Why does warm water on your hands make you have to pee?

It is a product of classical conditioning. When you were a baby, you associated the feeling of liquid warmth with urination. That linkage became well established after a period of 2 years or so, and remains in your unconscious.

@pdworkin So we’re all Pavlov’s dogs? Is that how simple this is? What other things besides warm water on the hand are we conditioned to do at such an early age?

How have we not shed this subconscious brainwashing as we’ve grown older? Is it that engrained into us? Holy cow.

Conditioning is just another word for learning. Everything we do is conditioned in some fashion.

Well I know I’m conditioned to wonder things like this and not be satisfied with the simple answer. I want to dig deeper. XD

My aunt was always taken to the bathroom by her mother before a movie started so as an adult, every time she went in to the movies, she had to go pee. Another example of conditioning.

When you find that you awaken on weekends without setting your alarm, that is a case of temporal conditioning. If you feel compelled to play the slots or do other sorts of gambling, that is an example of random conditioning.

What about what warm pee on my hand makes me need to do? ; )

@proXXi Yoiu are sui generis and I wouldn’t begin to speculate on what motivates you.

It doesn’t “make me have to pee” at all. But maybe I am sui generis. Or maybe you are. Weirdo.

@absalom has anyone ever surreptitiously placed your hand in a bowl of warm water while you slept? It would be quite surprising if you didn’t urinate. Even if that does not happen to you, it is a widespread phenomenon, and I don’t understand why it would occasion the calling of names.

@pdworkin
It was a joke.

You sure you don’t have it backwards?? That “warm water” may not be water. Keep a grip hold on that thing.

Warm water on my hands doesn’t make me have to pee. But for whatever reason EVERY time I brush my teeth, I have to pee immediately. Even if I’ve just gone.

It only works with cold water for me. how do i know? wife pulled this trick on me the second year we were married. i peed all over myself. she pulled the prank, she cleaned the bed.

@SarasWhimsy I have the same issue. My mouth also twitches involuntarily when I’m watching another person brush their teeth. lol!

@john65pennington how brave of you to admit!

I wonder if this sort of conditioning has anything to do with how I cringe when someone scrapes a plastic fork across Styrofoam. ... o.O