That immensely euphoric state prior to a bowel movement, what causes it?

Seattle_Stranger · Jan 24, 2012

Mods, before you slam the delete button please know that I'm being completely serious and desperately trying to phrase this as maturely as possible. I would hope to get just as mature responses. I'm not a troll!! Check my past-posts and threads for proof!

Having said that, I have searched and obviously got a lot of what I was not looking for. So, here I am to ask the question that I've wondered my whole life.....why does my entire body and mind feel so euphoric when I feel like I'm soon to have a bowel movement? It's a phenomenon that has apparently become known as "poop-phoria", or, the euphoric state you may enter before/during/after a bowel movement.

Lot's of people immediately give the most scientific response and say something like "it's because you know you just dropped a huge deuce!" and that's obviously not the answer I'm looking for. Furthermore, it's not so much the state AFTER the fact, it's the extremely euphoric state BEFORE the actual bowel movement. For example, sitting in my computer chair, and I suddenly start to feel an obvious soon-to-come bowel movement, and a cripplingly-wonderful full-body-and-mind euphoria just begins resonating from my abdominal area, not unlike the onset of MDMA or an approaching orgasm. It's such an amazing feeling that I sometimes find myself sitting my in chair, purposely "holding it in" just to prolong the euphoria, because as soon as I let 'er go, the feeling goes away. Afterwards, I feel baseline and normal.

One logical response I read was that when your body is preparing for a bowel movement, blood gets pulled toward your rectum and the result is a 'tingly' feeling everywhere else. Perhaps this 'tingle' is more intense for some than others? I know a lot of folks are going to think I'm absolutely ridiculous for posting this, but I have faith that someone else out there gets this too. If anyone understands ASMR, this is an extremely similar sensation. The body tingles are fantastic, but it's the actual psychological response that I feel that REALLY intrigues me. It's seriously not unlike the rush/onset of a very strong psychoactive drug like MDMA. It really is quite remarkable!!

Hopefully we have adults among us today and some useful information can be shared here! Otherwise, I'm prepared for a flood of poop, ass and homo jokes to come pouring in. 8)

Interested in other research studies? Find more drug studies.

addictivepersona · Jan 24, 2012

That's strange to me that you feel like that right before you have to poop. For me, right before I have to poop, I feel a sudden flush feeling, and sometimes feel like I'm going to be sick or sometimes even that I'm going to have diarrhea right then and there, even though I can make it to the toilet and when I do, it's a solid bowel movement. I've never heard of people feeling euphoria just before pooping.

Seattle_Stranger · Jan 24, 2012

100+ views and just 1 response so far, pretty much as I expected!

I understand that this does not happen to everyone. There is a phenomenon known as ASMR, where certain sounds and sights can actually trigger a sensory response in 'affected' people which many folks compare to, again, like the onset of an MDMA rush or an orgasm. I'm not just talking about "relaxing sounds" like birds chirping and a running stream, that's not even close, those sounds rarely ever trigger said response. It's usually very specific sounds and movements that can trigger it. For example, this simple video of a man ironing a shirt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WsmiGaWoTw This video sends tingling shivers up and down my body and puts my mind into a euphoric state of well being, far beyond placebo, or "just chilled out". It's actually quite a sedating, heavy-limbed-and-eyed, almost stoned feeling. There are many things that trigger it, here's a few more of my favorite examples, you may see a trend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsx38_s3Mnc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i4k0b-9c0M&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0WJKlNGYNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRe5NqZO5q4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lsUGSCXYqo

It's actually somewhat embarrassing when it happens for example at work, if my boss comes over to my desk and wants to show me something, so he sits down with me, takes control of my computer and starts just doing something, doesn't even matter what, but something about the whole situation sends a cascade of euphoria over my body and almost puts me to sleep! I start going into a trancy state, melting into my chair, all the while attempting to hold composure. Imagine it like someone dropped molly into your morning coffee, and it starts kicking in as your boss is sitting at your desk explaining something, and you're desperately trying to keep your cool where you would really just love to close your eyes, lean back and bask in it....literally almost a one to one experience I would think.

Having said that, this 'poop-phoria' feeling is extremely similar but even more forcefully so! Judging from the similarity between MDMA, ASMR, orgasms and poop-phoria, I'm leaning strongly towards that is has something to do with serotonin. Another fun fact is that this poop-phoria feeling stopped visiting me for a long time after I had abused MDMA and got really depressed. Then, over time, the feeling slowly began happening again, and now it happens every time again. In addition to that, I notice that if I watch those videos too often, the effect begins to diminish. It also will be extremely intense if you don't do it for a while. Take all this for what you will!!

Anyone? Anyone at all?

maxalfie · Jan 24, 2012

I can honestly say I have never heard of anything like this before.
A lot of people feel good after having a bowel movement but certainly nothing that could be compared to the feelings that MDMA produce.
Have you ever asked your Doctor if he has any idea of what would produce such a reaction in your body?
It would be very interesting to find out the reason that this happens to you.

Samadhi · Jan 24, 2012

I'm happy to leave it here for the time being; i'll even mod any troll responses for you as this seems to be a legitimate question you're asking.

As to the answer, i've never experienced this sober - only on MDMA. I'm wondering if this might be something to do with your bowel motion pressing against your prostate, which as we know, can produce major feelings of euphoria/arousal?

modern buddha · Jan 25, 2012

I understand what you mean. Sometimes, I'll hold it in for a little while. It feels good when you hold it in longer, it's like the release is more intense.

I wonder if it hits the prostate in men, causing that "euphoric" feeling.

_a_A_C_c_ · Jan 25, 2012

i've noticed a rather euphoric feeling urinating sometimes. it is usually when my bladder is really full. i've always assumed it is release that feels good.

Dave · Jan 25, 2012

I think Samadhi's got the right idea. Some people have a naturally more sensitive prostate than others. I know that with the right firmness of feces it can be... enjoyable. Not quite as transcnedent as OP's dumps, perhaps.

Samadhi · Jan 25, 2012

A_C i know the feeling you're referring to when peeing. Especially if you've been holding on to it - not just the relief that releasing the bladder offers (although that relief shouldn't be underestimated for awesomeness!) but it's almost a shivery feeling? Maybe they are actually the same.

Anyone around here a urologist or proctologist? (or as i used to call it when i was little - a bumologist

)

nekointheclouds · Jan 25, 2012

I call this feeling relief

Jackal · Jan 25, 2012

What causes it?

For me:

Cocaine, Coffee, Cannabis, Chocolate, Cigarettes, Tea, Whisky - and so on.

Also sometimes, just the fact you are dying for a great shit

Sorry!

psood0nym · Jan 25, 2012

Hmm, I definitely relate to those videos you posted and the whole tingly melty euphoric shiver phenomena, but it's hard to see the connection between the themes that connect those together with your poop-gasm. Obviously you know what you feel, but it seems like maybe it's the same experiential phenomena evoked through two different mechanisms in you. Have you tried shoving something in your butt and holding it there? Seems like a no-brainer but you don't mention...

You may love, or conversely, be driven mad by, some of the films of Jan Svankmejer. He fully exploits the aural-tactile synaesthetic component of the phenomena through techniques employed in many of his surrealist works. Most of his shorts are on Youtube.

I experience this phenomena most intensely during haircuts, especially with the trimmers around the back of my neck (sometimes I have to ask them to stop). When I was a child I used to derive immense pleasure from having people draw on my back. I would try to get anyone to play the "guess what I'm drawing" game I could, and would sometimes just ask them to keep doing it when I didn't have to guess so I could lose myself in the sensations and go into a sleepy trance (often having to offer favors like my lunch's dessert in payment to impatient kids that weren't hip to my groove). Like you experience with your boss, I've noticed the psychological component of knowing someone is doing something simple and repetitive for you that at the same time evokes the sensation synergizes with the experience in ineffable ways (same with the hair cut).

The sound of chalk marking a chalk board does it somewhat, too, and I don't think it's a coincidence that scratching a chalk board creates shivers (it was always more intense when I was alone with a teacher who was writing something on the board as part of a cursive writing lessen or something -- point being they were doing it for me). The non-screeching marking likely skirts the edge of the screeching sound wave's formal shape and resonates pleasurably for the proximity. It strikes me as closely related phenomenologically to tickling, just like the first few times having an orgasm was much closer to a tickling sensation for me before it developed into something more distinct. The phenomena is on the edge of pleasure and unbearability in many different experiential modes or something. You've gotta watch it, though. People might mistake your blessing for being a pervert, heh (jealous narrow-minded jerks, they are!).

I also experience it, as you've noted, too, with serotonergic amphetamines (many people report head tingles, but there's more to this). Frissons of delight are set off by lightly running my fingers through the hair on the back of my head during the high, and if incorporated into sex there is singly little else that can drive me more intensely towards orgasm. I think it must be tied to the standard sensation of chills, but for some people the chills are part of a much more expansive and pleasurable sensory sensitivity. I suspect, like you, that it's tied to serotonin, but also that for many there is a syneasthetic "over-wiring" component involved that's behind it branching out into the aural and sexual realms.

You may also find the soft contented voice narration and repetitive wood-shaping tasks/sounds involved in building a cabin with hand tools very calming in PBS's "Alone in the Wilderness" program.

Seattle_Stranger · Jan 25, 2012

Samadhi said:
I'm happy to leave it here for the time being; i'll even mod any troll responses for you as this seems to be a legitimate question you're asking.

As to the answer, i've never experienced this sober - only on MDMA. I'm wondering if this might be something to do with your bowel motion pressing against your prostate, which as we know, can produce major feelings of euphoria/arousal?

Thank you very much, I appreciate this. It certainly is a serious quI understand it's hard for folks to resist being silly with such a subject, and I don't blame anyone for cracking a joke or two, it really is quite funny! As long as I'm not being ridiculed for my inquiry, it's all gravy.

nekointheclouds said:
I call this feeling relief

It's definitely not relief because the sensation occurs BEFORE I drop the kids off.

It's very possible that it's a prostate thing. It sounds like one of the most likely culprits! However, sparing the details, any time my girlfriend and I have attempted prostate stimulation, it's not a similar sensation and is actually rather uncomfortable and obviously invasive. Perhaps if the stimulation of my prostate occurs without having to.....well....you know how....and the pressure comes from within my body without the invasive discomfort, perhaps it is a very euphoric sensory response!

Here's some more info for ya: As we've established, I get this feeling at random when I suddenly have to go #2, this much is understood so far. However, another time I feel it is usually when I just arrive home from work, and I walk into my bedroom, almost like clock work I will get a euphoric, tingly sensation pour over my body that makes me think "I love my house so much" and then guess what happens shortly after.....I feel like I have to poop! It's not an association thing, like my bedroom doesn't make me feel like I have to shit, it's a result of the sensation. It's hard to explain, however it's beyond placebo. For example, I'm about to go home from work for lunch in a bit, and when I walk into my room, I'm suddenly going to get that euphoria, I'll think to myself "Damn, I wish I could just stay here and not go back to work", and then within ~30 seconds after, I'll start to feel like I have to #2. The feeling subsides very quickly though and I suddenly feel like I DON'T have to go #2 and the euphoria will dissipate as well.

Just as a little disclaimer, I'm quite experienced with not only drugs and the feeling that they produce, but also with my body, it's patterns, functions and language. I know this forum is FLOODED with noobies screaming about this crazy high they got from Tylenol and Ibuprofen, only to eventually try real drugs and realize what it REALLY feels like when you're off baseline, when brain chemistry is altered, when something is ACTUALLY happening as opposed to when you're just plain feelin' naturally good and are experiencing placebo. This sensation has been present my entire life in the exact way I describe it, and it's FAR beyond placebo. As a matter of fact, when I first tried opiates, this is the feeling I compared the drugs to. Then I tried MDMA and realized the crazy similarities in the feeling! Also, like I said, after I abused a lot of MDMA, this feeling escaped me for many months.

I'm dying to know if there's some way I could trigger this on command. Like some kind of alteration in my diet, certain vitamins to take, activities to do, etc.. It's definitely stronger sometimes than others, sometimes not present at all, sometimes surprisingly strong!

Thank you for all the mature replies thus far.

Seattle_Stranger · Jan 25, 2012

I experience this phenomena most intensely during haircuts, especially with the trimmers around the back of my neck (sometimes I have to ask them to stop). When I was a child I used to derive immense pleasure from having people draw on my back. I would try to get anyone to play the "guess what I'm drawing" game I could, and would sometimes just ask them to keep doing it when I didn't have to guess so I could lose myself in the sensations and go into a sleepy trance (often having to offer favors like my lunch's dessert in payment to impatient kids that weren't hip to my groove). Like you experience with your boss, I've noticed the psychological component of someone is doing something simple and repetitive for you that evokes the sensation synergizes with the experience in ineffable ways (same with the hair cut).

YES!!!!!!!!!!! You're onto it!!! The drawing on the back thing....ohh....my....GOD. The best trigger of all is, like you said, having another person quietly, gently, carefully paying attention to you, doing something like cutting your hair, inspecting your skin, examining you, like a physical exam at the doctor. If I could go to the doctor, and just have them not say a word, and just carefully inspect every inch of my body, I fail to think of a monetary figure I wouldn't pay for said experience. It would have to be someone who knows what they're doing though!! The important part is it can't be a mindless activity, it's gotta be driven with a purpose, someone has to have an intent and know what they're doing. Like the guy ironing the T-shirt, he obviously has been doing that for years, probably owns a laundromat, is a professional! Something about the expertise makes the feeling more intense. Some people must think I'm fuck nuts!!!

You may love, or conversely, be driven mad by, some of the films of Jan Svankmejer. He fully exploits the aural-tactile synaesthetic component of the phenomena through techniques employed in many of his surrealist works. Most of his shorts are on Youtube.

I'm going to look into this! Perhaps when I'm off work.

I have so many reasons to think that my serotonin system is 'abnormal' in some way. Without writing pages and pages, I'll simply say that all the characteristics that serotonin regulates in my body....are all not normal. Even things like digestive function is out of whack, I've been in the hospital for GI issues several times. I'm extremely anxiety and depression prone. I over think things like fucking mad. I feel like I am, and always have been stuck in this psychedelic mindset that became apparent after I started researching psychs. For lack of a far more descriptive statement, I'll just say that people's description of intense psychedelic experiences that I've read are extremely similar patterns my mind always takes and has my entire life LONG before I had any idea what a psych even was! Those same patterns have always been noticeably different from my peers, and people who are close to me agree that I'm just not normal. Also, I'm extremely sensitive to mushrooms, doses that my friends think are completely inactive will produce strong effects for me, I'm talking like 0.1g gets me tripping. I took 3grams once and actually passed out standing up and had a complete ego death experience, from LESS than the 'average' dose. I always get CEV's at all times, if I close my eyes right now I can be entertained by the unexpected kaleidoscope happening 24/7 behind my eyelids, again, another things that's been with me since forever. I even get some moving/melting like visuals in my vision at times, things I just simply thought were just a normal part of being human, until I started using psychs and realized the visuals I would get from them were simply an exaggeration of this visual effect I've seen my whole life! Lastly, things like this poop-phoria happen to me on a regular basis....so, in short, I feel like there's something different about my serotonin system.

Thoughts?

psood0nym · Jan 25, 2012

^Check out my edit of my last post. I've added some other things that you may have missed..

It's funny you mention paying someone to do these things. I used to tell the kids drawing on my back that when I was grown up and rich I'd have a butler whose job was to draw on my back and cut the tiniest shavings off my hair so it would be drawn out for hours. They just laughed, too young to think me weird or a pervert.

I don't have any serotonin related maladies, no.

[the following is drug discussion, so I'll hide it from the Second Opinion people who come here to escape that]

NSFW:

So, yeah. There might be an association with atypical serotonin systems and this phenomenon. Obviously that's just conjecture and tangential association, but as this is a peculiar topic without much known about it every little bit helps I guess.

EDIT: Looking through ASMR trigger videos now (never had heard of any of this before) I'm more convinced of the connection with the chalk board screech sound I was discussing earlier. Consider the similarities in both sound and tactile association between chalk board screeching and the dry highlighter on paper video, the camera lens squeaky clean video, etc (there must be a squeegee video somewhere). Even the eating salad video has something to do with it. Consider, for instance, the squeaky vibration through the teeth and jaw when biting through a cheese curd, then consider chewing aluminum foil and how that crosses the line into an uncomfortable sensation similarly to how chalk board marking goes from pleasurable to unnerving when it crosses over into screeching. I wonder if a comparative analysis of the timbers of these various sounds might reveal telling regularities, such that one could synthesize an ideal sound wave form for evoking a sensation that would be rated consistently most intense among "ASMR" volunteers. There's obviously more to it -- the associations with attentiveness, repetition, intimacy, the anatomical focus on the scalp and upper back as well as the teeth and jaw vibrations -- but a wave form comparison and ideal form production (maybe with EEG readings on volunteers) seems like an obvious way to show that there's something more objective to the whole thing (simple, modality-specific, cheap, and reproducible). I'm in no position to do anything like that, but just saying. I'd be surprised if something like this hasn't already been done in the psychology of auditory perception given the nearly universal aversion to the chalk board screech, but I doubt it's been investigated for pleasure in a minority "ASMR" population.

Samadhi · Jan 25, 2012

Sorry, but I laughed out loud at "dropped the kids off" :D

Also, thank you psood0nym for NSFWing your drug talk - it's really appreciated

(if you feel that this conversation will go down that path, perhaps take that part to PM if that's ok?

S_S - to NSFW your conversation, You add NSFW with [] wrapped around and at the end of your post, add /NSFW with [] wrapped around.

As you were...

Seattle_Stranger · Jan 26, 2012

First off, I'd like to thank you because this is exactly the discussion I was looking for.

Having said that, your chalk board analogy, I've never thought about it that way, fascinating!! Now that you mention it, I often find myself getting extra effected by these kinds of noises. For example, we're eating dinner, spaghetti on glass plates and metal forks, and I'll keep cringing at the screeching noises while everyone else is asking what is wrong with me and why I keep making that face, then I ask if that noise bothers them, they say "what noise?" The super subtle screeching noises from the forks touching the plates while people are scooping up their food are enough for me to get that inevitable nails-on-chalk-board effect, while everyone else says they don't even notice it. This too, has always been the case. Damn, now I'm really fascinated...

That's also very fascinating about your combo you mentioned. Warning, some brief drug discussion ensuing....now:

NSFW:

Thanks for the tip!

I don't plan to take the discussion down that road, I'd like to keep it on topic. Definitely curious about your results from the combo though...moreso in light of the topic and not because it sounds yummy.

psood0nym · Jan 26, 2012

PM'd about the combo.

I'm clearly not as sensitive to this phenomenon as you are, but I'm sensitive enough to relate. I've thought about it before, mostly because I'm curious about how Jan Svankmejer's films work on the psych. They're very compelling to a small group of people, who tend to describe their reactions to the films in similar terms, and others don't get it. I suspect there's a reason for that.

It's also interesting that, according to "AMSR" anecdotes, many note a reduction or extinction of the effects with age. This tends to be true with synaesthesia as well. This is consistent with increasing pruning of white matter connections in the brain as one ages. Relative “over-wiring “ between particular regions of the brain is correlated with synaesthetic symptoms. The aural-tactile sensitivity of ASMR strikes me as synaethesia like. It may even be a type of synaesthesia, or a component of it may be at least. There’s dozens of types of synaesthesia that have been named, though only a few properly studied. I think the reason synaesthesia is so diverse is because it (looks like) it owes neuroanatomically to something as general as “excess wiring.” This excess wiring intensifies associations and can associate one or more sensory modalities, modalities to ideas, to graphemes (numbers and letters), to memories, to who knows what else and between what else.

I experience intense nostalgia-like moods in association with randomly evoked novel memories. There appears to be as many different "moods" as there are memories. Most people only experience this with particularly evocative memories like Christmas memories making them feel the "Christmas spirit", but for me it's a far greater range of memories (esp. from memories of more than a few months ago that are newly recalled for the first time), and those involuntary novel memories arrive at a higher frequency than in the general population (from what I've read). I thought I had a tumor for a while, but I'm not dead yet, so...

My AMSR effects share some phenomological properties with these moods, and that's why I suspect maybe it's all, in part at least, different expressions of synaesthesia. There is evidence for synesthesia in the general population, too. It’s only when the symptoms are especially intense or uniquely expressed in a large enough population that it becomes “a thing.” This is why synaesthetes were thought to be just very metaphorical thinkers decades ago. We all experience it to a degree, but some experience it to extreme or unique degrees that can be verified experimentally, and only recently using statistical imaging techniques (with extreme synesthetes ("Projectors") having statistically significant greater white matter densities than average synaesthetes ("Associators"), and those more than "normal" controls). Color-grapheme synaesthesia is the best known precisely because its saliency, commonality, and discreteness of expression makes it easiest to design experiments around. ASMR may just be a type that's too multifaceted or internalized to be easily fleshed out experimentally (it's also unique in the degree that it evokes pleasure/relaxation), and so meanwhile you will remain "just nuts".

euphoria · Jan 26, 2012

I've never had that feeling before going, but sometimes after. And I've definitely had it after going #1 or #2 while on drugs. lol

Renz Envy · Jan 26, 2012

Theories

1) A large amount of serotonin is located in the gut
2) The movement of gas could cause a relief of pressure resulting in pleasure
3) Blood rushing through the gut.

It is a nervous, relaxing feeling.

That immensely euphoric state prior to a bowel movement, what causes it?

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