Why a ticklish dream could hold the key to psychosis and schizophrenia

In the land of nod we all go a bit psychotic, suggests Dr Raj Persaud



Why can't we tickle ourselves? It may seem a trivial question but neuroscientists now believe the answer could provide a clue to the underlying mechanism behind such disorders as schizophrenia.

This insight follows the recent discovery by Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore at University College London that people with schizophrenia are less able to distinguish between self-produced touch and a touch produced by someone else, suggesting they may be more capable of tickling themselves.

Now, working with a Dr Mark Blagrove of the Department of Psychology, University of Wales, Swansea, and colleagues, she is about to publish a study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition that also shows that you can tickle yourself under some circumstances; basically when you have just been aroused from dreaming sleep.

The experiment involved waking people up and tickling them. With the help of brainwave-detecting apparatus, some were woken up just after dreaming and others when they weren't dreaming.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2005/11/15/ecfraj15.xml&sSheet=/connected/2005/11/15/ixconn.html

Kudos to whoever thought up this kind of experiment. Definitely shedding some valuable light on the workings of the brain, and could end up helping a whole lot of people.

I'd love to see the grant proposal for this work.

I can tickle myself and remember being able to since childhood. I am not quite as ticklish when I tickle myself though. I am highly sensitive to being tickled. I am ticklish almost everywhere. One could torture me by tickling me.

veerrrry interesting