I can feel electricity in insulated cables - or even someone's skin if they are holding something plugged in

This happened tonight and having done some limited experiments I've realised that I can do this but my wife can't.

Since I was a teenager I've known that if I run my finger lightly along an insulated electrical cable(*), I can feel the "brrrrr" of the electricity if it's plugged in to the mains. I can't feel it if my finger is held motionless on the cable.

Tonight, I touched my wife's foot when she was holding her iPad that was plugged into her charger and I felt the same effect.

We did a blind test where I closed my eyes, and from running my finger along her foot I could tell if she was holding her iPad or not,

We then swapped places, and she couldn't repeat what I did.

This got me thinking - is my sense of touch really *that* sensitive?

Anyone else experience this? I've read nothing about anyone else being able to sense this, but it never really occurred to me to look into it.

This isn't a vague "woo woo" "I can feel electricity" thing - it's verifiably an effect and a definite conscious experience - and give or take I could probably tell the frequency of the AC electricity if I touched cables with sufficiently different frequencies of AC (let's say 30, 50, 70 Hz).

(*) the bog-standard flex that is used on common household appliances - especially (going back a few decades) rubber-insulated ones - but PVC works almost equally well.

Parents
  • very impressive. My explanation would be that you are able to feel the electromagnetic field around a power line.

    Have you done any experiments to see if you correctly can tell whether power is on or off, when you hold a cable?

    Well it won't be dangerous an is a skill, which probably has very little place in the world other than amusement and interest

Reply
  • very impressive. My explanation would be that you are able to feel the electromagnetic field around a power line.

    Have you done any experiments to see if you correctly can tell whether power is on or off, when you hold a cable?

    Well it won't be dangerous an is a skill, which probably has very little place in the world other than amusement and interest

Children
  • I can't tell if the power is on or off just by holding a cable, but can if I'm stroking it! :-).

    I don't think it's the E-M field, because I have to be touching it (even a millimeter away and the affect disappears) whilst the E-M field will be of reasonable strength in the near vicinity of the cable & decreases gradually away from it. I also know that the effect disappears if I'm not adequately "earthed" - so it's something to do with voltage.