Ah, the power of a lingering stare: When total strangers maintain eye contact for a few minutes, a meaningful connection forms (according to studies like this one from the National Institute of Physiological Science in Japan, released in December). Ray-Ban decided to test this theory out with a series of videos entitled Eye to Eye: A Social Experiment in Courage. In the series of videos, sets of strangers make eye contact and ask a series of 36 questions for a four-minute period — and get incredibly personal, incredibly fast.The conversations span the gamut of traumatic life experiences, including a breakup spurred by having a mastectomy; a sexual abuse incident leading one man to come out to his family; cross-dressing for the very first time; and witnessing a parent’s death. “I feel like some weight has been lifted off my chest,” says one Eye to Eye participant at the end of the poignant, very revealing one-on-one; another calls the experience “therapeutic.”Various brands have dabbled in social experiments involving strangers — which often have nothing to do with items on offer — like this Wren video from 2014 of strangers kissing that boosted sales an astounding 14,000%, for example, or like projects Dove has done before.