In short
Radiolab explores goosebumps—“holy shiver” / frisson / aesthetic chills—why they happen, what they might mean, and whether they can be scientifically induced and used therapeutically.
Guests and backgrounds
Carmen Maria Machado, prize-winning writer who noticed unusual “leopard spot” goosebumps in her partner Lauren Brown and researched the phenomenon for her novel. Maria Paz Gutierrez, Radiolab reporter. Bonnie Tsui, science writer and author of On Muscle, focused on the erector pili muscle. Nico Regensi and Felix Scholler, neuroscientists/researchers at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies studying aesthetic chills.
Key claims
Erector pili muscles contract via an ancient survival reflex; humans repurpose it for emotion/awe. Aesthetic chills may occur when experiences challenge deeply held beliefs (“limits of cognition”). Chills can be induced in labs using tailored stimuli; EEG patterns resemble psychedelic states. Chills may help depression by “schema surgery,” improving anhedonia/reward sensitivity.
Notable examples
Alyssa Liu’s Olympic figure skating; Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”; Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (Rufus Wainwright); Thai commercials about kindness; whales breaching; Grand Canyon/ocean/cliff awe triggers.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOCarmen Maria Machado's Ghost Story
1:29 to 2:26
Carmen shares a ghost story connected to her experiences with her partner.
“I'm going to kick off today with a little ghost story for you.”
The Mystery of Goosebumps
2:26 to 4:38
Exploration of the unusual pattern of goosebumps observed in Lauren.
“I have spent hours of my life being pleasantly spooked by her.”
The Concept of the Holy Shiver
4:38 to 5:32
Carmen explains the term 'holy shiver' and its implications in human experience.
“It's a term that's been used by scientists to describe the kind of goosebumps a prey animal gets when it realizes it's being watched by a predator, but also that the predator gets just before it goes in for the kill.”
Exploring the Science of Goosebumps
5:32 to 6:30
Discussion about the physiological reaction of goosebumps and its relevance in human emotions.
“So today on Radiolab, we right this wrong and bring you an episode all about...”
Exploring the Science of Goosebumps
14:00 to 14:31
Discussion about the physiological reaction of goosebumps and its relevance in human emotions.
“Radiolab is supported by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.”
Exploring Aesthetic Chills
15:25 to 22:04
Investigate the phenomenon of aesthetic chills and their triggers.
“But then, lucky for us, He's rolling, okay.”
Chills as a Tool for Understanding
22:04 to 28:00
Learn how chills can help in understanding human cognition and treatment for depression.
“Rufus Wainwright, with a large collection of people.”
Exploring Anhedonia and Chills
28:00 to 30:08
Learn how anhedonia affects motivation and the potential impact of chills on treatment-resistant depression.
“People with anhedonia, they're indifferent.”
Personal Experiences with Chills
30:08 to 36:29
Discover personal anecdotes about experiencing chills and their emotional significance.
“You watch a couple videos a week of whales breaching and choruses singing.”
Understanding Goosebumps
36:29 to 40:00
Examine the physiological response of goosebumps and their connections to personal experiences and emotions.
“There's a little, a bunch of little muscles underneath our skin.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Lauren Brown:WNYC Studios is supported by Alienware. Alienware's back-to-school event is the perfect time to score top gaming gear with incredible features and advanced engineering to go beyond performance. Start your Alienware journey with the Alienware 15 gaming laptop featuring Intel Core processors. Game, live stream, and multitask for hours on end. Pair your incredibly smooth gaming experience with immersive visuals and sound by saving on sleek Alienware monitors, headsets, and more. This limited time sale awaits you now at Alienware.com slash deals.
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1:12Maria Paz Gutierrez:Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab.
1:23Carmen Maria Machado:From WNYC. See? Yeah.
1:29Maria Paz Gutierrez:Hey, it's Lulu. I'm going to kick off today with a little ghost story for you. So there's this woman, and she's going through weight loss surgery. And when she gets home, she starts hearing these gurgles and creaks and realizes she is being stalked by the former bits of herself. Her flesh that she has cut away. Or there is a house that is maze-like and haunted by quiet cruelties that occur between you and your partner and it feels like there is no way out. These are some of the stories of the prize-winning writer Carmen Maria Machado. Some of them are true. Some of them are fiction. All of them are charged with this sense of spookiness.
2:26Maria Paz Gutierrez:I have spent hours of my life being pleasantly spooked by her. And so I was totally delighted when she wrote into our show wondering about something that had happened with her partner of four years, Lauren Brown. You're rolling? Yes. That spooked her. Should I say? You can say. Um, the first time Lauren and I hooked up with each other, I noticed goosebumps on her body right before she, like, had an orgasm. But the pattern was really unusual. Like, it wasn't just universal goosebumps. It was these kind of, like, leopard spot goosebumps. Sometimes I'll, like, touch Lauren on the arm and, like, she'll get goosebumps, like, where I've touched her.
3:12Maria Paz Gutierrez:So it's like you leave a trace? Radio Lab reporter Maria Paz Gutierrez. Yeah. Wow. And editor Soren Wheeler, who sat in with Carmen and Lauren to hear the tale. Sometimes you have what you call them crispy ones, which is like they're really, really, really pointy. Extra crispy is like, I say that you could like grate Parmesan or like zest a lemon on me. Like they just are like so intense and feel really like sharp. Right. So like as soon as we started seeing each other, I think I was just like really paying attention. Like I was just like, I've never seen this and this has never happened to me.
3:43Maria Paz Gutierrez:Like, I mean, you have goosebumps, like, all day, like, in some form or another. Yeah, I'm pretty consistently getting them. And what stuck out to Carmen wasn't just how often Lauren was getting goosebumps, but it seemed like they would prickle up in response to almost contradictory things. You know, watching a sports highlight and music. But then also, like, sometimes it's, like, moments that are, like, sad or, like, it doesn't actually, like, the same emotion every time. Yeah. And so it was just sort of in my head. And then I was like even more closely watching Lauren and being like, what is this?
4:14Maria Paz Gutierrez:Sometimes I think about it and I'm like, if I was a different kind of person, I would be like, I'm haunted. So Carmen started researching Goosebumps and writing about them. She's now years deep into a novel with a title that comes from an old fashioned word for them. the holy shiver. The holy shiver? I like that. Yeah. It's a term that's been used by scientists to describe the kind of goosebumps a prey animal gets when it realizes it's being watched by a predator, but also that the predator gets just before it goes in for the kill. Like, it's arousal that, like, connects things like sex and fear and pleasure and excitement.
5:09Maria Paz Gutierrez:And so thinking about that, like it was just sort of in my head. And then I was like, what is actually happening in your brain that's moving from like, for whatever the reason is, like it's moving from this like sort of some kind of neurological impulse into your body and why? And then I was like, surely Radiolab has done an episode on Goosebumps that feels like a very Radiolab thing to do. But it turns out we have not. And so, yeah, so here we are. So today on Radiolab, we right this wrong and bring you an episode all about...
5:45Carmen Maria Machado:Chardepul or frisson in Spanish, calofrio. Goosebumps.
5:49Maria Paz Gutierrez:Sometimes they're called a skin orgasm. I've heard someone say god bumps. We head out on a journey to find out why do we get them in these more mysterious situations? And what, if anything, are they trying to tell us? We're not necessarily aware, but actually they're kind of magical. Some answers, some chills, and some honestly incredibly sci-fi sounding scientific experimentation come in your way. Pause, Sorin. Take us away.
6:26Lauren Brown:Uh, okay. Okay.
6:28Maria Paz Gutierrez:Reporting journey. Journey. Off on a journey. Right, right, right.
6:31Lauren Brown:Hi. Hi. So our first stop, thank you so much for being here with us.
6:35Maria Paz Gutierrez:I'm so excited.
6:38Lauren Brown:Was science writer Bonnie Tsui.
6:40Maria Paz Gutierrez:Bonnie Tsui. I'm a journalist. I have written a lot about activity, like movement, like your body moving, what that actually does to your brain.
6:49Lauren Brown:We called Bonnie up because she actually wrote this book. It's called On Muscle. And it's sort of like this journey through all the muscles of your body.
6:59Maria Paz Gutierrez:Your biceps. Your butt. your heart and blood vessels and your gut.
7:05Lauren Brown:And she told us that after writing this book, she became obsessed with this one particular muscle. Erector pili.
7:14Maria Paz Gutierrez:Yes. Erector pili. So erectus teres and pili hair.
7:21Lauren Brown:They're the muscle that give us our goosebumps. That was not what I would have expected. Like you spend all this time writing a book about muscles. Yeah, there's so many muscles out there. I know.
7:34Maria Paz Gutierrez:I know. So many sexy muscles, so many very obvious muscles and big muscles. And I, of course, went for the smallest and the weirdest. And I... Why? I think the erector pili give us so much information, right, about how we're doing and feeling. And I love that. I love that it's muscle as existential state. Hmm. But backing up a little bit.
8:02Lauren Brown:Okay, so just to quickly explain the history of this muscle. Around 200 million years ago or so, mammals evolved from reptiles. In the process, they evolved hair or, you know, fur. And then around the same time, mammals evolved this little muscle fiber. Little tiny muscle. It's attached to the base of every hair follicle underneath the skin. That little muscle's default is to kind of just chill.
8:37Maria Paz Gutierrez:Yeah, exactly. You can kind of think about it being relaxed against your skin. Unless the brain is registering like something dangerous.
8:46Lauren Brown:That animal feels a threat. Let's say that animal's hit with like a sudden cold wind or... Predators. It catches a predator or a competitor right at the corner of its eye. In that moment, the brain triggers this automatic response. It would send this immediate unconscious signal to all the different hair follicles all across the body. And then, and then all those tiny muscles contract, you know, causing your hair to stand on end, giving you that goosebump appearance. Now, that could be a really useful thing because raised hair traps air next to the skin.
9:27Maria Paz Gutierrez:So there's like a layer of warm air that's insulating.
9:30Lauren Brown:Keeping animals just a little bit warmer. Or it was also just useful if they were about to get into a fight.
9:36Maria Paz Gutierrez:You know, if you have a cat, you see like when your cat gets agitated, like the hair goes up. Like, you know, I'm bigger. I'm, you know, I'm dangerous.
9:47Lauren Brown:But for us humans...
9:49Maria Paz Gutierrez:You know, this response is kind of vestigial because we don't have that much hair anymore.
9:54Lauren Brown:Not very useful.
9:55Maria Paz Gutierrez:Or most of us don't have that much hair anymore, so it's not really effective.
10:01Lauren Brown:And so we end up with little bumps on our mostly hairless skin. But the really weird thing is that... As we have evolved as a species... We humans started using this automatic survival reflex for things that seem to have nothing to do with our survival.
10:22Maria Paz Gutierrez:So music, right, a swelling music or like a really emotional scene in a movie or like big places like the ocean or the Grand Canyon or the edge of a cliff. Right. And for us as humans, again, it's like less about the cold and less about the fear and more about the way we experience the world. But I mean, I'm still working in my head to connect these different categories of things like like or the are the are the goosebumps that used to just make hair stand up for thermal reasons and the goosebumps that used to make hair stand up for physical appearance reasons now suddenly standing up.
11:03Carmen Maria Machado:For some or is there one reason behind it all?
11:06Maria Paz Gutierrez:I think, I mean, I hear what you're saying, right? How is this hair standing up for cold and fear now giving us this emotional component? But I think that to me, it is intelligence. It is like body intelligence that I'm like paying attention. I think it's about my body and my mind kind of coming together to try to figure out like what it is that I am feeling in that moment. What is it? I don't know what it is, but I'm paying attention.
11:36Lauren Brown:Which, you know, it sort of made sense to us, like that the body is trying to tell us to pay attention. But it just left us with this question, like, what exactly is the body trying to tell us to pay attention to? We'll get to that right after this short break.
12:01Maria Paz Gutierrez:Radiolab is supported by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. This episode is supported by BetterHelp. Hey there, Lulu here. So apparently every year, BetterHelp does a survey called the State of the Stigma Report, where they survey over 2 ,000 Americans trying to figure out how people feel about seeking mental health support.
Read the full transcript
12:42Maria Paz Gutierrez:Good news first, 85 % of the people surveyed said that seeking mental health support is a good thing, which is significantly up from last year's result, which, okay, small study, but still fabulous, refreshing, take that stigma, boom. The only bummer is that 74 % of those same people said society discourages people from seeking the mental health support that they need. Why is that society? I say, let's all do what we can to de-stigmatize seeking professional help for mental health. I mean, I seek professional help for my teeth, for my hair. Why not get professional help for what's going on on the inside of the head?
13:19Maria Paz Gutierrez:You know, iron out some worries, get a little support. But seriously, if a friend or loved one comes to you seeming a more overwhelmed or blue or scared than usual, why not encourage them to seek help, praise them for doing it, and if they don't know where to begin, one thing you could do is suggest better help. A short questionnaire gets them matched with one of over 30 ,000 fully licensed therapists available at any time of day at the push of a button. And if they don't like the first one they try, remind them that they can switch therapists at any time, as many times as it takes to find the right fit, because mental health is important and none of us can do it on our own.
13:50Maria Paz Gutierrez:So for any of you listening to this who are curious about therapy but worried about judgment, I say don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash Radiolab. That's BetterHelp.com slash Radiolab. Radiolab is supported by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In a small, groundbreaking clinical trial, 100 % of participants with a specific type of rectal cancer saw their tumors disappear using immunotherapy alone. Researchers at MSK are now studying this approach in cancers of the stomach, liver, and more, and a majority of tumors are disappearing.
14:28Maria Paz Gutierrez:For MSK Giving Day, all gifts will be tripled. Learn more at msk.org slash Radiolab. Radiolab is supported by Bombas. Summer's here and it is time for all things outdoors, from hikes to runs in the park to just kicking up those feet on the grass. You can make the most out of your summer plans with Bombas supporting the base of your plans, of you, of your feet. Get it? I don't know. Anyway, they've got a whole line of pro-level, sports-specific socks for golf, yoga, the gym, and socks for every kind of runner. These socks are soft and cushioned right where you want it, plus they're airy, sweat-wicking, so your feet will feel as good at the end of your workout as they did at the start.
15:07Maria Paz Gutierrez:Head on over to bombas.com slash Radiolab and use code Radiolab for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash Radiolab. Code Radiolab at checkout.
15:24Maria Paz Gutierrez:Lulu, Radiolab goosebumps. We are back with reporter Maria Paz Gutierrez, who has gotten a little stuck trying to figure out what exactly is going on with these special kind of goosebumps that humans get that have nothing to do with being cold or afraid.
15:42Lauren Brown:But then, lucky for us,
15:44Maria Paz Gutierrez:He's rolling, okay. He's rolling.
15:45Lauren Brown:We ran into a couple scientists. Hello.
15:47Maria Paz Gutierrez:Hello, good morning. Hi.
15:49Lauren Brown:Who have been studying this very particular kind of goosebumps, which scientists call aesthetic chills.
15:58Carmen Maria Machado:You know, shivers of psychological origins. I've heard someone say God bumps.
16:04Maria Paz Gutierrez:God bumps? Yeah, God bumps.
16:08Lauren Brown:So anyway, these two guys.
16:10Maria Paz Gutierrez:I can go first. Yeah, hi.
16:12Lauren Brown:Are Nico.
16:13Maria Paz Gutierrez:I'm Nico Regensi. I'm currently the research director at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies.
16:17Carmen Maria Machado:Ooh, okay.
16:18Lauren Brown:And his partner in crime.
16:20Carmen Maria Machado:Hi, I'm Felix. I'm a senior research scientist at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies.
16:25Lauren Brown:Neuroscientist Felix Scholler. Yeah. So why Goosebumps?
16:29Carmen Maria Machado:So me, when I started my PhD...
16:31Lauren Brown:Felix says back when he was starting out in grad school...
16:34Carmen Maria Machado:I needed a problem to work on.
16:36Lauren Brown:He'd been told that when it comes to these aesthetic chills...
16:39Carmen Maria Machado:Nobody really knows what they are and why they occur. And I thought that would be a good problem to work on.
16:47Lauren Brown:So his first step was to try to figure out exactly what triggers these kinds of chills.
16:53Carmen Maria Machado:First, I started asking everybody what gives you chills and building sort of this database of chill stimuli.
16:59Lauren Brown:And he found things that a lot of us would expect.
17:02Carmen Maria Machado:Giant sport games in the stadium.
17:05Lauren Brown:People talk about being in the crowd when some impossible comeback happened. Totally.
17:12Carmen Maria Machado:Religion is a big thing.
17:14Lauren Brown:Personal religious revelations. Sudden acts of kindness from a stranger.
17:20Carmen Maria Machado:That always gives me chills.
17:21Lauren Brown:Yeah, totally.
17:22Carmen Maria Machado:Very meaningful conversations with people on topics that you care deeply about.
17:26Lauren Brown:Or even these particular moments where you're experiencing music or poetry.
17:30Carmen Maria Machado:Art in general, but also science. A lot of physicists report that they experience chills when they discover a concept that allows them to make sense of a wide range of experiences.
17:47Maria Paz Gutierrez:It's like the intellectual version of the holy shiver. Like someone coming upon the prey of their idea and then they're about to get it.
17:55Lauren Brown:Yeah, kind of. I mean, you know, after like years of doing this research, talking to a lot of people.
18:02Carmen Maria Machado:Reading a lot of books and documenting moments where.
18:04Lauren Brown:Felix says he landed on a theory.
18:07Carmen Maria Machado:It's when you sort of touch the limits of your knowledge. So I guess another way to think about chills is the limits of cognition.
18:14Maria Paz Gutierrez:Oh, I love that. Like the limits of cognition, like cannot compute. Wow.
18:22Lauren Brown:Yeah, but the key is, Felix says, is when the thing that you cannot compute is a deeply held belief. The basic idea is that we all walk around carrying these very broad generalizations about how the world works. Anything from what goes up must come down to the world is a dangerous place or humans are fundamentally good or money equals power. We rely on these beliefs to help us navigate the world. And Felix says that when we run across some experience or feeling that challenges one of those deeply held beliefs, that's when we get the chills.
19:11Maria Paz Gutierrez:Yeah. Oh. Yeah, so when I was exposed to some of Felix's work, it kind of clicked that it's like, oh, wow, chills may very well be what it feels like to update your meaning making process on such a large scale.
19:26Lauren Brown:Now, at the time, this was just an idea.
19:29Carmen Maria Machado:An idea in Nico's brain and I.
19:31Lauren Brown:So I started thinking, okay.
19:33Carmen Maria Machado:How do we operationalize that idea and try to get empirical data so that we can do science?
19:38Lauren Brown:So they decided what they needed to do was get people in a lab. so they could give them chills. Induce it. Mm-hmm. Induce it.
19:46Maria Paz Gutierrez:But doesn't it feel like that's uninducible? Like it's such a private spiritual thing.
19:51Lauren Brown:Not on the internet. What does that mean? So Felix created this algorithm
19:56Carmen Maria Machado:that can span through YouTube networks and look at millions of videos and analyze all of the comments.
20:03Maria Paz Gutierrez:Oh, I'm so sad right now. Okay, keep going.
20:06Lauren Brown:Specifically, they were looking for...
20:08Carmen Maria Machado:When people mention chills, shivers, goosebumps.
20:10Lauren Brown:So they gather up all these videos or these like very famous speeches from very famous people like Mr. Rogers, Carl Sagan's The Pale Blue Dot speech. Some of them are just straight up life coach inspirational talks and footage of whales breaching, stuff like that. And one that just completely I did not expect was.
20:34Carmen Maria Machado:Commercials from Thailand.
20:36Maria Paz Gutierrez:Wow. Wow. Yeah. Whatever their Madison Avenue crew is has the finger on the pulse of chill. Seems like it. OK, wait, I have seen one of these, I think. And it's about this guy who like helps all these strangers. And it totally worked. It totally gave me chills. It's a very good commercial.
20:53Lauren Brown:What that probably means is that you've been walking around with this belief that people suck and that they're not generous or kind. So that's that's great. I mean, it's a pretty direct hit on your worldview. But they also said that a lot of these videos were just like straight up music.
21:17Carmen Maria Machado:A lot of choral music.
21:20Lauren Brown:Especially these moments where...
21:26Carmen Maria Machado:The soprano singer suddenly takes over the entire orchestra.
21:34Maria Paz Gutierrez:There is something like out of reach, you know, beyond in that sound.
21:39Lauren Brown:Yeah. So they gather up all these videos from online and they actually brought people into their lab and had them watch these videos so they could like see like which ones make the skin actually prickle. And they actually told us there's like one video that was like the number one trigger.
22:03Carmen Maria Machado:Alleluia by Leonard Cohen, sung by...
22:07Maria Paz Gutierrez:Rufus Wainwright, with a large collection of people.
22:10Carmen Maria Machado:That is sort of singing along. Yeah.
22:15Carmen Maria Machado:You know, these stimulus, for example, will give chills to 75 people out of 100.
22:20Lauren Brown:Huh. Anyway, at the end of all this, Nico and Felix...
22:24Carmen Maria Machado:We were able to identify 300 stimuli that reliably induced chills in hundreds of people. Oh my God.
22:31Lauren Brown:So then they started showing people these videos in their lab.
22:35Carmen Maria Machado:3 ,000 participants in Southern California.
22:38Lauren Brown:With one extra little step in there.
22:41Carmen Maria Machado:Before we show them the stimulus, we ask them a range of questions, personality questions, demographics questions.
22:47Lauren Brown:What are they?
22:49Carmen Maria Machado:All right, so please rate the following in terms of how much you agree or disagree with each statement. It is important to take care of people who are vulnerable.
22:57Lauren Brown:In particular, they were asking questions that sort of like help them zero in on some of those deeply held beliefs we just talked about.
23:06Carmen Maria Machado:Some people think I'm selfish and egotistical. What types of schemas are you running around with? I often notice people who need help.
23:12Maria Paz Gutierrez:If you're seeing everybody as connected ones or as independent players and, you know, you need to get to the top.
23:17Carmen Maria Machado:I'm not as dependable or reliable as I should be.
23:19Lauren Brown:And based on how you answer these questions.
23:22Carmen Maria Machado:I find humor in almost everything.
23:24Lauren Brown:Nico and Felix can figure out what gives you chills.
23:30Maria Paz Gutierrez:Oh, interesting. So like you, oh, well, you answered yes to this. So the cross out the sports one, but ooh, that hallelujah chorus.
23:37Lauren Brown:Yeah.
23:37Maria Paz Gutierrez:So now they're making like the survey helps them create like a bespoke chills, induced chills. Playlist, yes.
23:44Carmen Maria Machado:And I can predict with 73.5 % accuracy, which of the stimulus is the best one for you to look at right now so that I can give you chills in my laboratory and study it under controlled conditions.
23:55Lauren Brown:And with their little bespoke chills machine, Nico and Felix have done a bunch of different studies. One of the coolest things for me was like, they actually hooked people up to this like EEG machine so they could watch their brains while they get the chills.
24:12Maria Paz Gutierrez:And the moments when you have chills are almost indistinguishable from a psychedelic experience.
24:19Lauren Brown:Wait, what? The way they described it, it's like the level of complexity and disorder in the brain signals look like someone who's tripping.
24:33Maria Paz Gutierrez:Okay, that, I mean, that really makes neurologically good on their limits of cognition thing. Like they are watching a brain just go haywire.
24:41Lauren Brown:Yeah. You know, maybe some other people would have been like, okay, we sort of figured this out. Job well done. but Felix and Nico were not done. Because one of the things that Nico and Felix had heard about was that it wasn't just like you understood something or something changed inside you and then you got the chills, but rather that the chills came first. Like the chills were this signal to the rest of your brain and body to notice something.
25:14Carmen Maria Machado:A lot of physicists actually talk about how chills was instrumental in helping them understand the importance of some of the work that they were doing.
25:23Maria Paz Gutierrez:So not so much I understand it and then get chills, but you seem to be saying that like, oh, the chills helped me know that I had understood something. Yeah, it's almost as though when you do get chills, it's this moment of calibration and orientation.
25:38Lauren Brown:So then they thought, well, if we can give people the chills, maybe we can use that to sort of hack the brain. Reverse engineer someone into this moment where they're ready to rethink the way they think about the world.
25:56Carmen Maria Machado:We have a funky term for this. We call it schema surgery.
26:00Maria Paz Gutierrez:Oh, that sounds like something out of a dystopian novel. Yeah, I mean, a lot of terrorist recruitment videos leverage chills as this way of like showing this recognition of shared humanity and martyrdom for it. So this like full ego dissolution, that is a really dark underbelly of some of this, right? Because it's so motivational. The behavioral activation that emerges after chills is really potent. But dystopian aspects aside, right?
26:30Lauren Brown:But fortunately for us, what Felix and Nico are trying to do is use chills.
26:34Carmen Maria Machado:As a novel form of treatment for major depressive disorder.
26:37Lauren Brown:To help people with depression. Because when, what? Because if you think about people who are depressed, like, they're usually stuck in their worldview. You know, they have these, what Nico called, or Felix called these maladaptive beliefs, right? Like, I'm alone in the world. Or I am bad. Yeah.
26:58Carmen Maria Machado:So negative self-beliefs, negative beliefs about others, and then negative beliefs about the world in general. Like the world is a dangerous place. You never know what's going to happen.
27:08Maria Paz Gutierrez:Totally. Just these like calcified certainties. Yeah.
27:11Carmen Maria Machado:And what we've been doing is trying to use the chill stimuli that we've identified to try and open up people's minds. Then gather evidence that will go against these dysfunctional beliefs. so that they basically expand the scope of their perception.
27:32Lauren Brown:This is early, early research, and they're trying to figure out a bunch of different things. But one of the studies that I thought was interesting focused on this one particular element of depression called anhedonia.
27:48Maria Paz Gutierrez:And anhedonia, right, anhedonic, they lack this ability to kind of feel pleasure, and that impacts their sensitivity to reward.
27:58Lauren Brown:So let's say you ask them,
27:59Maria Paz Gutierrez:Hey, I have$5 in this hand and$20 in this hand. Pick one, right? People with anhedonia, they're indifferent.
28:05Lauren Brown:They'd be like, I don't care. I really just don't care.
28:08Maria Paz Gutierrez:They'll choose the 5 and 20 with kind of equal likelihood.
28:11Lauren Brown:Huh. And this, they said, is one of the main characteristics of treatment-resistant depression.
28:18Carmen Maria Machado:For a simple reason, it's like these are patients that are no longer motivated to take the necessary actions to get back to the business of life.
28:27Lauren Brown:So Felix and Nico, they take these people one by one into a little room, sit them in front of a computer screen, have them take the survey. Yep. And then they're given their internet content to watch.
28:51Lauren Brown:they have some moment where their body's going and after this experience they put them through that reward task again now what do you think five dollars or twenty dollars
29:12Maria Paz Gutierrez:They behave as if they were normal controls.
29:16Lauren Brown:They're like, I want my$20. Give me my 20 bucks.
29:19Maria Paz Gutierrez:And, you know, a great majority of the participants that, you know, even just experienced one chill, but even more so if you experienced three chills. These people go on to then not even be able to qualify for the study in the first place. Right. So it's like a clinically significant amelioration of some of their symptoms.
29:48Maria Paz Gutierrez:Okay, can I let me unprickle my skin? Because I am feeling this. I am like, oh my God, like you get the chills and your certainty melts. And then you can jump through this window to change your life and get your depression in remission. But then I'm also like, come on, no. You watch a couple videos a week of whales breaching and choruses singing. And then you're like, you can feel better from things that like full on meds and CBT therapy or whatever won't help.
30:22Lauren Brown:I mean, yeah, it is early work. They're still doing these studies. But like in most cases with depression, I imagine it's probably the right combination of a bunch of different things. Although one of the things they do in one of these studies is like after people get the chills, like they ask them, what did you think about when you were experiencing the chills? They'll sort of ask them about their goals, like the things they want to do or achieve. And it does look like people after these chills, at least for a moment or a while or whatever, are sort of a little bit more motivated to just like get up or out or do something, just engage with the world.
31:12Lauren Brown:That to me feels like sort of part of the mix of things that keep you alive.
31:19Maria Paz Gutierrez:Something makes me think like that this kind of chills is your, you know, it's maybe just as important as conserving warmth or looking bigger. Like it's pointing you almost like a compass toward where you need to go, what you need to engage with. So in the midst of all of this, it turns out Nico and Felix's experiment where they give people chills.
31:44Lauren Brown:They actually have more recently turned this into like an app. Huh. I thought, I should go and try this. I want to see if you can actually give me chills. All right. And so what happened? So I came into the studio. All right. Here we are. Here we are, my friends. And I opened the website. First question about you. What is your name? I took their little survey of questions. Would you describe yourself as someone who gets easily moved or touched? Not that very often. And then. Okay. Based on your answers, we've chosen... It served me this song. De Ushuaia a la Chiaca, Gustavo Santa. It's a song from a movie called Motorcycle Diaries.
32:30Lauren Brown:I've actually heard this song before. Which, coincidentally, I had watched like two weeks before. And I was like, this is mid. When I watched the movie. So, to be honest, I wasn't feeling very optimistic about getting the chills. But then I was like, okay, I'm going to actually sit with it. And I hit play.
32:53Lauren Brown:it has this kind of like tinge of sadness and longing and then there's this part where this kind of like almost like a flute like instrument comes in it almost sounds like a bird and in that moment that's so weird I felt the goosebumps on my skin I feel it in my um
33:36Lauren Brown:legs making their way up to my arms
33:47Lauren Brown:and then I was just like looking at my arm and yeah they're nice and bumpy that's so nice and it happened again I got like another wave and I had just never had the experience of just like being like hit like like and what do you remember at all what you were thinking about I think in that moment, I was thinking about a trip that I took to Chile. And it reminded me of this day where I was, I think I was doing some kind of like, kind of like field recording of some musician playing a harp. and like in the street. And it was just like reminded me of that version of myself. Like I used to just travel alone all the time, different places all over Latin America.
34:43Lauren Brown:But like as you get older, like you're just not as crazy as you used to be. And it's uncomfortable. And I think that for me, it's so much of reading the news creates this like illusion that like the world is like a really dangerous place. But I've been to these places, a lot of these places that like are quote unquote dangerous. And even on just like a random street corner, there's so much beauty. And I also just have felt really safe.
35:17Maria Paz Gutierrez:So in that moment with like the prickled skin, the waves, was it sort of like those memories are in you and those places might be out there and go just just go yeah go go back out there
35:34Lauren Brown:just go and so regardless of how we label these goosebumps or exactly what triggers them it does feel like if you do take the time to notice these moments give your brain the space to catch up with your body, which is clearly saying something, I think there's value in that. It might just loosen you up and maybe even get you out the door in a slightly different way.
36:05Maria Paz Gutierrez:Yeah, just like that alone. Don't just let them pass you by.
36:10Lauren Brown:Anyway, I think there is one more thing that's worth saying about Goosebumps. Hello. Hi.
36:19Maria Paz Gutierrez:We have now learned many different. I'm sure. I can't wait to hear. I'm so excited. But yeah.
36:24Lauren Brown:It's something that actually came up when we called Lauren and Carmen back to tell them about all the things we'd learned.
36:33Maria Paz Gutierrez:There's a little, a bunch of little muscles underneath our skin.
36:37Lauren Brown:About the cold, fear, survival reflex. And then in that moment, they stand up. Got it. And about Nico and Felix's work on Aesthetic Chills. Or whatever.
36:46Maria Paz Gutierrez:You answer these questions and then they can deliver you the content that will get you to have the goosebumps.
36:52Lauren Brown:Oh, my God. Wow. And of course, about how these goosebumps are sort of the unconscious brain and the body's way of telling you that something important is going on that's like worth pausing and thinking about. Right. You're like catching up to your body, basically. Yes. Yeah.
37:10Maria Paz Gutierrez:Yeah, that makes sense to me, too, even, like, thinking about moments where I find myself just, like, completely covered in goosebumps. My whole body feels it. Yeah, it's almost like your body is, like, tapping on your brain and being like, hello. But I feel like for me, it's like this place where it's like—
37:25Lauren Brown:But then Carmen told us that even though she doesn't get the goosebumps all that often, she does now find herself thinking about what Lauren's goosebumps are saying. Not just to Lauren, but to her. Or like, I'm assuming when you saw like Alyssa Luke, I'm sure you had them then.
37:43Maria Paz Gutierrez:Oh my, yes. Yes. I was out of town and Lauren was texting me like, you have to watch it. I am getting like patchy goosebumps right now.
37:51Lauren Brown:I have them on my legs and I have some on my arms. Okay, so quick context. Alyssa Leo was a star figure skater when she was very young several years ago. And at sort of the height of her game under all this pressure to win, she just straight up quit. She took some time off and a couple years later, she came back to participate in the Winter Olympics.
38:17Maria Paz Gutierrez:She said, I don't need a medal. I just need to be here and show people what I can do. But what she doesn't know, if she does that, probably means a medal.
38:27Lauren Brown:And when you see her, she's clearly there on her own terms. She sort of kills it. Like, she gives a nearly perfect performance.
38:40Maria Paz Gutierrez:Once again, triple left, double axel, double axel.
38:44Lauren Brown:She looks so relaxed, so genuinely happy. Even the announcers are blown away.
38:49Maria Paz Gutierrez:She stays so loose and completely...
38:51Lauren Brown:The crowd is going wild.
38:54Maria Paz Gutierrez:That's a secret every athlete wants to solve.
38:59Lauren Brown:And when she finishes... She got off the ice and she was like, that's what I'm fucking talking about.
39:08Maria Paz Gutierrez:I was like, I love, I know this feeling. I recognize that feeling. I love that feeling where I've been like, I did it. I mean, I watched it and I had like full, but even now I like full body chills talking about it. And so I feel like I do. I literally do. I know. Oh my God. She had texted me, I think the next day after everything had happened and was like, I'm just watching clips of Alyssa Liu in the airport and like crying.
39:31Lauren Brown:And I'm like, yeah, I was doing that last night. Yeah.
39:35Maria Paz Gutierrez:like I get to like, it's like this sort of shared experience, right? And it like deepens my understanding of who Lauren is. Like people are the same to me as like God because it's like this, it's actually fundamentally unknowable thing. But with Lauren, it's like, I can get as physically close as humanly possible. Yeah. Even if it's not rational, I just feel a little bit more known in that way, I think.
40:10Maria Paz Gutierrez:Maria Paz Gutierrez. Thank you, MPG. Special thanks to Rachel Gross, Gregory Rupnick, and to Carmen and Lauren, who set us off on this whole journey. Carmen Maria Machado is currently hard at work on her novel, All About the Holy Shiver. But in the meantime, she's got a new book coming out in fall of 2027. It's called A Brief and Fearful Star. You can also find a link to Bonnie Tsui's beautiful book on muscle on our website. It is not just about muscle. It's also a message in a bottle to her dad. If you want to see Elisa Leo's gold-winning routine or the Thai commercial or performance of Hallelujah we mentioned, there are links on our website.
40:51Maria Paz Gutierrez:This episode was reported and produced by Maria Paz Gutierrez with help from Sindhu Nyamasambandam, mixing help from Jeremy Bloom, and fact-checking by Anjali Mercado.
41:04Lauren Brown:Hi, I'm Gabby. I'm from the Bay Area, California, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W.
41:26Maria Paz Gutierrez:Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nainasambandan,
41:49Our fact checkers are
41:51Maria Paz Gutierrez:Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Anjali Mercado, and Sophie Semayi. Hi, I'm Aubrey, calling from Salt Lake City, Utah. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
From the publisher
Lauren Brown gets goosebumps. A lot. Sometimes several times a day. When her partner, writer Carmen Maria Machado, noticed it...she couldn't stop thinking about it. Why does she get them in so many different situations? What’s happening in her body and what does it mean? We take that question and run with it. We face chilly winds, sudden frights, and moments when the world seem to shift under your feet to figure out what the little bumps on our skin might be trying to tell us.
Special thanks to Rachel Gross, Gregory Rupik
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by Maria Paz Gutierrez
Produced by Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan
Fact-checking by Angely Mercado
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
- Hallelujah (https://zpr.io/6ak2f), performed by Rufus Wainwright, accompanied by 1500 singers
- De Ushuaia a La Quiaca (https://zpr.io/PcYbN)
- Alysa Liu wins the Olympic gold medal for the United States (https://zpr.io/Q7pPNkYSTGVd)
Books -
- Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado
- On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters, by Bonnie Tsui (https://www.bonnietsui.com/)
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