"Comfortably Numb" describes a state of delirium; a feeling of being detached from reality. Many assumed it's about drugs, but that's not so, according to Pink Floyd bass player Roger Waters, who wrote the lyrics and came up with the concept of the album The Wall, where the song appears.

The lyrics describe how Waters felt as a child when he was sick with a fever. As an adult, he got that feeling again sometimes under different circumstances. He told Mojo magazine (December 2009) that the lines, "When I was a child I had a fever/My hands felt just like two balloons" were autobiographical. He explained: "I remember having the flu or something, an infection with a temperature of 105 and being delirious. It wasn't like the hands looked like balloons, but they looked way too big, frightening. A lot of people think those lines are about masturbation. God knows why."