well it depends on the weed i smoke usually i get much more noticeable affects from indica strains then sativa, and its also kind of a hard feeling to describe. at first i feel it in my mouth, its starts to feel "funny". then i will space out for like 5 minutes, come out of my day dreaming then i will notice im high or stoned. when i smoke sativa my mind starts to calms down yet I have thoughts racing through my head, and of course the uncontrollable smiling and laughing. when i smoke indica my mind slows and i kind of go to a vegetative state where i am just "there", can't seem to remember certain things as well either. for both sativa and indica i get strong body highs kind of like you described but its almost as if sound waves are like passing through me (if that makes sense). also one thing that i noticed when im completely high is that its very difficult to eat tortilla chips or peanut butter, for some reason those things are impossible for me to eat, tortilla chips feel like they get stuck in the back of my mouth and just sits there soaking moisture and the peanut butter is just too distracting. btw if you are coughing a lot try using a water pipe or bong and let some air in with your hits, it will help a lot. also you don't have to take big hits every time. took me a while to learn that. When im high I can definitely tell that I am there is no guessing if I am or not (unless its shitty weeds then I kind of just get happy for like 30 minutes).
Sorry that was so long got carried away trying to describe it