Full Contact
I have been thinking a lot lately about humans and our need for physical contact. It is a highly irrational need, but a need nonetheless. Why do we crave it so? It also seems to me that we crave physical contact even more when we connect with a person on some psychological level. Physical attraction generally initiates a desire for contact, but there are some cases in which physical attraction takes a back seat to mental connectedness.
In addittion to this desire for contact, another aspect of contact between humans is their ability to remember sensations. The brain can be imprinted with the memory of a physical stimulus. I have read that it is easier for the mind to recall pleasant sensations than painful ones. Still, there is something almost eerie about the way that, simply by thinking about it you can remember the way someone else’s skin felt against yours or the way someone’s breath on your skin felt. It’s remarkable.
Taking it a step further, knowing what skin against skin or breath or hair against skin feels like, how is it that we come to use our recalled memories of these sensations in our fantasies? How can we project a remembered feeling from another time and put it into a new context which we have not yet experienced? I am reading more and more on the subject of recalled sensations, but this seems to be a topic that has not been explored in depth as of yet. Either that or I am simply looking in the wrong place. Another thought along the same lines: why does touch stir certain emotions and calm others? I guess I really should have gone into biology.
