The Mystery of Heebie-Jeebies

The human senses never cease detecting things the brain finds a way to dread

Mar 16, 2024

∙ Paid

HEEBIE-JEEBIES IS BOTH the informal and the default technical term for a dysphoric response to an innocent-seeming stimulus. Styrofoam, celery, wicker: Something in these materials represents a sensorial crisis for certain human bodies. The primordial heebie-jeebies—revulsion perceived variously in the spine, the molars, the bristling of hairs on the ba…

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