Why goose bumps?

[donq]

I work late at night everyday peacefully. Until someone told me that one of my neighbor just committed suiside yesterday (hung herself to death). Then, whenever there was some strange noise, I got goose bumps. I remember that once, in my old place, I even heard the noise liked someone was scratching my bedroom's door in the middle of the night! Though it might be some mice? I still don't know for sure. But it really made me uncomfortable. hahaha.

Some dictionary says:
goose bumps - Momentary roughness of the skin caused by erection of the papillae in response to cold or to a strong emotion, such as fear or awe. Also called goose flesh, goose pimples.

Fear? Hmm...about what? Ghost?
Why do I have to fear any ghost?
And why "goose" bumps? Not hen or duck bumps? :-)

[gruntal]

We all fear something until we obtain Mastership and by then we also are above causing anyone else to have unwaranted fear. But as to why we say goose bumps I suspect the etymology was influenced by aesthetics. Even a Great Master would preach respect for all living things but not offend the students but calling this phenomenon FROG WARTS.

[donq]

You said, "We all fear something until we obtain Mastership and by then we also are above causing anyone else to have unwaranted fear."
I really like that. Thanks.

It was told by the Buddha himself that before he got enlightenment, he meditated alone in the forest. Whenever there was some sound he was frighten and thought such and such thing might come to harm him. And then, he tried to be in that very moment as long as possible, and observing his fear, and didn't turn to do something else before his fear was gone (by itself).

Hmm...I cannot do like the Buddha did. And maybe never will. hahaha.
But every time I heard the song, "The Impossible Dream" (from MAN OF LA MANCHA-1972) I feel like I got some courage more or less.


To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go...

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause...

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage...


wow! Even now, I feel I've gain some courage. hahaha

[Damian]

I couldn't resist checking this one...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_bumps

The phrase "goose bumps" derives from the phenomenon's association with goose skin. Goose feathers grow from stores in the epidermis which resemble human hair follicles. When a goose's feathers are plucked, its skin has protrusions where the feathers were, and these bumps are what the human phenomenon resembles.

[aceofcups]

[donq]

Thanks Damian.
But again, what about a chicken, hen, duck and turkey? Their feathers are also plucked, (before being eaten by us), right?
I mean, in my native language, it has nothing to do with any animal at all, and it literally means "erection of hairs of the skin" (hairs stand up). hahaha
These kinds of metaphors are amazing. As one of classic books, "Metaphors We Live By" said language and metaphors have their special roles in our mind for our understanding of the world.
It's maybe true. For example, I feel nothing if someone calls me a donkey. While a "donkey" has very bad meaning in English, right?

Hi Ace,
Hmm...I have to confess that I still don't get your meaningful joke. hahaha. But it makes me smile anyway. Thanks.

P.S. Don't know why I was thinking about this poem:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
But who is that on the other side of you?”

― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems

On Eliot's note, he wrote "Those lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton’s): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted.

[donq]

Though one of my spiritual teachers used to teach me not to learn/know/talk like a parrot
but I always wonder what those parrots think when they are talking. hahaha




P.S. So, is there a parrot bumps?

[tribunalofmercy]

Monty, you know that the goose bumps we get when our bodies respond to something out of fear, is Instinct, not from our Selves but the natural part of our design as humans We can "know", as Buddha did, that our Selves can understand the fear and overcome it by our Awareness and intent; goose bumps do not last, do they?

Perhaps the idea of "parroting" what we hear is also a trait that comes from Responding to something that we (our Selves) do not fully Understand yet. By repeating what we have heard we are trying to grasp it but have not found the connection to Ourselves that gives us a more personal way of understanding or explaining.


Remember when you told the story of the fire in the forest near where you were a monk? Do you also remember your story of the boy who became Angry at being called chubby (fat? I cannot remember your word) by another boy, when he was bathing?

In both cases, the human reaction was more of instinct than Higher Self....the instinct (human nature) when the fire is Too hot, too big or too close, is to RUN - and that instinct is a good one! Because surely we cannot "think" or even Believe our way out of a fire, unless it is Meant to happen for some reason.

In the case of the boy, if he used his Higher Mind, perhaps he would not be so upset, because he would see that Words could not hurt him unless he Let them.

So there are times in our lives, Monty, when we can "think" about how our instinct is responding, and Know that nothing will hurt us unless we give in to the fear that causes goose bumps. (Other times, perhaps we need to RUN)

[donq]

Hi Mary Anne,

You said:
"you know that the goose bumps we get when our bodies respond to something out of fear, is Instinct, not from our Selves but the natural part of our design as humans We can "know", as Buddha did, that our Selves can understand the fear and overcome it by our Awareness and intent; goose bumps do not last, do they?"
Good point! No, goose bumps do not last. Nor does any other "feeling/emotion." Here is complicated. Is fear an instinct? really? And how about any other feeling/emotion?

Dr. Franz Hartmann wrote:
What does a modern botanist know about the signatures of plants, by which the occultist recognizes the medicinal and occult properties of plants as soon as he sees them? The animals have remained natural, while man has become unnatural. The sheep does not need to be instructed by a zoologist to seek to escape if a tiger approached: it knows by his signature and without argument that he is its enemy. Is it not more important for the sheep to know the ferocious character of the tiger than to be informed that the latter belongs to the genus felis? If by some miracle a sheep should become intellectual, it might learn so much about the external form, anatomy, physiology, and genealogy of the tiger, that it would lost sight of its internal character and be devoured by it.

I believe there are two kinds of fear: genuine and...hmm...how to call it?...fake one? You've got and idea, right? As for the first one, genuine fear, maybe it's our instinct. A fear of a sheep towards a tiger so that it would help it flighting (or fighting in case of just a baby tiger. hahaha). This kind of fear, an instinct is good.
But there's also another kind of instinct, a fake one.

And as you said:
Remember when you told the story of the fire in the forest near where you were a monk? Do you also remember your story of the boy who became Angry at being called chubby (fat? I cannot remember your word) by another boy, when he was bathing?
In both cases, the human reaction was more of instinct than Higher Self...the instinct (human nature) when the fire is Too hot, too big or too close, is to RUN - and that instinct is a good one! Because surely we cannot "think" or even Believe our way out of a fire, unless it is Meant to happen for some reason.
In the case of the boy, if he used his Higher Mind, perhaps he would not be so upset, because he would see that Words could not hurt him unless he Let them.

Yes, good point again. The human reaction is more of fake instinct than a real one (or than a higher self). We should fear of fire as it's deadly dangerous. But our reactions to that fire is counted. We react with our fake fear or our instinct (genuine fear/higher self). I mean, with fake fear, we add more and more unnecessary fear unto our first genuine fear until we are shaking and even cannot run away. Or we would never find the best solution in that deadly event if we let our fake fear overwhelm ourselves.

You said:
Perhaps the idea of "parroting" what we hear is also a trait that comes from Responding to something that we (our Selves) do not fully Understand yet. By repeating what we have heard we are trying to grasp it but have not found the connection to Ourselves that gives us a more personal way of understanding or explaining.

Maybe true. As Dr. Walter Kroner wrote:

Each immediate psychological reaction to people and things: sympathy and antipathy, liking and aversion, everything we understand by the notions presentiment, intuition, and instinct, does not spring naked from the pondering provoked by stimulation of the senses, or from association, but is at least partly the result of a direct, i.e., telepathic, response. This intuitive reaction is especially striking in artists, women, and children. Hence, even in normal individuals, an atavistic mediumistic ability is continually at work in the unconscious.

And Dr. Luisa Hosli wrote:
On walking into a dark room, we can sense by its atmosphere whether anyone is there or not.

Yes, sometimes we respond to something that we do not fully understand yet. We intuitively knew that it was there. Though our reason told us that it was nonsense. At first glance, this looks like a fake instinct. But it is not. I believe this is so common for anyone who is walking his/her spiritual path. We have to trust...how to call it?...our spiritual instinct? It's not a fake instinct even it might seem to be unexplainable.