Touch, Taste & Smell

Three underrated senses, which can each enhance experience, create and reinforce associations and trigger memory. InnerSense gives serious consideration to each of these senses when creating a workshop/environment in the following ways:

Touch - All clients, particularly those with sight and/or hearing impairment can enjoy music and sound through feeling vibrations and rhythms, either through different instruments, such as drums, through speakers or even through empty boxes

Use props related to the workshop theme that have distinct tactile qualities, for example, fluffy kapok for snow, a real pool of water, a furry puppet, water gels, stones, sand...

Human touch, so important and yet so difficult for many participants....encourage touching hands, feet, faces with the use of facepaints, creams, essential oils (beware allergies).

Use soft brushes, feathers as mediums between you. Encourage clients to initiate contact, perhaps 'touching' you first.

Taste - Since the dawn of time, food and drink have featured in celebrations (see Feasting), whether a simple picnic, eggs on an open fire, chestnuts roasted for a medieval supper, or a vegetable stew. Use these occasions to experience a variety of tastes as well as having some fun

Include tastes that are related to the workshop. This will give opportunities to experience a variety of food and drink from different cultures, like curly pasta and herbs in Venice, bananas in the jungle,

Taste cheese in France, orange juice in Spain, jasmine tea in Japan, fresh bread in a bakery. Even those who can't swallow can smell and enjoy.

Smell - Smells can provide clues to a workshop setting - natural foliage, fruit, coffee beans, a sage smudge stick for a bonfire, smoke, burning. Use incense sticks/cones for sandalwood, pine, cedar, smells of the forest.