My MC have an innate medical condition that made his nerves more sensitive towards response. At this moment, i write him to have the ability to use his senses better than others, but also means that any negative responses (pain, for example) will be multiplied as well. It gives him advantages in many situation, while also have its own drawbacks and consequences if he failed to control it. For example, adrenaline flowing through his body while he is angry will make him stronger, but being too angry could lead to him losing control and being dangerous even to his allies. The question is, beside those effects mentioned, are there any other side effects that i missed? Are there anything else that will happen to him beside having better senses, or maybe being more vulnerable to sunrays and cold temperature?
I don't know if your medical condition is real or any possible negative implications. But if the story is good , you don't need to be completely accurate. When the incredible Hulk got angry , he turn green and doubled in size . His shirt would split open , but his pants stayed the same .
Adrenaline doesn't work on the nervous system, so I'm not sure why it would make him stronger. Likewise, feelings like anger are a result of chemicals released into the brain, not nerve impulses. I'm more than happy to be corrected by a medical professional.
As @Naomasa298 said, it is also my understanding that adrenaline (epinephrine) doesn't work on the nervous system. As I understand it, it's because it's too large to pass through the blood-brain barrier. Again, also as I understand it, a more sensitive nervous system would give you seizures.
He doesn't really care about sex. Even though he do have a love interest in the story, he never even hoped for a kiss from her. But yeah, since they will end up together in the end of the story and having a son, i can imagine he will also feel doubled sensation of sexual pleasure (but since i don't think that i have to explain this since it's not really relevant to the plot, i will leave it unsaid).
I read some stuffs about how adrenaline works but i just cannot find a way to link it to my story, maybe i just cannot comprehend all the scientific words and writing a sci-fi story in the first place is a dangerous stunt for me. Could you please explain to me how adrenaline will affect human body? The inspiration of his power came out from the idea that people tend to be more aggresive than usual when they're angry, so i assume that adrenaline have a role in this. (Though, im not quite sure, can people also be physically stronger while being angry? Or is it just suggestion because they are more aggresive?)
Re: anger due to adrenaline, check out roid rage. But an extra sensitive nervous system would have nothing to do with generating extra adrenaline, however, it might amplify the effects of adrenaline. There would be many small things though. Men’s clothes tend to be tougher than women’s so the MC might prefer women’s clothes. Even women’s jeans are softer. Small things that irritate the skin would be blown up into constant pain. And so on and so on. Many more than I can think of in the fly.
In times of acute stress the "fight or flight" response is initiated, which triggers the sympathetic nervous system, leading to the release of adrenaline (and other hormones). The adrenaline contributes to making your body physiologically ready to "fight" or "flight" (run away). There are quite a lot of parts to the nervous system so it depends on what you mean by a "sensitive nervous system". It could mean the person experiences the fight/flight response more intensely or more often. It could mean that conduction pathways are over stimulated leading to seizures. It could mean that neuroplasticity occurs more intensely or without a trigger or warning, leading to both positive and negative consequences; chronic pain syndromes, relocation of nerve pathways etc. Neuroplasticity is basically the brain's ability to "rewire" itself so your character could, in theory, do whatever you want it to do as its a work of fiction.
When I think of sensory sensitive individuals I think of people with sensory processing disorder. In this regard at least. Which is I guess being constantly stressed by things like... The sensation of socks ending above the ankle. These people can't ignore small things like that. The feel of fabric, the texture of food, bright overhead lights, small noises. I'd say take the disorder and flip it on its head a little. He'll need a strong and intelligent mind in order to overcome the stress involved with this and use his sensitivity to his advantage. I'd likely still make him seek out sensory deprived situations to unwind since it's still stressful. Like, yeah he'll agree to help and be involved. But when he's not doing that he likes sitting in a dim room with white noise. I'd also give him very particular tastes in things like clothes and foods, and completely adverse to strong smells (perfume, scented deodorant, the smell of hot oil cooking, etc). I'd leave biochemistry out of it if I were you and drop the adrenaline thing. You can still use the same idea and just not explain it. Look up Berserkers. They are said to have entered a trance like state of aggression on the battlefield, relentlessly attacking their enemies without tiring.
Is it a medical condition or a developmental condition? If you google with words hypo hyper sensitivity you'll find a lot of things. Also hypersensitivity, hyposensitivity, sensory processing in Autism... But all that is mainly not about medical conditions. It's about developmental conditions.
Well prone to anxiety and nervous breakdowns. Further, tolerance to stress would be severely affected.
What most people don't understand is that most senses have different nerves for high and low sensitivity, just like an HDR camera sensor. When not sensitive enough, the signal quality will be bad. When too sensitive, the input may be out of range. Having multiple channels for the same value solves this using big rods for low-light and small cones for day-time color vision. With Aspergers causing both my high and low hearing to be sensitive, it's easier for me to hear a whisper than someone talking very loud because loud noises have an amplitude surpassing the maximum range of the nerve's pulse-width-modulation. I can use my hearing to perceive echoes from reflection. Tapping or clapping is distinct enough to listen for fast echoes. Sounds bending around corners create a refracted prism halo with higher pitch closer to the edges and lower tones further out, so the direction is known. The absence of ambient sound tells if someone is standing in a narrow space. I do not feel pain from drilling into my teeths other than coldness, so I never use anaesthesia at the dentist, no matter how deep they drill. Brains make a dark humming and slurping sound. Blood vessels sound like a river. Bones sound exactly like an old wooden ship in a storm. Intestines are the loudest organs with gases being released. Hearing a heartbeat from afar is still one of the hardest things to do, because it's very energy efficient. Everyone have their own organ sound to be identified from, especially breathing. When you keep raising the volume of your hearing using meditation, you will eventually feel overwhelmed by the rushing noise of your own blood. Lowering the blood pressure in a hot bath can allow hearing people talk past three layers of thick concrete, but you will only have a limited range of frequency due to sound diffusion in solid matter. While my gentle touch sense is amplified and sting pain make me go into shock, my heat and infection pain doesn't exist. I can feel warmth at 50-200°C and pain at 480°C, but everything in between just feels dry. I can use my skin to perceive heat radiation and use occlusion with an arm to pinpoint the distant source or render a heat image. Parfume will make me vomit and I can identify and track people using the smells. Cloth will store your smell for weeks for me to identify you with. Young women smell freshly sour and old women, just sour. Men smell salty leathery and gets more smell of sweat and urine when older. People with diabetes have a very intense smell of honey from their sweat and urine that almost make me vomit, like drowning in the thick smell.
That's really interesting, especially about your teeth. Does this mean you can never get a toothache? That might sound great, but could it also mean that a bad tooth or a tooth injury would simply not get noticed?
The flesh around my teeth are extra sensitive, so I can feel pain if something's stuck. The nerves inside the teeths are unsensitive in certain ways. Used to have an infected flesh wound that went unnoticed because I didn't feel a thing.
OP, increased sensitivity would make you migrate using the South Pole? Lol. Consider electromagnetic sensitivity. I hear flyback transformers (high voltage). Motor-starts and microwave starts make my eyes vibrate for a second. Some people can feel the electricity in the walls.
Wow. Thanks for telling us about this. I never heard of this condition before. I know people who have lost sensation due to nerve damage ...my husband is one of them. Due to surgery he had a few years ago, he has very limited feeling in the side of his face where the surgery was done. But that's ALL feeling, not selective sensations. That must be difficult to manage. Excessive pain in one respect, none in another. Yikes.
