Radiolab - The Holy Shiver

What your body knows that your brain doesn’t … yet.

Duration: 41m
Broadcast on: 10 Jul 2026
Audio Format: other

Lauren Brown gets goosebumps. A lot. Sometimes several times a day. When her partner, writer Carmen Maria Machado, noticed it...she couldn't stop thinking about it. Why does she get them in so many different situations? What’s happening in her body and what does it mean? We take that question and run with it. We face chilly winds, sudden frights, and moments when the world seem to shift under your feet to figure out what the little bumps on our skin might be trying to tell us.

Special thanks to Rachel Gross, Gregory Rupik

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by Maria Paz Gutierrez
Produced by Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan
Fact-checking by Angely Mercado

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Website -

Institute for Advanced Consciousne http://www.advancedconsciousness.org ss Studies (advancedconsciousness.org) - If you want to check out more of the work Felix and Nicco are conducting.

Software -

Rewire website (https://rewire.bio) - Check out Felix and Nicco's Holy Shiver generator and signup for early access to their app.

Videos -

Hallelujah (https://zpr.io/6ak2f), performed by Rufus Wainwright, accompanied by 1500 singers
De Ushuaia a La Quiaca (https://zpr.io/PcYbN)
Alysa Liu wins the Olympic gold medal for the United States (https://zpr.io/Q7pPNkYSTGVd)

Books -

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado
On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters, by Bonnie Tsui (https://www.bonnietsui.com/)

Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

WNYC Studios is supported by ODU. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. ODU solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. ODU is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out ODU at ODOO.com. That's ODOO.com. WNYC Studios is supported by WYSE. WYSE, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the world. With a WYSE account, you can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get WYSE. Download the WYSE app today. Terms and conditions apply. Radio Labs supporters include the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Picture this, years of guarantee research support and a vibrant scientific community that has your back. If you're a PhD student, postdoc, or early career faculty in the biological or biomedical sciences, that doesn't have to be a fantasy. HHMI has a program for you. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute supports scientists at every career stage with a people-not-projects approach, long-term support, and the resources for breakthrough science. Applications open now. Find your program at h-h-m-i dot org slash radio lab. Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. From WNYC. Hey, it's Lou. Gonna kick off today with a little ghost story for you. So there's this woman. And she's going through weight loss surgery. And when she gets home, she starts hearing these gurgles and creeks and realizes she is being stalked by the former bits of herself. Her flesh that she has cut away. Or there is a house that is maze-like and haunted by quiet cruelties that occur between you and your partner, and it feels like there is no way out. These are some of the stories of the prize-winning writer Carmen Maria Machado. Some of them are true. Some of them are fiction, all of them are charged with this sense of spookiness. I have spent hours of my life being pleasantly spooked by her, and so I was totally delighted. When she wrote into our show, wondering about something that had happened with her partner of four years, Lauren Brown. You're rolling? Yes. I gotta tell you that.

Transcription truncated.

What your body knows that your brain doesn’t … yet.