Displaying emotions

Sorry Wilma I watched the Last Leg and switched off! we obviously need to syncronise our transmitting times.

Jamilma that made me smile!

trisher I've been trying to send you a message for the last hour, so we'll ditch the theory!

I don't even think saying to someone in pain "I feel your pain." is that common here in the UK.

Doesn't anybody else have an open mind about this kind of thing? The human brain is incredibly complex and I believe we've yet to learn so much more about how it developed from an evolutionary aspect, as well as and how it works now.

I can definitely believe that identical twins can feel things about the other. Also, that feeling another person's pain might require a strong emotional connection.

I remember Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory dismissing any science because everything comes down to physics. The older I get, the more I believe him.

Thank you, Annie. I appreciate that because, regardless of what some people seem to think, that's usually what I'm aiming at even if I don't always make it.

The last time someone said "I feel your pain" to me was when I biffed my car on a wall after slipping on ice on a steep hill. I understood that to mean that the person understood the annoyance about the buggeration of damaging my car, the metaphorical pain. Actually the car in question, still dented, is still going strong. It recently told us its name is Slumdog so I don't think it minds a dent or two. Just as well really.

Anyway, that is what I was thinking of when I said that I think the expression is used, more often than not in my opinion, as a figure of speech to express sympathy. Perhaps it was my including the word 'just' that caused the problem. Semantics does matter, after all. In which case I hereby withdraw the word just and apologise for its inclusion. In the heat of the moment and all that....

I think all your posts have been without a scrap of offence Baggs and very balanced

Thank you, elegran, for saying so well what I also meant when I defended my post of 19:08:41.

To anyone else who cares to read:
I'm still at a loss to understand how my post beginning "Yes, I get seeing pain..." could be so misconstrued as to be taken to mean I didn't believe and was dismissing what Jen was saying in her comment about seeing her husband's pain. I think Yes usually denotes at least a degree of understanding and agreement, does it not?

Interesting post Elegran , thank you

Telepathy is another means of sharing feelings/experiences with another, or rather, a name given to this sharing, because I don't think it is known how this works with some people. As telepathy seems to happen more between people with a strong emotional link then receiving "input" of thought from someone very close could explain things like the couvade.

Add to that the other known phenomenon, that the sensation of physical pain can happen when the brain is primed to expect it, and I could believe that the combination of the two COULD produce a sharing of physical as well as emotional pain between two people who are very close.

But it still seems to me that people who say that they feel the pain of someone who is not close are using the words in a metaphorical way to mean that they understand that the other person is suffering and are distrssed at the thought, not that they literally feel the sensations of pain with them.

Expect a new Mum had killed her Jalima, a close friend had her first baby two weeks before the birth of my first baby, she said - it realy isn't as painful as some in anti natal claimed. After my baby's birth she breezed into the maternity ward and said - , bloody awful isn it

Is this different than a word evoking a certain smell - is that memory or not?
Or a certain word making one shudder for no reason whatsoever?
Does it involve memory or extreme empathy?

So true Baggs but I am well use to it. I was told sometime ago thst me believing in God was believing in the tooth fairy and not one who has condemned me on this thread didn't leap forward in my defence

"more wide-ranging than feeling the pain of another person". Just so, jal. I think the most commonly known off occurrences are to do with seeing numbers (or something) as colours: grapheme colour synesthesia. There may even have been a thread about it on GN before.

Perhaps if you said you find it hard to believe it would be acceptable to the diehard disbelievers of truthful statements, annie, but I suspect that once one has been categorised as a bad person by certain members of GN, then it doesn't matter what you say but it will be twisted into an insult deliberately intended to be hurtful or insulting to someone. It's how they roll, or so it seems.

anniebach I think we wanted to go back and tell her but we never saw her again!

After all, anyone who swore the world was flat would feel foolish now.
Wilma I met someone recently who is convinced and tried to convince me that the world is flat. I got the impression that she thinks the rest of us are foolish.

I think that identical twins may experience synesthesia, as for anyone else I would have to find out more about it from reading the results of scientific research.

Having been otherwise occupied today I have not read the links but I will.
It is an interesting subject which is more wide-ranging than feeling the pain of another person.

Be fair Jamila, perhaps she suffered IBS reminds me of being told - you soon forget the pain, nooooooooo

Splitting semantic hairs is not a get out of jail free card

Trisher, there is always PM's as stated just a few days ago, save a lot of brain work

This was a mean spirited thread from the start and it's continued in a downward spiral - how dare anyone tell dj they don't believe her re feeling her husband's pain? As usual, that says far far far more about the person who posted it than it about the person it is aimed at. I keep meaning to come off this thread but but it's difficult in the face of such behaviour.

I think labour pains is a good example WKf
Well, the midwife taking the pre-natal classes certainly did not feel our pain - she told us first-timers it would be like a 'tummy ache'.

Jen, no difference to you saying there is no God, I didn't take offence I accepted it was your belief, or rather disbelief

I said I believed you suffered, I cannot lie and say you felt your husbands pain because it was his, if I had toothache you could not feel my toothache it's my tooth

Wilma the sad thing is that the crossing the road reaction is apparently not uncommon.
It is very difficult, knowing the right thing to do or say if someone you are friendly with but who is not a close friend or relation is bereaved. Some people may welcome a sympathetic ear, others may not want to speak to anyone.

BTW, I don't think the common expression "I feel your pain" means that anyone saying it is a synesthete. It's just a figure of speech to express sympathy.

This comment above was not doubting all claims of "I feel your pain", just some. I said it doesn't mean anyone, that is, all the people saying it, are synesthetes. Nor is it saying that it's always false.

And it wasn't addressed or pointed at anyone. It was and is just a general statement of what I believe to be true.

I also believe what Jen said about feeling her husband's pain. I thought I had expressed my understanding of that in my post that followed it, about my dad's death.

Of course she can say "I don't believe" what she can't say is "It isn't true" or "It isn't possible" or "This person is lying."
Wilma Spooky!!! Maybe we should start a thread about telepathy and thought transference and send each other messages to post!

I told you nothing of the kind, Jen.