Many philosophers hold that there is a special relationship between the touch sense and belief about reality. The figures of speech of ordinary English reflect such a relationship. It is less appreciated that there is no touch without movement, and this paper therefore discusses the sense of movement. Sometimes called a “sixth sense”, this sense links sensation to intuition – a “feel” for “the real”. The paper outlines pivotal aspects of the history of Western ideas about the sense of movement (including the muscular sense or kinaesthesia) in relation to claims about knowledge of reality. This history “touches on” awareness of being alive and being embodied. I emphasise in particular the contribution of the analysis of sensations from Condillac, through Destutt de Tracy to Maine de Biran for the history of movement awareness as essentially double, action-resistance. The conclusion turns to the work of Husserl as the authority for modern phenomenological analysis linking the sense of movement to judgment about ‘reality’.