Sudden shiver down your spine
A sudden shiver was explained in old England as someone walking over the spot of your future grave, and the antiquary Grose joked that whole parishes would be shaking if it were true. And not every chill comes from dread.
This page only describes folk beliefs. If the sensation keeps coming back or worries you, please see a doctor.
What it may mean
A shiver out of nowhere has a famous explanation: someone has just walked over the place where you will one day be buried. The English antiquary Grose recorded the saying and then poked fun at it. If it were true, he wrote, people in parishes whose burial grounds lay along the common footpath would live in one continued fit of shaking. His joke is a good model: take a strange moment seriously enough to notice it and lightly enough to smile. Not every chill has to do with fear. Plenty of people feel one at the swell of a song, the end of a good story, a sudden view from a hilltop, a moment of being deeply moved. The next time one runs down your back, notice which kind it was and what had just caught you.
Depending on how you saw it
A shiver on a warm day
A chill on a hot afternoon feels especially odd, because nothing in the air explains it. Old sayings blamed graves and ghosts. What story do you reach for when something happens to you without an obvious cause?
Chills while listening to music
A shiver at a certain chord or voice is a familiar way to feel moved by music. It arrives without permission and leaves fast. Which song or sound reliably does this to you, and when did you last play it on purpose?
A chill on entering certain places
Sometimes a place brings on a chill the moment you enter: a cold basement, an empty hall, an old house. The feeling makes people say a room has a mood. Which places make you feel at ease right away, and which make you want to leave?
Trembling before a big day
An old English play joked that a sudden trembling was always the first sign of a bride. Nerves before something important can feel a lot like cold. What big step ahead of you is giving you shivers, and how much of it is excitement?
Why it happens in nature
Brief shivers and chills are a familiar experience. They can come with a cool draft or a change of temperature, but also with strong feelings such as surprise, fear or being moved by music.
What folk beliefs say
England
Grose, quoted by Brand, recorded the saying that a person suddenly taken with a shivering has just had someone walk over the spot of their future grave, and added that if it were true, people in parishes whose burial grounds lay along the footpath would be shaking all the time.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 177. View the page
England
In The Game at Chesse, an old English play quoted by Brand, a character troubled by a sudden fear and a faint trembling is told it bodes good fortune, because such trembling is always the first sign of a bride.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 173. View the page
To reflect on
What was the last thing that gave you chills in a good way?