Psychosomatic

One of my favorite words is:

Psychosomatic

It tastes like a sour pop rocks milkshake, all sharp corners meshed with silky fricatives.

“Psychosomatic” literally breaks down to “mind sensation (adjective form)”. In more words, it describes a physical feeling that your brain makes you feel, often in response to stress or habitual triggers.

For example, there’s a big presentation and you really don’t want to do it, so you fantasize about getting sick. Then your stomach actually starts hurting. There’s no physical reason for it, but the pain and discomfort is there nonetheless - that’s a psychosomatic stomachache.

Or if every time you go past a certain corner, you stub your toe - but today you didn’t, and somehow your toe still pangs. That’s a psychosomatic stubbed toe - your brain had all the pain juices ready and by golly all that preparation wasn’t going to go to waste.

The sensation is real, but the stimulus may not be. That doesn’t mean the pain is fake.