Q: How does the texture of sand affect the experience of swimming and playing on a beach?

A: I would say its granularity is stimulating since the grains act on many different nerves independently simultaneously (and their roughness is piercing), and I’d also guess stimulation of the bottom of the feet is particularly mentally activating, for reasons related to things like foot fetishes, why we like foot rubs, and the rejuvenating effects of walking barefoot in nature. So, the existence of sand on the beach probably helps amplify the fun of beach activities and the overall beach experience.

On the other hand, there seems to be something dismal or existential about the deadness and dryness of sand. It’s literally made up of millions of dead animals, and it acutely lacks the archetypally life-giving substance, water. I mean, most things in our everyday man-made world do, but the fact is somehow accentuated in sand. So, that may be something we have to overcome or overlook, but on the other hand, those dead animals are millions of years old, as is the cycle of life and death, so maybe stepping on sand somehow connects us to the timelessness of the ages and lives beyond our own.

Usually when swimming, we’re not just stepping on sand but on a lot of gross texture including algae and seaweed. This can be rather irksome and force us to “grow up” and accept the icky feeling. On a normal beach like this as well as on beaches where there really is just sand under the water, our feet tend to sink into the bottom and get engulfed by it. What psychological effect does this have on us, other than apprehension and making us grow out of it? Maybe it reminds us of life and the various aspects of it that suck us in and engulf us. On the flipside, maybe being able to lift our feet and walk in the water anyway gives us a sense of being able to overcome life’s sticky challenges, on an unconscious level.