Have you ever had that reaction while listening to a song that (quite literally) hits your soul?

For my sister, Molly, this happens whenever “Don’t Think Jesus” by Morgan Wallen flows through the speakers. For me, all it takes is a little “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” to send a raging sensation throughout my body that results in goosebumps.

Well, turns out, there is a word for this!. It’s called “frisson” (pronounced “free-son”). According to good 'ole Wikipedia, frisson is a “psychophysiological response to rewarding auditory and/or visual stimuli that often induces a pleasurable or otherwise positively-valenced affective state and transient paresthesia (skin tingling or chills), sometimes along with piloerection (goose bumps) and mydriasis (pupil dilation).”

What I find interesting is that not everyone experiences this. Nueroscientist Matthew Sachs conducted a study back in 2016 that demonstrates how we all have individual differences in reward sensitivity to music.

Isn’t that kinda interesting?! Do you ever experience frisson and if not: WHAT in the frick?!

Sources:

Matthew E. Sachs, Robert J. Ellis, Gottfried Schlaug, Psyche Loui, Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Volume 11, Issue 6, June 2016, Pages 884–891, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw009