The fantasy of touch

Task: Look at an object. Imagine how it is to touch this object… What happens? What is the physical reaction in you body? What do you sense?

It’s amazing the power of imagination. How the imagination works. What just thinking about touch does to the body. It provokes a physical sensation that is not currently present. Even though the fantasy of touch is a figment of imagination it has such a realness to it. Furthermore imagination is not fixed by physical limitations, so in many ways it can take the feeling and sensation even further. The magical power of the mind. And once the mind is stimulated in such fashion, through association, the fantasy is able to grow and grow.

My thoughts came to how it is when you have no access to touch. When there is no-one else around? The idea of touching oneself is often seen as taboo, but the fantasy of touching something or being touched?

Do we need touch itself to provoke its feeling? How real or close to the feeling of being touched can we get?

So many questions!

I was using this idea of the fantasy of touch in creating today. Finding expressive movement that comes from fantasising a feeling of touch. Passive touch, of someone stroking your skin, grabbing at your wrists, holding you tight or active touch, the need to move an object, support oneself, lift a hand or grab the space…

Sensations I felt were very real and intense. The flow of movement came and knew where it wanted to go. The creation that came is intuitive, inner impulse based from the fantasy of the sensation of touch.