Why Some People Keep Feeling Earthquake Tremors Long After They Stop

For many people, the feeling of the ground shaking does not end when an earthquake's tremors stop. Researchers at Istanbul Medipol University in Turkiye set out to explain the neuroscience behind these "phantom earthquake sensations" (PES) - a persistent feeling of swaying with no actual seismic activity - in a new cross-sectional study. The sensations are distinct from aftershocks and can persist for days or weeks, often accompanied by distress, hypervigilance and behavioral changes, the researchers note.

Audiologists Kerem Ersin and Seyma Tugba Ozturk recruited 157 adults who had experienced a 6.2-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Silivri in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul, on April 23, 2025. The quake caused no major damage, which the researchers say helped rule out confounding factors such as grief, injury or property loss that complicate studies of more destructive quakes. Within four weeks of the earthquake, participants were interviewed about the event and assessed for earthquake-related anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Where people were during the quake made a significant difference. Among those who had been at home, 48.7% reported phantom sensations several times a day, compared with 13.3% of people who had been at work, and 41% of the at-home group continued to feel phantom tremors for days, compared with 6.7% of the at-work group. People at home alone showed significantly higher anxiety and stress scores. The researchers suggest this is not because home itself is a poor environment, but because people are more likely to be still and hyper-aware of their body's sensations there, with fewer external cues to help them judge whether the ground is actually moving.

Even people who rated the quake as "mild" still experienced lasting phantom sensations and higher anxiety if they had been at home. The researchers write that uncertainty over whether a faint sensation was an earthquake, a structural issue, or an aftershock can create "cognitive threat ambiguity" that generates more anxiety than a clearly defined, severe event, prompting repeated re-evaluation of one's surroundings and bodily sensations.