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June 17, 2011

Are You Aware Of Your Tongue?

This is me. All the time. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I am aware of my tongue, aware of my teeth, and aware of the taste and the inside of my mouth. It is difficult to distract myself from it, and any distraction I do manage does not last long.

I know when my teeth are sensitive it's my thyroid, but I'm aware of them even when they are not tingling. I have no clue why this is so. I tried to Google it, but came up with nothing. Maybe I didn't phrase my question properly.

I wonder sometimes if this is why I eat so much. I have been known to eat or drink because I don't like the taste in my mouth. Sometimes I chew gum, and lately I've been trying to brush my teeth to change that taste.

I have a completely different obsession with food, where I'll start thinking about what I want to eat when I'm not even hungry. That happens a lot when I'm bored, like when I'm driving long distances. I don't know if the 2 are related, although I can see how the constant awareness would bring the subject around to what I can put in my mouth.

Do you have mouth awareness? Did I just give it to you? If I did, I'm sorry. Don't knock my block off.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey there! :) You're not alone in this tonque/mouth awareness thing. I'm 23 and I've been struggling with this annoying state for a while... and I kinda still am, because for some reason I keep trying to find an answer to this issue. I need to understand it. Actually, by searching "tongue aware" on Google, I've found this post.
What I've come to understand is that mostly you're aware of your teeth when you become aware of your tongue in the first place. It's the touch between the tongue and teeth. And this is also the time when it gets annoying, because the touch mixed with you stressing about it puts pressure in your mouth. And when you have pressure, you get tenseness.
There may be a connection with food, because you feel the need to have something in your mouth, so you don't have to feel your tongue in your mouth and stress about it.
Moving aside from the physical reactions of this state, I believe there's a deeper meaning to all this. It may be related to philosophy, existentialism and one's nature to understand himself and his existence. Some philosophers wrote great stuff from experiences like this. (eg. Jean Paul Sartre - Nausea)
So, don't be stuck on the surface of your thoughts. You're never alone and sometimes it's healthy to seek for deeper meanings. Don't try and simplify your thoughts just because it's difficult to understand... by trying to simplify something complicated you only make it more complicated. The key is to embrace and accept the complicated nature of who we are. Don't stress about it. This awareness only happens when you think about it. Keep yourself busy and when you do think about it, just let it go, your body works out just fine if you don't think about it... so there's no need in trying to control something like this. It's in the natural state of existing.
Hope my comment finds you well. For so long I felt weird for thinking about this and thought I was the only person in this world who ever thought about it... but truth is, you're never alone. And understanding who we are may be more complicated that we could ever think.