Jacques Lusseyran

Fortunately, before long I realized that instead of becoming useless they were learning to be wise. They only needed time to accustom themselves to freedom. I had thought they were refusing to obey, but it was all because they were not getting orders, when the eyes were no longer there to command them.

But more than that it was a question of rhythm. Our eyes run over the surface of things. All they require are a few scattered points, since they can bridge the gap in a flash. They "half see" much more than they see, and they never weigh. They are satisfied with appearances, and for them the world glows and slides by, but lacks substance.

All I needed was to leave my hands to their own devices. I had nothing to teach them, and besides, since they began working independently, they seem to foresee everything. Unlike eyes, they were in earnest, and from what ever direction they approached an object they covered it, tested its resistance, leaned against the mass of it and recorded every irregularity in its surface. They measured it for height and thickness, taking in as many dimensions as possible. But most of all, having learned that they had fingers; they use them in an entirely new way.

When I had eyes, my fingers used to be stiff, half dead at the ends of my hands, only good for picking up things. But now each one of them started out on its own. The explored things separately, changed levels and, independently of each other, made themselves heavy or light.

Movement of the fingers was terribly important, and had to be uninterrupted because objects to not stand at a given point, fixed there, confined in one form. They are alive, even the stones. What is more they vibrate and tremble. My fingers felt the pulsation distinctly, and if they failed to answer with a pulsation of their own, the fingers immediately became helpless and lost their sense of touch. But when they went toward things, in sympathetic vibration with them, they recognized them right away.

Yet there was something still more important than movement, and that was pressure. If I put my hands on the table without pressing it, I knew the table was there, but knew nothing about it. To find out, my fingers had to bear down, and the amazing thing is that the pressure was answered by the table at once. Being blind I thought I should have to go out to meet things, but I found that they came to meet me instead. I have never had to go more than half way, and the universe became the accomplice of all my wishes.

If my fingers pressed the roundness of an apple, each one with a different weight, very soon I could not so whether it was the apple or my fingers, which were heavy. I didn't even know whether I was touching it or it was touching me. I became part of the apple; the apple became part of me. And that was how I came to understand the existence of things.

As soon as my hands came to life they put me in a world where everything was an exchange of pressures. These pressures gathered together in shapes, and each one of the
shapes had meaning. As a child I spent hours leaning against objects and letting them lean against me.
Sharon Heller Ph.D. -- The Vital Touch

"Touch is our most sensitive sense. Nerve impulses conducting tactile impulses are generally larger than those associated with other senses, making our skin so exquisitely responsive that our brain registers touch at the slightest pressure. "Human skin is like a field of grass," describes anthropologist Helen Fisher, "each blade a nerve ending so sensitive that the slightest graze can etch into the human brain a memory of the moment."

The average human body, which has around 5 million nerve endings or touch receptors, contains -- in a patch of skin three-quarters of an inch square on the back of our hand -- 9 feet of blood vessels, 600 pain sensors, 30 hairs, 300 sweat glands, 4 oil glands, 13 yards of nerves, 9,000 nerve endings, 6 cold sensors, 36 heat sensors, and 75 pressure sensors.

-- When held, two-thirds of our infants body surface is stimulated; when lying in a crib, only half of their body is stimulated -- to say nothing of the monumental difference in the interaction of warmth, pressure, and texture

-- especially when flesh touches flesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lusseyran