What is an emotion?

I often hear that I'm calling sensations feelings.

For me there is no difference. They are all things you feel.

What is the deal with having to separate them?

I think one is physical and the other emotional....and it is just important to know which experience you are having...it is about being mindful I think.

If I'm hungry, that is signals in my brain. If I'm scared, that is signals in my brain. It's all physical. Or???

There is a physical and cognitive component to emotions. They cannot be separated.

Sensations come from our nerves, (eyes, ears, nose, nerve endings) and are processed in the brain to create senses E.g. touch, sight, pain, sound.
Emotions entirely created and processed in the brain.
However, both are often a reaction to external and internal stimulus, and as both are processed in the brain, both appear to be 'felt'.

I'll speak about "hunger" which you mentioned;
It can be a feeling as well as a sensation

the hungry "feeling":
means when you are in the mood for eating,
say it is your usual lunch time,
say you saw or imagined some food which you like, and say you think to yourself i could have a little...
Basically it was your brain that sent your body the message that this food looks/smells delicious, and now you want it.

the hunger "sensation":
means how your body sends signals to your brain, that you are in need of or desire food.
say you salivate, feel a little light headed, or your tummy seems to rumble etc, suggesting the sensation of hunger, to tell your brain to tell you to eat

Further, i think there is a difference between feeling and emotion too.
Probably the deeper more intense feelings, sometimes even a combination of feelings are called emotions, and are purely from the mind.

The mind and body are connected.

To me a lot of sensations are emotions. Maybe that is why I can't tell them apart. If I'm very hungry that fills my mind, I don't feel anything else. If I stroke a soft material or walk barefoot in sand, that is more than a sensation, it has an emotional part to it.

Yes, you are right, there is an emotional component in the things you described. I believe sensations can lead to feelings, which enable you to have emotions connected with them.

It is very difficult to explain the difference really, considering how intermingled they all are.

It is difficult for many to distinguish feelings from other bodily sensations of emotional arousal.

Interesting discussion. I have trouble identifying what emotion I feel. I know fear, happiness, pride, maybe sadness, maybe love kind of, but I think that is my limit. I guess I never thought about the differences of emotions and sensations though. Thank you for posting. All of your comments may have helped me although I am sorry I couldn't have added any help for you.

I seem to have a lot of emotions that no one has ever named.... Sensations too.

Is being tired a sensation?

I agree with this totally.

If I bump into the corner of a table hard, I will feel pain. That is a sensation, not an emotion. That sensation, however, will likely make me feel a few emotions (embarassed if someone saw me, regret if it's in a location that is going to be exposed later, upset if I know it's going to cause me MORE pain later!).

At the same time... if I was feeling happy, which is an emotion? I could just wake up feeling that way without any external stimulus. Or maybe I am happy because I just got a really good hug (sensation). That emotion, happiness, will not cause me to feel a physical sensation - it will not make my body feel pain, or pleasure. If I want to feel a physical sensation to go along with the emotion, I will have to actively DO something with my body to get that sensation (such as feeling happy and deciding to give someone ELSE a hug because it was a great feeling).

Like... if you get hit by a car? You're always going to feel pain. It will hurt. But you can feel a rage of emotions, or not feel them. You could feel scared, you could feel sad, you could feel angry. You could feel all three. Because that's in our minds.

(Just lost my train of thought... not sure if any of that made sense!)

I believe 'Tired' would be a feeling. A collective response to many sensations may give rise to it, or just thinking too much.

Say you have been walking or working out too much, more than you are accustomed to, then your leg muscles may cramp or feel heavier suggesting you should rest now; your cardiac muscles may be needing more oxygen to keep up with the demand of exercise, and may increase the heart rate to keep up etc... suggesting you to slow down.
All these are physical/bodily sensations, which reach the brain, which in turn interprets them all collectively as being tired, which is a feeling now.

Also feeling tired can be directly and only from internal stimuli, like too much cognitive exertion, can fatigue your mind, making you feel drowsy and tired.

And when you are feeling tired, it may in turn make you grumpy, which is an emotion.

I do not fully understand the difference between an emotion and a feeling.

But if hungry is a sensation, tired should be to. ???

I understand your doubt,
You need to blame the English Language for that confusion. There are two words related to hunger. HungER and HungRY.

HungER is a sensation, and it refers to one or more of the bodily sensations together which send a message to the brain that you should eat. Eg. as mentioned, light headedness, rumbling tummy etc

When the message is sent, your mind in turn tells you to eat, by making you feel HungRY. so this is a feeling arising in your mind.

Similarly, say after too much physical exertion, you may in turn get leg cramps, drooping eyelids etc, (which are physical sensations), many such sensations reach the brain. so from body to brain. There is no single word for these arising in the body collectively. (unlike the case of hunger)
But after the brain interprets it collectively, it itself gives you a message of being Tired, so it arises in your brain, thus a feeling. (which would be now similar to how we figured hungry as a feeling)

As badly as i want to, i am not very good at explaining stuff.

Apologize if it is getting repetitive. Don't know any other way of explaining lol.

Anyway, as long as you understand what message the body sending, does the classification matter?

If you feel it with your body, it's a sensation. Hunger-pains, headaches (pressure headaches, sinus headaches, etc) are both pain. Pain is a sensation. Fatigue is a sensation because your muscles are slowed down and/or in pain. Being tickled is a sensation. Being massaged is a sensation.

Sensations tend to cause emotions to be felt, but they're not emotions. Anything that causes pain (hunger, illness, tiredness, etc) or anything that can cause pleasure (eating, being tickled, kissing, etc) are still sensations. The way you feel DUE to them (anger, distress, sadness, joy, anxety, love) are emotions.

You can't feel a sensation withou an external influence of some sort. A headache might be caused by loud sounds, or a sinus infection. Hunger is because there isn't food in your stomach when there should be. Tiredness is because you have overworked your muscles or have deprived yourself of sleep, etc.

An emotion you can feel without the stimulus (I can feel pain just by thinking about something that is upsetting, I can feel love just by thinking about someone in particular, I can feel excitment at thinking about going to the theatre, etc).

This conversation is epic!

If I might add one other little snippet, everything external is a perception of the mind. A sensation like pain is caused by, say, an injury to the body that sends an electrical signal to the brain. The brain processes the data and the mind interprets that data is pain.

The funny thing is that, given practice, no external stimulus is actually necessary. During meditation, one can learn to develop a mind of love or compassion or whatnot. As A Red Panda said above, you start by thinking about people close to you, letting that love develop. After time, we learn what the emotion, that feeling is and the sensation that accompanies it (yep, there's an actual physical sensation there). Given enough time and practice, the meditator can bring up love or compassion or rejoicing without having to consider loved ones or something like that. No external stimulus needed. Want to feel compassion? Blip, there it is.

(I guess you could do that with pain, but why? Who would want to meditate on pain? Hmm ...)

But anyway, as everyone said, it's so intermingled it's tricky to try to separate them with language. Because they aren't actually separate, but all a perception of the mind.

I have a great difficulty detecting my mood, and emotions, as well. Swinging from one extreme to another all my life I think has made me a novice at emotion-detecting.

It has only been within the last few weeks that I am able to finally see my depression, and the sadness that comes along with it.

What about emptiness? Is that an emotion or a sensation?

Emptiness would be an emotion - your body isn't empty! But your brain may feel like there's no you, or no emotion, or no thoughts. It's not a sensation because there is nothing outside causing it - it's created purely by your brain.

I also think emptyness is a feeling and emotion caused by your brain , I'm no doc or T but, but I also think it could cause an emotion or emotions of the emtiness.

Deelooted, can you please expand on your question?

The reason I ask is because you have a quote from the Dalai Lama in your signature and Emptiness is a Buddhist teaching. Ergo, are you asking about Emptiness from the Buddhist perspective or are you asking about feeling hollow inside?

I can maybe help define it for you from the Buddhist perspective if you wish as I myself practice Buddhism. (Practice ... not very good at it, but practice. )