The central experiments consisted of attempts to measure potential changes in the
erogenous zones during pleasurable or unpleasurable stimulation: tickling (pleasurable) and
sudden pressure or sound (unpleasurable). His data showed that
(1) When the subject felt pleasurable streaming sensations, the skin poten-
tial increased in a positive direction.
(2) When the subject felt pain, pressure, or any unpleasant sensation or
emotion (except for anger), the potential became more negative.
(3) The subjective intensity of the sensation reported by the subject cor-
related well with the quantitative positive or negative change.
(4) The same subject responded differently on different occasions in
accordance with his or her general mood.
(5) There was a “disappointment” reaction. After a response to fright, pos-
itive changes are much more difficult to obtain. It is as if the organism had become
“cautious.”
(6) Reich also noted a “dulling” effect. If the same pleasurable stimulus
was given repeatedly, the initial positive tracings flattened out.These findings depended upon one critical condition: the appropriate subject had
to be emotionally healthy enough to feel pleasure, and particularly pleasurable streamings, in
his or her body, and to be able to report these sensations accurately. Here we encounter one
of the problems of evaluating Reich’s research: most subjects are unable to feel or report
these sensations reliably, and no other researcher has ever taken such variables into account.
Reich found that an erect penis with no pleasure sensations had no increase in positive
potential. These observations supported Reich’s orgasm theory: mechanical tension (such as
erection) had to be followed by energetic charge (more positive potential) before adequate
pleasurable discharge and relaxation could take place.
In a “critical control,” Reich drove home his assertion that sensation and charge are
identical.He had his subjects sit in a separate room from the experimenters, connected to
the amplifier by long wires. They would tickle or stimulate themselves according to instruc-
tions,and then,based on their qualitativesensations and emotions,they predicted the kind of
quantitativetracing. Their guesses matched the tracings. For example, a subject reported two
strong sensations of pleasure while tickling her nipple near the electrode, corresponding
with the two sharpest positive deflections of the tracing. Reich could now offer evidence
that subjects only showed significant positive potential changes at erogenous zones when
they subjectively felt pleasure, and that they did not feel pleasure without an increasing pos-
itive potential: the two processes appeared to be identical.
Reich also described some measurements of breathing taken over the abdomen,
showing more negative potentials with inspiration and more positive potentials with expira-
tion.He was not surprised when subjects with more inhibited respiration and less capacity
to exhale completely showed less positive potential change during expiration than healthier
202 Myron SharafFury On Earth