Body and Mind Experiments

Your Arms Will Play Tricks on You

Stand in a doorway with your hands by your side. Press the back of your hands against the frame (like you're trying to raise your hands.) Stand there for about a minute but keep pressing your hands against the frame. Then step out of the doorway and let your hands relax at your side. What happens?

Your arms raised by themselves right? The entire time you pressed your hands against the frame, your brain was sending signals to your muscles to raise your arms. A signal was sent for long enough that there was tension on your muscles. When you relaxed your arms, there was still some tension so the arms began to rise. Weird, huh?

Here's another experiment. Lay down on the floor and close your eyes. Get a friend to lift your legs up and hold them there for about two minutes. Relax and think pleasant thoughts. Then your friend needs to lower your feet very slowly. Sounds boring but after a few seconds it'll feel like your legs are going through the floor. Instead, they're still being lowered.

You'll need a friend for this trick as well. Lay on your stomach with your arms stretched out above your head and your eyes closed. Have a friend hold them as high off the floor as possible - but not so it hurts. After about a minute, your friend needs to lower your arms very slowly. Like the above experiment, you'll think your arms should've touched the floor. It feels like you're falling even though you're lying down.

When your friend raises your legs, you must relax. Your brain goes back into a relaxed mode also, and forgets that your legs are raised (it thinks they're still on the floor). When your legs are put back down, it thinks they are on the ground so, when your legs are lowered... you get the sensation of falling!

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If you can give us an explanation for the last two experiments, we'd love to hear it. Kidzworld spent a lot of time digging around for answers and couldn't come up with anything. So if you have the facts, let us know.

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