Boost your intelligence? Take off your shoes.

Not sure if it boosts your intelligence; I am an avid barefoot walker. City streets, the woods; pretty much anything other than screaming-hot blacktop.

It feels good; your feet get accustomed to it pretty quickly. The OP mentioned his eyes were really needed to watch where his feet were going, but if he keeps up this habit this won't be the case near as much.

Small bits of broken glass or things like this will tear through most tender footed westerners, but just a few dozen miles over a few weeks barefoot will toughen up your feet very quickly so that gravel and tiny-sharp things won't bother you at all.

I just feel 'better' with barefeet. After the winter, and I can take my shoes off and rub them in the grass, after so little stimulation; it's nearly orgasmic.

Increased awareness with barefeet? Likely. Intelligence.. mm not so much.

I went running barefoot a few weeks ago. It was an amazing sensation and the best run I'd had in a long time. I went significantly faster too, which I suppose can be attributed to the lack of weight wearing shoes brings. It just felt awesome. That following week, I went running through the same course. Not over a quarter mile into it did I manage to step on a bee. The course I run on is grass and a little pebble-y. My foot is still recovering somewhat. Going barefoot is definitely something everyone should do once in a while. Makes you feel more human. Don't quite know how it made me more intelligent but running and exercise generally release endorphins which make you feel better so I suppose it's possible you could "feel" more intelligent after spending an afternoon barefooted.

Funny the things we forget about... I wonder what other of our body parts are missing out on some extreme sensory experiences. What about our brain? Can we get this type of increased stimulation directly into our heads? I think perhaps video games did this job when they were new. New exciting activities can perhaps help (sky diving, racing a car, etc).

"It was a little more like being barefoot than regular shoes but was way more like being in shoes than being barefooted."

I'm a big fan of VFFS (vibram five finger shoes) and I can attest that you can feel terrain changes through vibrams, this also means that you will watch where you step to avoid the occasional large rock, etc which can be extremely uncomfortable.

Barefoot shoes provide much of the positives highlighted in this article while dramatically reducing your exposure to the perils of walking barefoot, I'd recommend the author give them another chance.

I like the juxtaposition of these Vibram shoes as a fashion fad and the old Doc Martens boot fad (which seems about as opposite a direction as you can get, perhaps you could go all out and get steel toed but still)

My feeling is that we cut of sensory inputs as a defensive mechanism, fewer sensor inputs, more cycles to focus on our thinking. And yet when we're 'not' thinking we don't necessarily un-block those inputs. One of the engineers at NetApp was well known for walking around in socks all the time. I always attributed it to his scottish ancestry and not wanting to put excess wear on a perfectly good pair of shoes, but perhaps he was ahead of his tims in this foot thing :-)