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I don't know if any of you all have heard of the concept known as Phantom Pager Syndrome. It's the idea of feeling your phone or pager going off, even when it isn't. This is something I've noticed on occasion for myself. Most often I get this sensation when I'm in the car and driving. Ever since I'd heard the term a few weeks back, and recognized that it wasn't just me having this feeling, I started paying specific attention. I've noticed the following.
The sensation isn't relative to the placement of my phone. The false sensation doesn't actually occur where my phone sits. My phone sits in my pocket. The sensation happens on the lower stretch of the thigh, closer to the knee. No matter how I sit or stand, it never aligns with where my phone would be in the pocket. The sensation happens at times when the phone is in my coat pocket. Or even when its not in my pocket at all, but sitting in the cupholder next to me. Even when I know, because I've just had the phone in my hand and placed it in the cup holder, I've been known to get the sensation.
Most recently, I got this sensation when I was laying down to nap for a bit. I got the feeling as if the phone were on the bed next to me and vibrating. Which, sometimes I do use the phone as a way of letting myself nap, but not oversleep. However in this particular case I hadn't. The phone wasn't in the room, wasn't even on that floor. But I got the sensation anyway.
So what I'm wondering is this: are these sensations we always had, but now, due to pagers and cellphones being so ubiquitous, we're interpreting the signals differently? IE, we always had those odd feelings before, but now the brian automatically associates it with a pager/cell? Or is it something that's induced by the practice of carrying a cell. I lean toward the former, because I think if it were the latter, then wouldn't the sensation happen more in alignment with where my phone normally resides?
So who all else experiences something like this?
The sensation isn't relative to the placement of my phone. The false sensation doesn't actually occur where my phone sits. My phone sits in my pocket. The sensation happens on the lower stretch of the thigh, closer to the knee. No matter how I sit or stand, it never aligns with where my phone would be in the pocket. The sensation happens at times when the phone is in my coat pocket. Or even when its not in my pocket at all, but sitting in the cupholder next to me. Even when I know, because I've just had the phone in my hand and placed it in the cup holder, I've been known to get the sensation.
Most recently, I got this sensation when I was laying down to nap for a bit. I got the feeling as if the phone were on the bed next to me and vibrating. Which, sometimes I do use the phone as a way of letting myself nap, but not oversleep. However in this particular case I hadn't. The phone wasn't in the room, wasn't even on that floor. But I got the sensation anyway.
So what I'm wondering is this: are these sensations we always had, but now, due to pagers and cellphones being so ubiquitous, we're interpreting the signals differently? IE, we always had those odd feelings before, but now the brian automatically associates it with a pager/cell? Or is it something that's induced by the practice of carrying a cell. I lean toward the former, because I think if it were the latter, then wouldn't the sensation happen more in alignment with where my phone normally resides?
So who all else experiences something like this?
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