I can't breath or speak when I'm being tickled.
2006-09-06 23:45:21 · 21 answers · asked by island_laddie 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
Maybe. According to researcher Joost Meerloo, who wrote a monograph on laughter some years ago, it's possible to die laughing.
Epidemics of laughing, a type of mass hysteria, have been noted since the Middle Ages, and similar episodes are occasionally reported in the medical literature today. For instance, 1,000 people in Tanganyika suffered a mass laughing fit lasting several days in 1963.
Most of the victims of laughing fits recover. But some die from a combination of starvation and exhaustion. You can't eat or sleep while laughing, and we all know if you try to drink it just sprays out your nose.
As for being tickled to death, Meerloo offers a possibly apocryphal story about a sadistic method of torture devised by the Romans (and for all I know, used by the Chinese as well).
The victim is strapped to a scaffold and his feet are dipped in a salt solution. Then a goat, attracted by the salt, licks the victim's feet with its raspy tongue. This drives the poor sap nuts with laughter and gradually abrades away the skin at the same time.
The feet are then recoated with salt and the process resumes. Finally the victim, having suffered unimaginable agonies, dies horribly.
2006-09-06 23:51:16 · answer #1 · answered by Kerk 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Personally I dont think you can. The lack of oxygen due not to been able to breath while been tickled would cause you to lose consciousness. Where the automatic breathing response would resume and allow oxygen levels to return to normal in the body. And while unconscious you would not feel the tickling.
2006-09-10 05:35:27 · answer #2 · answered by wandera1970 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not sure about being tickled to death but I felt that I wanted to die when my 3 sisters used to tickle me until I wet myself in front of my friends (I am no longer ticklish because of this - I have trained myself not to be ticklish because it was the only way of getting over the humiliation of wet knickers)
2006-09-10 11:44:28 · answer #3 · answered by sn0ttyang3l 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
if you was tickled on the edge of a cliff and you fell off would this constitute being tickled to death?
2006-09-06 23:54:05 · answer #4 · answered by simon m 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You probably could be....and as far as that goes,..how many times have you heard someone say that they were just 'tickled to death ?" lol
2006-09-07 22:00:00 · answer #5 · answered by MotherKittyKat 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes
2006-09-06 23:46:38 · answer #6 · answered by Kitia_98 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah i think so because as you said sometimes people can't breathe or speak and also it could bring on heart attacks, people could go into shock etc.
2006-09-06 23:53:06 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think you might pass out, which would sever the relationship between skin and brain. You would then be able to get your breath.
2006-09-09 12:38:23 · answer #8 · answered by Delora Gloria 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, my mum used to say to me she was going to tickle me to death. And we all believe what our mums tell don't we??
2006-09-09 08:31:37 · answer #9 · answered by tommyahammond 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, my little brother was like that when he was younger.
I would be willing to volunteer as ginniepig for the experiment - provided that it would be 4 hot ladies tickeling me...
2006-09-06 23:47:40 · answer #10 · answered by � Fuzzy Dice 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋