A sixth sense? Guess again. Researchers have discovered that humans have between nine and 21 senses (sight, taste, touch, pressure, itch, thermoception, sound, smell, proprioception, tension sensors, nociception, equilibrioception, stretch receptors, chemoreceptors, thirst, hunger, magnetoception, time. Generally, common knowledge is that humans have five senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound. Our very existence is defined by anything and everything we experience through those five senses. But today, science has come to a conclusion that there are much more than just five senses.
What Is This All About?
We’ll try to make it very simple. If you want to determine how many senses humans actually have, you simply need to count how many sensors are there. For example, sound sensors are the tiny hairs in your inner ear. Got it? It is not that simple, though. Your ears also have sensors for orientation and balance. Our eyes have two different types of light sensors, and our skin has at least five types of sensors, including those for heat, cold, pressure, itch, and pain. Thirst and hunger are also senses. Some of these sensors combine their abilities to create one major sense. For example, the balance sensors in your inner ear working together with the light sensors in your eyes allows us to walk or stand still without falling. This collaboration is called equilibrioception or sense of balance. Sensors in your skin, joints, and muscles, also work together to create proprioception. Proprioception is the sense of the position and movement of neighboring parts of the body and muscle tension. It is the perception of “body awareness,” the “unconscious” awareness of where the various regions of the body are located at any time.
