Have you ever wondered why is it that whenever some one tickles you, you burst  into bouts of laughter but you can never tickle yourself? First of all, let us see why we feel like laughing. All of us have some funny spots on our bodies and they are not difficult to find. So if someone tickles you there laughing of course is your natural response. You would think that you laugh because your body feels happy when someone tickles. But in fact the feeling that is experienced when we are tickled causes us to panic. It is the same feeling we get when little creepy crawler like a spider and bug is on us.

Laughter is triggered by this feeling of panic. Sometimes a person can start laughing before someone even touches them.

The reaction to tickling is the brain’s response to an unexpected touch. So if you try and tickle yourself, your brain is not surprised because before you even moved your hand brain was aware of it. Since you feel no panic no laughter :)

There is a very interesting book “Tickle monster”. Let us take a look inside it.