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The Sims Method

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.[1] Firstly clear your mind of all conscious thoughts, but make your mind open to all tactile sensations. It may help to close your eyes.

.[2] Then gentle with your finger tips stroke the fine hairs under either armpit. This is only a gentle caress.

.[3] If you feel that you are going to laugh, resist as long as possible. This will make the laugh more genuine and make sure that you are not subconsciously forcing a reaction. The laughter response is an automatic body response, which is really outside conscious control.

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.Persist if you do not imediately succeed. Some people have trouble getting the right trancelike state, although I find it happens very quickly. The mental state is different from Buddhist Meditation, as in that state one is to close off to the sensory perception, whereas I want is for you to surrender completely to the tactile senses!

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Explanation

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.What is Tickling For? - It is a defence mechanism. Apart from possessing delicate tissue close to the skin, like major arteries, veins, lymph canals & nerves, the armpit is essential to that critical primate limb, the arm. The automatic laugh reaction is to disarm the person who is tickling you, thus protecting your armpit without offending that person. The automatic nature of the response suggests strongly that tickling is an ancient reaction inherited from our distant primate ancestors.

.Why does this method of self-tickling work? - Clearing the head of conscious thoughts & concentrating on the tactile senses creates a circumstance where the ego is stilled. You are viewing yourself without worded thoughts, as if from the distance of an alien being.

.Why the armpits? - I find that it does not work for inside the elbows, behind the knees or the foot insteps, for the simple reason that these places lack those fine hairs. There is a "ticklish sensation" but this never leads to an automatic laughter response. In our distant primate ancestors these areas may well have had hairs, and the thus enabled the self-tickling response.

.Why have all those researchers missed this self-tickling? - The usual reason. They never asked the right questions. They assumed rather than experimented as to the key nature of tickling.

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Further Explorations

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.Automatic Breathing! - Only the armpit hairs (using the Sims Method) produce actual tickling, I find. However, thursday last week I discovered that gently stroking the hairs across the front of my torso produces automatic deep breathing. If I deliberately close my air passages during this process, I almost immediately cough and splutter, as the breathing keeps continuing beyond my conscious control.

.And Elbows - Last night (using the Sims Method) I found that stroking the inside of either elbow produces the same automatic breathing effect. This is despite the inside of my elbows having no hairs, which is I believe, the normal circumstance .

.Experimenting with ones armpits? - If you feel moved to experiment with self-tickling using the Sims Method, please let me know your results. There are no doubt many factors involved. For instance, many people shave their armpits. Please make the e-mail title "Self-Tickling Response":

oilyway@comcen.com.au

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Recapitulation

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.Essential State Of Mind! - The self-tickling & automatic breathing mentioned above is strictly dependent on stage 1 of The Sims Method: clear your mind of all conscious thoughts, but make your mind open to all tactile sensations.

If I do not do this I cannot self-tickle, nor can I cause automatic breathing.

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