5 Remarkable Senses You (Probably) Didn't Realise You Had

What is a Sense?

Any feedback we receive from the environment, through our body, which allows us to perceive the world around us, is referred to as a Sense.

These are broadly classified into two groups, Extroception and Introception.

Extroception are the class of senses which enable us to perceive the outside environment, that is, they help us create an image of the world beyond our own body. Introception, in turn, are the class of senses which responds to the stimuli inside ourselves, such as hunger and thirst.

Sight (vision), hearing (audition), taste (gustation), smell (olfaction), and touch (somatosensation) together constitute of the 5 basic senses. Also referred to as the Aristotelian senses, they fall under the category of extroceptive senses.

An allegory of five senses. Still Life by Pieter Claesz, 1623.

But this is hardly an exhaustive list. Let's discover a few senses without which humanity would've had an impossible time surviving.

1. Balance and Acceleration

Ever wondered why you feel dizzy after riding a winding rollercoaster?

You owe your perception of balance to a fluid present in your ear canals. When you get on a rollercoaster, or even simply turn round-and-round continuously, the fluid starts swirling. Even after you pause, it takes a while for the fluid to stop, and it feels as though the world is spinning around you.

In technical terms, this fluid is responsible for the two senses of angular acceleration and linear acceleration (which also senses gravity), but they are known together as Equilibrioception.

With out this sense, we wouldn't even be able to stand, much less walk or run around. So the next time you cycle down a slope or find yourself watching parkour videos, remember what makes it is all possible.

2. Kinesthetic Sense

Let's do a little experiment. I want you to do these three things for me.

• Move your right leg towards the left.

• Wiggle the little finger of your right hand.

• Close your eyes and touch your nose with the tip of a finger of your left hand.

Pretty simple right? But these mundane acts are only possible because of another very important sense we possess.

Proprioception is responsible for our awareness of the movement and relative position of our limbs in space at all times.

It's the reason why sports and dances are a reality and not just a fantasy like magic.
Not impressed? Well it's also the reason you can revel after killing a pesky mosquito.
I know, amazing isn't it?

3. Pain

Nociception, or pain is something we're all accustomed to, but few realise the importance of. It's indispensable for our survival, and a very necessary part of being a human.

Have you ever bit your tongue while chewing? Hurts terribly, doesn't it? But what do you do when that jolt of pain flows up your tongue? You stop chewing, right? Most of us also let out a scream, and a few choice curses thereafter, but that's okay.

Now imagine if you didn't feel pain. You'd never notice that you bit your tongue. And then what would happen? You'd chew right through it.

Sounds gory, doesn't it? Well Stefan Betz, a 21-year-old university student, has experienced it first hand. He suffers from a genetic disorder so rare that only a few hundred people worldwide are estimated to have it.

Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, or CIP is when you don't feel pain, at all.

"People assume that feeling no pain is this incredible thing and it almost makes you superhuman,” Betz says. “For people with CIP it’s the exact opposite. We would love to know what pain means and what it feels like to be in pain. Without it, your life is full of challenges.”

I know, pain as an occurrence in our daily lives sucks. But you better be thankful for the fact that you can feel it.

4. Time

Although there is no particular organ system associated with it, the work of psychologists and neuroscientists indicates that human brains do have a system governing the perception of time, also known as Chronoception.

I would think you can imagine how hard life would be without having a perception of time, so let's head over to the last sense of our list.

5. Agency

The sense of agency refers to the subjective feeling of having chosen a particular action.

Ever did something out of impulse and wondered why the heck you did it? Or helped someone and felt good about it? You owe it all to the sense of agency.

Some conditions, such as schizophrenia, can lead to a loss of this sense, causing a person to feel like a machine or even leading to delusions of being controlled from some outside source. The opposite extreme occurs too, with some people experiencing everything in their environment as if they had decided that it would happen.

Scary, right? But that just shows how important of a sense it is for our survival.