.

Over the last month or two only i started to hear Phantom Ringtones!!

Seriously, its driving me nuts. I think i hear my phone ringing but it isnt. I can TOTALLY hear the ring tone for 1 or 2 rings then it stops.

Happens mostly when listening to music or other times one noise is dominating my field of sound.

Anyone else getting the phantom vibrating AND ringing??

That's pretty crazy! I was just telling a friend about this tonight. Happens to me often.

*What the rest of you said!*

Scary!

I actually read a research article about this very thing about a year ago. I'll try to find a link.

Basically it said that the muscle where you keep your phone (wherever that may be. Thigh. Shirt/pecks. But. Etc) becomes conditioned over time to expect that particular stimulous and when it goes too long without receiving the expected stimulous, the muscle will actually spasm to simulate it.

It's one of those very interesting body experiment Pavlog's dog type reactions.

Please excuse misspelling, grammer an odd words that seem out of place. Typing on a phone that thinks it knows better than me what I want to type.

EDITED: spelling

[edit on 30-9-2009 by sinesolis]

[edit on 30-9-2009 by sinesolis]

I have been carrying 2 phones on me for years one on each leg lol, i have only had this happen to me while my phone is in my pocket, sometimes i think i feel one vibrate, but if my phone is not in my pockets i have never had this feeling.

Yes..but I think its psychological because it always happens when my phone is in my pocket. I think it is vibrating but alas it is not. I don't think it ever happens to my leg when it's not in my pants. Perhaps when it is sitting around next to me I may think it is, but it is not. All psychological IMHO.

Originally posted by Rock Ape
Mobile Phone (Vibrating thigh Syndrome)

I don't know about any of you people out in ATS land, but I've talked to friends of mine about this and they have experienced the same as me.

1) Have you ever experienced a vibrating in your upper thigh, near where your mobile phone sits in your pocket. When your phone is not on your person ??

2) If yes can you ever recall, getting a vibration in your thigh, before you had your first Mobile Phone that vibrated ?


I look forward to any responses

Peace

Wow- that just happened to me not twenty minutes ago, it's happened in the past, just figured I was loosing my mind.

happens to me all the time.
i always think i'm getting a call when im not.
happens to me at least once a day.

I am rolling on the floor!!! Great thread. I usually carry my blackberry in my shirt pocket. So, I got the phantom phone sensations just left of my sternum. Being in the medical field I started worrying I could be having some syncope, and actually went to the doctor, and had an EKG done!

Come to find out it is actually a common place thing. It has to do with the brains filtering mechanism for tactile stimuli. Like when you sit in a chair in one position for a long time the sensation of your butt in the chair becomes extinct. I.E. you only really feel it if you think about it or focus on it. The brain decides after so long that a certain input is no longer important, and ignores it. The phantom phone sensation is this mechanism working in reverse. Your brain is imagining a technically rare important signal when it isn't there. Sub consciously you are expecting a phone call so you are hypersensitive to the stimulus that tells you, you are getting one, and the brain can fabricate the sensation of receiving the stimulus. Weird, funny, and kinda cool.

I get this too!

I call them phantom vibrations.

Sometimes it happens even when I don't have my phone on me.

abcnews.go.com...

'Phantom' Cell Phone Sensations: Mind Over Matter
Over Time, Brain Interprets BlackBerry and Cell Phone Signals Like Body Parts
By CARLA WILLIAMS
ABC News Medical Unit

Oct. 17, 2007 -

Phantom arms, legs and now cell phone vibrations -- you can feel them, you can sense them, but they aren't really there.

Chalked up largely to a natural anomaly in the wiring of the brain, such experiences blur the boundaries between reality and imagination in those who experience them.

It is hard, for example, to understand how patients who have had an arm or leg amputated can experience acute pain in a limb that is no longer there. But for these people, the pain is uncomfortably real.

"In the past, it was thought that people with phantom limbs were crazy, but today we know that people aren't crazy," says Dr. Jack Tsao, an assistant professor of neurology at the Uniform Services University in Maryland. "There is a physiological basis to this sensation."

And phantom sensations don't just affect amputees. Though it is a complaint of an entirely different magnitude, many cell phone and BlackBerry users report feeling vibrations when their phones are, in fact, silent.

Although such sensations are nothing like pain from a phantom limb, doctors say the two phenomena may be somewhat related.

"If you use your cell phone a lot, it becomes part of you," says Dr. William Barr, the chief of neuropsychology at the New York University School of Medicine. "You become habituated to it.

"It's like wearing a tight sock all day," he explains. "When you take it off, you still feel it there on your foot. If your cell phone is not there, you still feel like it is."

It's in Your Mind

Although the reasons for these false perceptions are not definitely known, researchers agree that, in both cases, a certain part of the brain plays a key role.

For amputees who experience phantom limbs, the part of the brain affected is called the somatosensory cortex. This region contains nerves that process information related to touch.

For example, if someone touches your hand, nerves in a particular area of the somatosensory cortex are activated, allowing you to feel that your hand is being touched. All of your body parts are mapped out to a certain area of the cortex.

Jon Kaas, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, explains that after losing a limb, the neurons that control the movement and the sensation of that limb are still present in the brain.

"After losing a limb, the brain is reorganized," he says. "When neurons are deprived of their normal source of stimulus, they send out new connections and start to respond to new signals."

Kaas goes on to explain how patients with an amputated arm can still feel a sensation in their arm when they are touched on the face. The reason for this is that the nerves that originally controlled the hand have formed new connections so that they now respond to a touch on the face.

"There is an orderly organization of the body in the cortex of the brain," Kaas says. "If you lose input from your hand, the section of neurons that control the hand are initially inactive, but then recover and start to respond to other connections.

"These brain parts still have the capacity to signal to the limb even though the limb is not present, which gives the sensation of a phantom limb."

Like the phantom limb phenomenon, mysterious cell phone vibrations can also be explained by changing nerve connections in the brain.

"Cell phones enter into the neuromatrix of the body -- they become appendages," says Barr.

So when you leave your cell phone at home, the brain interprets it as it would a phantom limb -- it's not present, but you feel as though it is.

"It's an interesting technological statement about society that our machines are becoming part of us," says Barr.

Press the Button, Get the Message

Kaas says another principle, known as operant conditioning, may also be at play in phantom phone vibrations.

In studies of operant conditioning, researchers have found that rats that are rewarded after pressing a lever will learn to press the lever more frequently. The pressing becomes habitual.

In the case of cell phones, people are rewarded when they pick up their calls and read their incoming text messages, which causes them to pick up their cell phones more and more frequently.

"People are rewarded when they are able to detect low amplitude vibrations so they get better and better at responding," says Kaas. "It is very rewarding to get the message, so people are able to train their system to detect that signal."

As people repeat this behavior over and over again, connections between nerves in their brain become stronger and new ones are formed, which helps to make the behavior automatic.

And sometimes, as is the case with vibrating cell phones, the behavior becomes too automatic.

"People have gotten so good at detecting vibrations that they start responding to false positives -- they think something is there when it is not," says Kaas.

Tsao agrees. "Most people keep BlackBerrys on their hips or in a shirt pocket, and so the body is used to picking up sensations in this area," he says. "Even when the BlackBerry isn't present, the body gives the signal that something is going off."

Kicking the 'CrackBerry' Addiction

And just as the brain changes to create phantom sensations, it can also change back to get rid of them. Over time, the phantom limb syndrome goes away as other parts of the brain take over the part that controls the limb.

"Sometimes other parts of the brain will move into the real estate occupied by the amputated limb," says Barr. "Over time, other parts of the brain start to encroach on the part of the brain that represents the phantom limb."

Similarly, experts say that those haunted with BlackBerry vibrations should simply stop using them.

"The problem will stop if people stop carrying BlackBerrys," says Kaas. "It's not a permanent condition. If people stop carrying their BlackBerrys, the connections between neurons will degrade, and people will be able to retain their neurons to do other things."

However, while phantom sensations arise from similar brain functions, phantom limbs and phantom phone vibrations are in no way similar in how they affect the lives of those experiencing these sensations. Losing a limb and losing a cell phone are not at all comparable, and many experts emphasize that the pain experienced by some amputee victims can be seriously disabling.

Well... do alot of you keep your phones in your pockets? Alot of times when i do experience this feeling its just because I think i feel vibrating and i clap my hand on my thigh and no phone is there. I just think its because im so used to having it in my pocket that I automatically go for my pocket.

reply to post by Rock Ape


I never get this... although I never have my phone on vibe either.

At the same time, I do "hear" my phone sometimes when it's not ringing... and other times I will "hear" it right before it actually rings...

I think it's mostly just "echos"

Yup! Funny.

I've had vibrating thigh syndrome, and only after owning my first cell phone that vibrated.

I don't keep my phone on vibrate, i use a ring but it seems i have the same deal, every now and then or somewhat often i keep thinkin i hear it ring and find myself checking it. weird... maybe because it's something like repetition and tone your ear is listening for or your leg is feeling for? lol just my 2 cents.

I've thought this same thing for years. But I get it both in my left pectoral (keep my phone in my scrub pocket while at work.) and in my right thigh (keep my phone in my pants pocket when not working. But mine works a little weird. If my phone is in my pants ill get the phantom vibe in my chest and vice versa.