Game/Story that Makes "Cat Scratches" Suddenly Appear on Your Back?

[DCrist721]

When I was in Jr. High girls would do this thing where they would have someone lie down with their eyes closed, and then they would rub the person's temples in a circular motion while telling them a story. The story went something like this:

Everyday you take a walk through the park, and one day you came across a skinny looking cat, so you gave it some food and pet it. Everyday after that you came across the cat at the same place and gave it some of your food and pet it for a little while. Today when you came upon the cat you had to food to give it, but when you went to go pet it it started hissing at you, so you started to turn away and leave when it jumped up and clawed at your back, leaving three big red scratches.

The words "three big red scratches" would be repeated several times and then the volunteer would get up and be asked to lift up the back of their shirt, and sure enough, nine times out of ten there were three long scratches down their back, sometimes more.

Anyway, I remembered this today and I was wondering if anyone knew what this game was called, and one what physiological/psychological principles it works on. If you know of a web page that explains this phenomenon, that would be great.

 

[QueenInNC]

When I was in Jr. High girls would do this thing where they would have someone lie down with their eyes closed, and then they would rub the person's temples in a circular motion while telling them a story. The story went something like this:

Everyday you take a walk through the park, and one day you came across a skinny looking cat, so you gave it some food and pet it. Everyday after that you came across the cat at the same place and gave it some of your food and pet it for a little while. Today when you came upon the cat you had to food to give it, but when you went to go pet it it started hissing at you, so you started to turn away and leave when it jumped up and clawed at your back, leaving three big red scratches.

The words "three big red scratches" would be repeated several times and then the volunteer would get up and be asked to lift up the back of their shirt, and sure enough, nine times out of ten there were three long scratches down their back, sometimes more.

Anyway, I remembered this today and I was wondering if anyone knew what this game was called, and one what physiological principles it works on. If you know of a web page that explains this phenomenon, that would be great.

No idea, but WOW!!

 

[DCrist721]

I know this is a really random thread even for the General Discussion sub-forum, but I was suddenly reminded of this today and wanted to ask about it before I forgot. Surely there has to be someone here who knows a little bit about physical response to psychological stimuli? I can't find anything on google, although perhaps I just don't know what terms I should be searching for exactly.

 

[Programmer]

Very interesting story. LOL you're not serious about this "psychological stimuli" stuff are you?

While I haven't heard of this exact tale, I am familiar with similar ones. It is most certainly a "magic trick", for lack of a better term. The way I would do it is distract the person while slightly scratching them, before the "performance" even started. Perhaps in the process of getting them to lie down.

 

[DCrist721]

No I'm serious, I seem to remember there being a few doctors here so I thought maybe one of them could chime in. And it's not a magic trick; I remember doing it to my sibling and it worked on the second try. The mind is very capable of initiating physiological responses to things which may not be occurring, for example nocturnal emissions.

I just don't remember all the details or if it had a name. I asked three of my high school/middle school friends who were online about it but they didn't remember anything because they were all guys and this was mostly just popular among the girls for some reason. Maybe it had to do with homophobia and guys not feeling comfortable massaging another guy or being massaged by another guy at the temples. Whatever the reason was, I can't get information about this anywhere.

 

[Programmer]

I've actually been searching around for this since making that post.

Only thing I've come up with so far is this from Yahoo Answers:

How to do the "chicken scratches on back" trick?

No real _answers_ there at all, but it may give you more to go on as far as search terms. I find a few things interesting: Story can vary quite a bit it seems. I guess in one variation the scratches mean a cat is going to kill you! One person mentioned lying on their back, while another on their stomach. No mention of rubbing temples there.

The only commonality seems to be the scratches, and given that the position of the body doesn't matter this leads me to believe the scratches are definitely there before the trick even begins.

Me, I nearly _always_ have scratches on my back. Probably from scratching myself in my sleep, who knows. (Does that happen to anyone else?)

I'm about to start posting this question on a few magicians forums I used to frequent. Although I am 100% convinced it's a trick, I do want to see a writeup of it. If for no other reason cause the varying cat stories have gotta be interesting and I love cats.

 

[DCrist721]

I've actually been searching around for this since making that post.

Only thing I've come up with so far is this from Yahoo Answers:

How to do the "chicken scratches on back" trick?

No real _answers_ there at all, but it may give you more to go on as far as search terms. I find a few things interesting: Story can vary quite a bit it seems. I guess in one variation the scratches mean a cat is going to kill you! One person mentioned lying on their back, while another on their stomach. No mention of rubbing temples there.

The only commonality seems to be the scratches, and given that the position of the body doesn't matter this leads me to believe the scratches are definitely there before the trick even begins.

Me, I nearly _always_ have scratches on my back. Probably from scratching myself in my sleep, who knows. (Does that happen to anyone else?)

I'm about to start posting this question on a few magicians forums I used to frequent. Although I am 100% convinced it's a trick, I do want to see a writeup of it. If for no other reason cause the varying cat stories have gotta be interesting and I love cats.

If this is a magic trick, how did I do it to my brother years ago without knowing the trick? I mean, if it worked the first time I could say that maybe he had the scratches before hand, but it didn't work the first time, when I looked there was nothing, so I tried it one more time and then it worked. I've seen things like this happen before. One of my friends developed a rash because she found out that she walked through poison ivy, but the next day it was gone. You have no idea what the mind is capable of. I'm sure if we could get a doctor in here they could explain this.

 

[CaSHMeRe]

CRAPPPPP!!!! Where's Joanna when I need her to give this a shot !!!!

IF it doesn't work, I do have 2 kitties that WILL make it work

 

[DCrist721]

I don't remember all the details Steve, but I'm trying to track down some of the girls that I went to Jr. High with so they can tell me more about it. If you thought that in my last post I meant that I recently did it to my brother based on only the information I posted above, I mislead you, I just edited it so people realize that when I tried it on my brother it was when I first found out about this.

Oh, and I received your package today, shipping was really fast. The only thing is one of the bottles leaked all over the others during shipment even though it was sealed, when I opened it the bottle didn't have a dropper top though. I don't really care because I'm not a big fan of Pina Colada anyway, but I just thought you should know so you can double check the rest of the bottles.

 

[Programmer]

I'm sure if we could get a doctor in here they could explain this.

If I were to ask my father (an M.D.) about this, he would seriously question what the PG is doing to my mind. Seriously. ROFL!! You're a blast DC, I'll give ya that.

FYI I haven't had the guts to tell him what I'm smoking now. I'll be doing that this week most likely. Just an aside.

 

[~kerri]

There was a similar "game" we played in my jr high school - one girl would lie on her back and 6 others would each put 2 fingers from each hand under her at various points (head, feet, shoulders, hips) everyone would close their eyes and someone would tell a story of the girl dying or something like that- the story varied but it always ended with the words "...she is heavy as a rock (everyone but the one lying down repeated this aloud) she is light as a feather (again repeated by everyone) LIFT (said as a command)" at this point everyone would lift the girl with just the 2 fingers of each hand. it almost always worked and also almost always collapsed when someone would open their eyes or the person was lifted as high as we could go. when it "collapsed" it did so abruptly and the lift-ee would fall crashing down because we could suddenly no longer hold her up. I hadn't thought about that in years till I saw your post. Thanks for the memory jog!

 

[Lika]

Hi DC,

When I was a little boy, about 6, I remember my older sister trying this on me. That was nearly 30 years ago!

I doubt I've thought of it since then until now when I came across your post. I was like, "whoah!" when I read this.

From what I remember it was almost the exact same as what you've said here with the cat. I don't remember word for word but I do remember her repeating the lines over and over again about three big scratches or maybe it was three long scratches. She blindfolded me and as she told the story she ran her fingers lightly up and down my back but didn't scratch me. So there was no temple rubbing.

It didn't work on me but I was also probably thinking the whole time that it was just a joke. She was a tomboy and was always pranking me. At the time I was somewhat cautious if I thought she might be up to something, lol. Most was all in good fun and certainly no harm done.

That's about all I remember. I have no idea what what she called it or even if it had a name. I do remember her saying her friends swore by it and that she tried it two or three times on me without success.

I would ask her the details if she were still alive but unfortunately she passed very untimely a few years back. With that said, this was a really cool post that brought back some fun memories that I had forgotten. Thanks

 

[melissa]

Yeah it does sound like Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board. I loved that game and the ouija board !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lika]

There was a similar "game" we played in my jr high school - one girl would lie on her back and 6 others would each put 2 fingers from each hand under her at various points...

I actually saw this one in a movie or maybe it was a TV show. Some teens at a sleepover were doing this and had the girl elevated when someone walked in the room. They lost concentration and she came tumbling to the floor, lol.

 

[DCrist721]

I'm really sorry to hear about your sister Lika. I hope that recalling these memories wasn't upsetting at all for you. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to lose a sibling at a young age. I'm glad that recalling these memories brought happiness to your heart, I just hope that they didn't fill your heart with any sadness


To people talking about the light as a feather thing, I've seen that one too but I don't see what's so mysterious about how that works. You can hold almost as much weight with your index and middle finger as you can with your whole hand, and you only need a couple of people to lift someone. So if you have a group of 5 or 6 people, it should be pretty easy to lift someone. And since the person whom is lying down remains "stiff as a board," the weight is more evenly distributed and makes lifting the person up a lot easier then say, trying to life up someone who has passed out from drinking too much.

 

[keygiepay]

Sorry this might be off topic.My cat is getting old and ...... everywhere. grrrr!I need to remove cat pee odor from a carpet. Does anyone no a good product or household remedy to remove cat pee from carpet?thanks in advance.charlie

 

[Miss Shapen]

Sorry this might be off topic.My cat is getting old and ...... everywhere. grrrr!I need to remove cat pee odor from a carpet. Does anyone no a good product or household remedy to remove cat pee from carpet?thanks in advance.charlie

Sorry, but the only thing I've ever seen that will completely get rid of cat pee is to remove the carpet and scrub the floor...not even the professional carpet cleaners can get it all out.

 

[geeker]

Sorry this might be off topic.My cat is getting old and ...... everywhere. grrrr!I need to remove cat pee odor from a carpet. Does anyone no a good product or household remedy to remove cat pee from carpet?thanks in advance.charlie

There's a product called NokOut that is good for that.
I think it's just Nokout.com

 

[truthseeker]

Sorry this might be off topic.My cat is getting old and ...... everywhere. grrrr!I need to remove cat pee odor from a carpet. Does anyone no a good product or household remedy to remove cat pee from carpet?thanks in advance.charlie

Don't know about the stain but Billy Mays is hawkin' this product for the smell:

www.whatodor.com

Have a great day!

 

[MonkeyMonk]

Sorry this might be off topic.My cat is getting old and ...... everywhere. grrrr!I need to remove cat pee odor from a carpet. Does anyone no a good product or household remedy to remove cat pee from carpet?thanks in advance.charlie

Natures Miracle, Kids and Pets are the 2 products that I have used.

1. Use a black light to locate all the spots, then, blot entire area until dry, and assume the soiled spot is 3x larger than what you see. Mark off the area with masking tape so you know where your boundaries are
2. Using a basting syringe poke through the carpet and saturate the padding with either Natures Miracle or Kids and Pets every 3 inches. Work from the outer corners inward so that the area of urine is completely treated and does not enlarge.
3. After the padding has been treated, pour more Kids and Pets or Natures Miracle on the top of the carpet
4. Allow to fully dry
5, Repeat the process about 3 times to ensure you got it all

BTW. For anything that gets laundered: use enzyme detergent and 2 cups of Apple Cider Vinegar