Creating an emotional and physical connection between virtual environments and interactive storytelling, using actuation (physical action on the body) in haptic interfaces, can be an effective way to design and deeply experiential, immersive engagement for audiences. Haptics have been considered the most powerful way to elicit a fully embodied experience for ‘immersants’ for VR pioneer Char Davies since the 1990’s (2004). While narrative and design grammars for making virtual reality and immersive storytelling experiences are still evolving, artists and designers are developing a better understanding of what audiences respond to within the experiences they create, and haptics are one of the powerful ways to engage them. After many years of diving deep into the emerging practices of digital and electronic art, starting with Net Art, then exploring the potentials of mobile phones and wearables in performance and interactive installations, this author has been making extended reality installation experiences, developing impactful narratives from first person health stories since 2019, using haptic garments in performative works to focus on invisible experiences of women's reproductive illnesses and treatments. The sense of touch, combined with the other sensory modalities, forms a coherent and robust perception of the world, and thus, this chapter will discuss touch, sensing and haptics more broadly. It will also explore the role of haptic sensations as part of virtual and extended reality experiences to make audience experiences richer, deeper, more visceral, and personal. It will also share discoveries from the design and exhibition of the author’s own XR installation artworks INTER/her and Mammary Mountain.