Bodily Oddities

Voluntary piloerection

Also called: Voluntary goosebumps · VGP

Giving yourself goosebumps on command, without music, cold, or fear. About 1 in 1,500 people can do it. The muscles involved are not supposed to take orders.

Skin and hair Nerves Trick Voluntary
Try it Community

How common

About 1 in 1,500 Rare · 0.01–1% A screen of 682 psychology students found nobody with the ability.

Can you do this?

These are answers from visitors, not a study.

How it works

Every hair on your body has a tiny smooth muscle at its base, the arrector pili. When it contracts, the hair stands up and the skin around it bunches into a bump2. The muscles are driven by the sympathetic nervous system, the same system that speeds your heart when you are scared. They fire in cold, in fear, and during strong emotion, such as a moving piece of music1.

Smooth muscle has no known link to the conscious brain. You cannot order it. Yet a small number of people can raise goosebumps at will, with no trigger.

The first proper study came in 2018, when a team led by James Heathers tested 32 people who said they could do it1. About 75% said the feeling starts at the back of the head or neck and spreads outward as a wave. About 90% said the bumps appear on the arms1. On personality tests they scored higher than average on openness to experience1. When the team screened 682 psychology students for the ability, none of them had it1. The best estimate is about 1 in 1,500 people1.

How the signal gets from the conscious brain to the sympathetic nerves is not known.

Try it

Most people cannot do this. It takes a minute to check.

  1. Sit still somewhere quiet. Roll up your sleeves so you can see your forearms.
  2. Bring your attention to the back of your neck, just under the skull.
  3. Imagine a shiver starting there and running down your back and out along your arms. Do not tense your muscles.
  4. Hold the feeling for ten seconds. Watch the hairs on your forearms.
  5. If they stand up, you are one of a very small group. The community at r/voluntarypiloerection compares notes3.

If nothing happens, that is the normal result. No known method teaches it.

Sources and further material

  1. Encyclopedia Goose bumps What goosebumps are and what normally triggers them. The first systematic study of voluntary control was Heathers et al., 2018, in PeerJ, with 32 participants.
  2. Encyclopedia Arrector pili muscle The smooth muscle at the base of each hair.
  3. Community r/voluntarypiloerection Community of people who can do this.
  4. Video Voluntary goosebumps demonstration YouTube search.
Skin Reflex

Goosebumps

Tiny muscles at the base of every hair pull the hair upright when you are cold, scared, or moved. In a furry animal this traps warm air or makes it look bigger. In a human it does almost nothing.

Everyone
Brain Involuntary

Frisson

Goosebumps and a wave of chills down the back at a powerful moment in music, a film, or a speech. About half of people get it regularly. It comes from the brain's reward system reacting to an expectation being met or broken.

About 50% of people, regularly
Eyes Trick

Voluntary pupil control

Changing the size of your pupils by will alone, without imagining a light or doing sums. Only a handful of cases are documented. Indirect control by thinking hard is possible for almost everyone.

A handful of documented cases
Heart Trick

Heart rate control

Slowing or speeding up your own heartbeat on purpose, using breath, attention, or training. Most people can shift it a little within minutes. A few trained people shift it a lot.

Most people, a little