Looking for "Touching Stories!"

TOUCH is the sense of the week for our Awaken Your Senses Contest. So--we are looking for "touching stories!" Please leave a comment here about any memorable experience you have/had through your sense of touch and you are automatically be entered into the contest to win a $25 gift card or autographed copy of Awaken Your Senses. Also, here's a fascinating study on the effect of human touch between perfect strangers to get you thinking!

The Bond Formed by Human Touch

"Touch serves us well. It informs us about our world, protects us from things that can injure us and transmits emotional messages that are critical to our well-being. Touch even establishes bonds with others that deepen and enhance relationships.

The University of Minnesota staged an experiment to understand the impact of touch on the relationships of perfect strangers. They placed a quarter in a phone booth at a busy intersection and watched people enter the booth to make a call. (This happened before the advent of cell phones!) They watched to see if people would pick up the quarter and use it to make their call. Invariably, they did.

Then, the researcher would walk up to the person as they were exiting the phone booth and asked if he or she had seen a quarter they left in the phone booth. Only 23 % said yes and returned a quarter. After that, they repeated the experiment, only this time the researcher walked up to the person exiting the phone booth, nonchalantly touched the person’s elbow and asked if he or she had seen the quarter they left behind. This time, 68% of the people said yes and returned the quarter.

Something profound happens when human beings touch! Energy is transmitted. An invisible bond is formed. We become personal to each other. We touch the humanity in another and that makes it harder to remain indifferent." (Excerpt from Awaken Your Senses, pg. 95, 96)

Keep posting your "touching" experiences!