According to the number of sense organs, five main types of sensations are distinguished: smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing. According to the subjective distinguishability (by modality) of sensations, visual, auditory, vestibular, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, motor (muscular), pain and visceral sensations are distinguished. There are intermodal sensations — synesthesia.
According to the location of the receptors (C. Sherrington’s classification), there are:
- Exteroceptive sensations — sensations from receptors located on the surface of the body, outside.
- proprioceptive (kinesthetic) sensations — from receptors located in muscles, tendons and articular bags. These are sensations of movement and the relative position of body parts.
- interoceptive (organic) sensations — from receptors that transmit sensations to us from metabolic processes in the body.
From the point of view of the historical genesis of sensations, two types of sensitivity can be distinguished (X. Head): protopathic and epicritical. Epicritical is a later system, it gives subtle and well-localized sensations. Protopathic sensitivity is earlier, ancient, the sensations from it are diffuse, unclear, difficult to localize. Where do we feel hungry? What kind of place do we want to drink? Also, after a hand cut, a vague protopathic sensitivity is initially restored, and touching the skin is initially difficult to localize. Only gradually comes the subtle, epicritical sensitivity that we are accustomed to.
Sensations are both contact and distant. If a sensation does not require direct contact between the action and the receptor (nerve ending), then we are talking about a distant sensation. These sensations include visual, auditory, olfactory, etc. If, in order to form a sensation, the impact must be direct on the receptor, then we are talking about a contact sensation. It is touch, taste, pain, and so on.
Vibration sensations occupy an intermediate position, and as regards the sense of smell, in principle, it is difficult to say whether it is distant or contact: it is both at the same time. See →
In clinical practice, phantom sensations are observed when a person feels pain in the arm, which he has already lost.
Also, in addition to real feelings, people often talk about their metaphorical feelings: a feeling of freedom or constraint, a feeling of a light body or a feeling of a load on the soul, a feeling of flight or emotional pain. Such feelings-sensations, although they are rather psychological metaphors, often acquire the status of a life reality: people are ready to pay for ointments that give a feeling of a light body, and turn to psychotherapists about mental pain.
During training, people can cause certain sensations in an arbitrary way: for example, a feeling of heaviness and warmth in the body during auto-training. Thus, one can speak of involuntary, voluntary and post-voluntary sensations.