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Comment by chrisbennet | Hacker News Reader

Here is something I've wondered about for a few years: Can we actually feel wetness or only the temperature difference of wet vs dry? In other words, if the water, air and skin temp were the same, could you feel what part of your hand was in water?

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I certainly don't know the answer to your question, but I believe you not only feel the difference in temperature, but also the fact that water is a better conductor of heat and will draw the heat from your body better than the air - and that difference in heat transfer is one of the things you "feel".

Good point. In addition, I would imagine you can feel a difference in friction caused by lubricating properties of some materials

I forget what they are called, but I have heard of places that immerse you in total darkness and total silence and have you float in water that is the same as your skins temperature so that you feel like you are floating in nothingness. I never went but want to try it sometime. So I cannot say if it works or not but at least according to these places you would not feel the water. I wish I could remember what they were called. We have one here in Atlanta.

EDIT: found it based on SCHiM's comment: http://flo2s.com/floating/what-is-a-float-tank/

Flotation tanks

http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-floating-in-a-tank-of-water-...

I've always heard them called sensory deprivation chambers.

That's the name I knew them by (mostly from watching Altered States), but apparently they're now called isolation tanks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank

I've heard this can give you interesting waking nightmares and is a form of torture. Are you certain you want to try it?

These things are a bit of a fad where I live. There are two "float houses" within a few blocks of me. My girlfriend bought us a session in one last last year (she said she was "giving me nothing" for my birthday.)

You do feel the water, at least a bit. It might have been a little on the cold side, which didn't help the experience. I wasn't freezing to death or anything, but by the end was thinking, "Yeah, this could be half a degree warmer."

I didn't experience anything special. I meditate and whatnot and am pretty comfortable in the company of my own mind, so it was kind of like a long meditation session, though I never got in really deep. I was too busy watching myself for any novel reactions, I guess.

It lasted for an hour or ninety minutes and was pretty boring. My girlfriend reported a similar experience. YMMV, and you should try it and find out. It wasn't unpleasant, there just wasn't much there there (which is likely a commentary on the sterility of my mental environment or something.)

At least skin hair will act differently when immersed in water so I'd expect that you will notice a difference for body parts immersed in water.

We don't have any receptors that detect water, so it's the combination of temperature (cold from evaporation) and tactile properties.

I believe some frogs do have such receptors: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10....

Which always surprises me. How is it that something as reactive as water, and as important as it is to our biology, that we don't have sensory mechanisms to locate it? It doesn't even have a smell.

>Can we actually feel wetness or only the temperature difference of wet vs dry?

In my experience if you put your hand in water with similar temperature to your hand it's hard to notice if there is any water there or you are just still touching air. You have to rule out other senses to make this work.

If these things are any indication [0]. Then no.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank

I believe the viscosity difference would give you a hint.

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