  The self-oscillatory dynamics is considered as motion of a particle in a
potential field in the presence of dissipation. Described mechanism of
self-oscillation excitation is not associated with peculiarities of a
dissipation function, but results from properties of a potential, whose shape
depends on a system state. Moreover, features of a potential function allow to
realize the self-oscillation excitation in a case of the dissipation function
being positive at each point of the phase space. The phenomenon is explored
both numerically and experimentally on the example of a double-well oscillator
with a state-dependent potential and dissipation. After that a simplified
single-well model is studied.
