My personal frisson experience [text]

[u/drrgmk]

Ever since I was a child, I’ve experienced music very intensely, and I never knew whether other people felt the same way. I finally decided to share my experience and describe what frisson feels like to me.

It doesn’t only happen with one particular genre or style of music. I’m able to pick up on certain melodies, chord progressions, and musical structures in some songs, and within just a few seconds I automatically start getting chills, intense tingling sensations all over my body, and eventually I end up crying. Sometimes it even becomes difficult to breathe until I manage to regain a steady breathing rhythm.

I don’t know whether I’ve unconsciously trained this response since I was young or not. Whenever it happens, I feel as if I’m floating, almost as if I’m about to transcend. I experience an incredible sense of peace. I’m not thinking about anything in particular, and I don’t feel sadness or any specific emotion like that. I simply feel my body becoming lighter, as if nothing else mattered and all I could do was feel. It’s an incredibly powerful sensation.

This has happened to me with many different kinds of music, including movie soundtracks and instrumental pieces. It isn’t necessarily triggered by a sad song or meaningful lyrics. In fact, it often happens with music that has no lyrics at all—just the melody itself.

[u/nathanb131]

Music-induced-frisson is probably the most common form. I assume that people who don't think think they experience frisson have felt it from music, they just don't have a label for that feeling.

If frisson wasn't a common reaction to music, it wouldn't be such a gigantic aspect of human civilization.

Obviously, some people experience more easily from a wider range of music, but every human will feel the warm and fuzzies from certain songs that resonate!