The 5 Senses

Repeat after me - "magnum-5-senses-.co.uk" - what a great advert!

Definitely smell because I find it of no use and you'd avoid bad smells

 

I'd hate to lose my sight.. I'm a very very dependent person, and if put it a slightly tense or strange situation i can lose it completely.. To lose my sight would be awful..

 

Sight, for sure. Most of my skills are visual, so losing sight would completely change my life.

 

Sorry, reading back on it now, I thought it said which one would you least need so I put smell

Most definitely sight in that case then

 

I would least like too lose my sight because I need it everyday for what I do

controlmind

 

I am about 70% deaf and I just soon keep it that way!!!! I would hate to lose my sight!!! Even if you can't hear it...odds are there is some visual aid that will KIND OF make up for not hearing it!!!! And not having good hearing...I personally need the sight to be able to read lips!!!!

Fortunately for me...I've been hearing impaired since I was 6 months old (due to extremely high fever caused by pneumococcal meningitis, which fried my hearing nerves)...and my parents raised me in the public school system and put in in the most normal of enviroments, whatever it should be...and now being 32yrs old and looking back...I am SOOOO glad they did things the way they did!!! I feel it has made as "normal" of a human being as one can be!!!! So...in a sense (no pun intended!! LOL)...I never really had to "so called" adapt to it!! Fortunately for me!!!!

As far as an experimental surgery with 50/50 odds...NO, HELL NO...there is what they call the cochlear implant...which they drill into the side of your head to implant this thing...then they fixate this transmitter looking gadget, permanently on the side of your head!!!! They say it either works excellent, or everything sounds like a broken radio!! No thanks...I'll pass!!!! I'll stick with my hearing aid, thank you very much!!!!!

Roger

 

the sense i need the most is my sixth one. i rely on my instincts to deal with what life brings, and my inner voice is very loud.

 

It worked for that teacher in Ojai, California who was in a parachute accident.....

 

Sight is the one I couldn't do without. Being a surgeon, it really helps to be able to see what I'm (or was) doing. Now, if I had had decent vision, I'd have been a navy jet pilot. Probably just as well that I didn't.

 

I wouldn't want to lose my sight, wouldn't be able to work!
Losing my hearing would be a close second as I love to listen to music.
I, too, could live without the smelling!

 

It would be sight for me.
Do you realise that if you lose your smell you also lose taste with it.

matt

 

Very good question Halo! And I'm happy to say you won't be disappointed..you're getting my expected lengthy reply! LOL I did try to shave it down....really I did!

For me it would definitely be sight. I have in the past couple of years had to face the fact that I finally need glasses and in some small recess of my brain it freaks me out. I realize a large portion of the population wears glasses..heck..my kids had to wear them starting at ages 2 & 5 but I have never faced this until now so it's been a real wake up call for me.

I spend the majority of my time using my eyes for close up work...I read a couple books a week, I spend hours on end doing graphics design and other puter stuff, I crochet like a mad woman! (lol), I sew and just received sketches to make a wedding gown and 3 brides maid dresses. Without my sight I couldn't do any of this...nor could I enjoy the simple things in life that have always brought me so much pleasure..looking at what is all around us....the trees & flowers, the sky & grass, the birds & butterflies...a child's smile and the twinkle in their eyes. *sigh* I would be totally and completely lost without my sight. I'm a detail oriented person, always have been so I really think it is the one sense I rely on the most.

And finally, yes I would definitely step up to the plate for an experimental procedure if I had a 50/50 chance of regaining my sight.

 

Pretty interesting, but how could that be? I can understand losing some taste but what about all those taste buds on your tongue?
Then again, when you have a cold and you can't breathe out of your nose since it's so stuffed up, and you go to eat (if you're not that sick) you don't really taste much.....hmmmm.....

 

Just a small interesting web site for reading about taste and smell.

I don't know all the facts, just that one doesnt work well with out smell.

http://www.blkbox.com/~rdevere/tsdc/howwork.html

matt

 

i think sight is the obvious answer for most people as losing your sight would have the most debilitating affect on your normal every day life...


ever notice how if you pinch your nose, you can't taste anything? so i think losing your sense of smell would also take away your ability to taste (if that were even possible)

 

Sight...for the simple reason that I wouldn`t actually be able to see my youngest get her sheepskin.

 

Alan Shepard had it, it worked, he was back on flight status and walked on the moon

Another vote here for sight; I'd also be willing to take a 50/50 chance on an experimental procedure; in my next life I'm probably coming back as a lab rat anyway .

 

My biggest fear of the cochlear implant, would be....since I can still hear about 60% out of one ear...they would do the implant on the one that was totally out of commission...that being the case...I fear the sound created by the implant into the deaf ear would clash horribly with the 100% natural sound coming in the somewhat good ear!!!! The only thing I could think of is it would be like listening to two opposite voiceas in your head screaming at one another constantly without any way to turn it off!!

I don't know...I could be talking out of my arse too!! I really haven't studied it too much...especially lately...I'm assuming they've continued to perfect it as time goes on, but I don't know??!!

Guess maybe I would contemplate the idea if I knew they could return everything back to the way it was if it does turn out to be a horrible experience!! Otherwise...I have learned to live the way I am (most people I first meet, say they would have never been able to tell had I not said something) and I wouldn't want to POSSIBLY jeorpordize what hearing I do have!!!!

All this rambling has gotten me curious now...perhaps I should do a little more research!!!!

Roger

 

For me it would also be sight, but for very different reasons. Yes, losing sight would be debilitating, but thousands have and they get around those issues so that they can still lead full and enjoyable lives. For me it would be the sadness of not being able to look at the beauty in this world.......the natural landscape and it's awesome features. But most of all people...I love to see people smiling...I would truly miss that.

I have tinnitus, so hearing is already an issue for me. Some days are worse than others, but on a 50/50 operation, I wouldn't change it. In fact I don't think I would even if the odds were better. Some people deal with a whole lot more than this, and quite frankly, I've had enough other surgery/illness to last me forever If it were life threatening, then that would be different.

 

My first knee-jerk reaction was sight, also. But then I thought, if one was totally devoid of touch (i.e. total lack of any feeling), then that would be far worse. Why? Because, for one thing you wouldn't even be able to walk, because you would not feel the ground beneath you, or any objects around you.

You would have to keep checking that you were waring clothes and shoes and such. Trying to do simple things like combing your hair without a mirror would be hard.

Serious injuries or even death would occur, because you wouldn't have any idea that you are being injured, until you saw blood everywhere or something, or couldn't move because of broken bones.

Even human relationships would be doubtful if you could only look and talk with any meaning.

I mean, it would probably drive one insane pretty quick to just feel like you're floating in some kind of weird void permanently.

 

Wow...that's a pretty interesting spin!!!

But once again...SEEING it would somewhat compensate for what you couldn't feel!!!! I would way rather SEE the wall and not walk into it, as opposed not see it and it hurt when I hit the wall!!!

I know that might be a little extreme, but i'm sure you understand what I'm talking about!!

Roger

 

You make some interesting points Barry....I guess it's all in how you interpret the question posed. I for example took the sense of touch to be limited to what I would feel with my hands, not my entire body. Most that I know who have lost the sense of touch lose it only in one specific region of the body such as feet, hands, one or both legs, etc.

 

I was thinking the same thing when I read these responses, Phantom. A total loss of touch would mean paralysis, right -- so that would definitely be the most missed.

Though, it seems most people didn't take it that way, so barring a complete loss of touch, sight would be most important to me.

 

A question for you Lev. my step-dad has a touch of Tinnitus, not so bad. I do know someone else who has it really bad and he has this little machine that when it's bothering him really bad he turns it on and it makes kind of a static sound, says it helps him a lot.
I'm sure you have heard of or have one yourself, so if you do.....do you find it helps you?

 

I don't have one. I have enough whistles and bells going on in my ears without static as well It's hereditary from my father, and also aggravated by an illness I used to have. Thankfully this is the only remaining side effect I have so I am just grateful this is all I have to live with now

 

I can understand that. I believe he said that when all is quiet wherever he is, and his Tinnitus is bad, he puts it on as sort of a distraction.
I never knew that was heriditary.

 

The nearest thing I've encountered to total loss of all feelings was years ago when I was wounded in the army.

The level of pain-killers was so high, along with nervous system damage, I couldn't feel anything at all when I first came too. It was pretty frightening, really - you can't even speak hardly, except with great difficulty, because you have no idea wether your jaw is moving or your tongue. Being able to see (at least partly) didn't help, just added to the confusion. Trying to walk is hopeless, about all you can do is roll around, and inadvertently cause more injury, because I lost the feeling of balance as well, due to deadening of inner ear nerves.

Imagine falling, but never landing is weird and very scary and disorientating. A bit like when you have a tooth pulled, and it feels like half of your face is missing, but all over – not nice.

If that condition was permanent, it would bother me even more than being blind by a fair margin.

 

Like most of the folks that have responded, I also would hate to lose my sight. I think I'd cope better with losing ANY of the other four - can't imagine not being able to see my grandkids (when I have them, on some far distant day) . . . or be able to play on the internet in the usual way, or drive a car. Second would be touch, I guess - it's hard to imagine not being able to feel when something is hurting you.

All in all, I think I'd most rather lose my sixth sense . . . I don't use it much, anyway . . . else I'd be better at poker!

 

Actually...not true!!

I read once in a people magazine about kids, and later grown ups, that have a condition (can't remember what it is called) that their nerves don't work properly, so therefore they can't feel ANYTHING!!!! The parents of one child said it was kind of nice to a certain extent, but in reality...it is a nightmare!!!! It was convenient when the child would get in a slight brush with danger (like road rash from falling on the sidewalk) they wouldn't scream for hours about the pain, but....at the same time, it was dangerous because in that same fall they could have broken their arm and unless it was disfigured from the break...they had no way of knowing if it was more serious than the road rash, or not!!!! The doctors say that when you get older you learn how to cope with it, and what precautionary measures to take in your everyday life!!!!

Other than the article in the people magazine, I don't really know that much about it...but I thought it was interesting that someone could not feel anything!!!!

Roger

 

That's where AC/DC comes in for me

 

Gotcha! LMAO!