A Woman's Guide to Sensual Film

Sensuality Test

1. Sometimes I feel and experience things as I did when I was a child.
2. I can be greatly moved by eloquent or poetic language.
3. While watching a movie, TV show or play, I may become so involved that I forget about myself and my surroundings and experience the story as if it were real and I were actually taking part in it.
4. If I stare at a picture and look away from it, I can sometimes “see” an image of the picture, almost as if I were still looking at it.
5. Sometimes I feel as if my mind could envelop the whole world.
6. I like to watch cloud shapes and changes in the sky.
7. If I wish, I can imagine (or daydream) some things so vividly that they hold my attention as a good movie or story does.
8. I think I really know what some people mean when they talk about mystical experiences.
9. I sometimes “step outside” my usual self and experience an entirely different state of being.
10. Textures such as wool, sand, or wood sometimes remind me of colors or music.
11. Sometimes I experience things as if they were doubly real.
12. When I listen to music, I can get so caught up in it that I don’t notice anything else.
13. If I wish, I can imagine that my body is so heavy that I could not move if I wanted to.
14. I can somehow sense the presence of another person before I actually see or hear him or her.
15. The crackling flames of a wood fire stimulate my imagination.
16. It is sometimes possible for me to be completely immersed in nature or in art and feel as if my whole state of consciousness has somehow been temporarily altered.
17. Different colors have distinctive and special meaning to me.
18. I am able to wander off into my own thoughts while doing a routine task and actually forget that I am doing the task, and then find a few minutes later that I have completed it.
19. I can sometimes recollect certain past experiences in my life with such clarity and vividness that it is like, or almost like, reliving them again. Things that might seem meaningless to others often make sense to me.
20. Things that seem meaningless to others often make sense to me.
21. While acting in a play, I think I can really feel the emotions of the character and “become” her or him for the time being, forgetting both myself and the audience.
22. My thoughts often don't occur as words, but as visual images.
23. I often take delight in small things (like the five-pointed star shape that appears when you cut an apple across the core or the colors in soap bubbles).
24. When listening to organ music or other powerful music, I sometimes feel as if I am being lifted into the air.
25. Sometimes I can change noise into music by the way I listen to it.
26. Some of my most vivid memories are called up by scents and smells.
27. Certain pieces of music remind me of pictures of moving patterns of color.
28. I often know what someone is going to say before he or she says it.
29. I often have “physical memories,” for example; after I've been swimming I may still feel as if I'm in the water.
30. The sound of a voice can be so fascinating to me that I can just go on listening to it.
31. At times I can feel the presence of someone who is not there.
32. Sometimes thoughts and images come to me without the slightest effort on my part.
33. I find that different odors have different colors.
34. I can be deeply moved by a sunset.

All material is from the book “Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Sex” by Dr. Sandra Scantling and Sue Browder, Penguin Group, 1993. The authors of the test note that while results are not scientifically valid when taken out of the context of a 300-item personality inventory, results may give you clues to where you are on your sensual journey and where you may want to explore further.