The scientific explanation for chills is that the emotions evoked by beautiful or meaningful music stimulate the part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which controls primal drives such as hunger, sex and rage and also involuntary responses like blushing and goosebumps. When the song soars, your body can't help but shiver.
Some people report lots of skin orgasms and some people say they never get them, but the personality trait “openness to experience” seems like a good predictor. (By "open to experience" the researchers seem to mean those people who enjoy art, good movies, aesthetic stuff.)
A very interesting article. I usually experience such chills during powerful moments in movies; listening emotion filled music such as Mumford and Sons (just about anything from them) or Bon Ivor's Skinny Love; hear, seeing, and listing to accounts of immense acts of courage, kindness,love, or self-sacrifice; reading my favorite currently in progress poem by a fiend of mine; and many others. For me, the chills occur most often on one side of my body and in different places (mostly over my face, neck, hand, knee) with each experience. The entire sensation rarely covers my entire body. If I can remember correctly, one such experience was during the Green Mile during the execution scene.
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