Ghost Sensations Across the Body: Trait and State Differences in Spontaneous Somatic Experience

Abstract

When we pause and relax, strange sensations might arise; a tingling in the hand, an itch on the foot, often without any clear cause. These “ghost” bodily experiences, known as spontaneous sensations (SPS), offer a unique window into how we perceive our bodies. In an online experimental study of 175 participants, we examined how SPS differ across body regions (hands, feet, whole body) and whether individual differences in visual attention shape these experiences. We measured both the general tendency to notice SPS (SPS_Trait) and in-the-moment awareness of them (SPS_State), alongside performance on a visual Posner task of endogenous attention. SPS_Trait was reported more strongly in the whole body compared to the feet, suggesting a broad, higher-order body representation. In contrast, SPS_State did not vary by body part. These experiences, whether momentary that is, SPS_State, or habitual that is, SPS_Trait, were unrelated to how participants performed on the visual attention task. Our findings support a representational distinction: SPS_Trait may reflect somatorepresentation, a top-down, global body model, whereas SPS_State may arise from bottom-up somatosensation.