Autonomous sensory meridian response

[Hofzinser]

This will almost certainly seem really fucking weird for a lot of people, but hopefully it will resonate with at least one or two, so that I'm not left feeling like a total freak.

Anyway, yesterday I read this article about something called "autonomous sensory meridian response", and instantly knew the sensation it described.

I get it from a few different stimuli, some of which I'll list below, and it triggers a unique pleasure sensation that's difficult to define especially well (sort of a shiver down the spine, but not really, and mostly confined to the back of the head) and that I've always been aware of but not actually discussed with anyone or ever seen acknowledged anywhere, which is why this article was kind of an epiphany.

The videos in the article don't massively do it for me - I think because they are almost too forced, rather than natural - and they really do come across as being pretty weird, especially if you don't get ASMR responses yourself, I imagine. But I can't emphasise enough what it says in the article - that it's not remotely a sexual thing, not even close, as I hope the next paragraph will demonstrate.

My own list of stimuli for an ASMR reponse includes (but is not limited to):

1. Someone eating an apple
2. Someone doing something in a very slow and deliberate way in an otherwise quiet environment - Open University lectures used to have loads of things like this, whether it was someone writing on a blackboard or using some sort of experimental equipment, and cookery programs are often good for it too - in particular, I find the presentational styles of Nigel Slater and Gary Rhodes especially conducive.
3. A woman putting on make-up
4. Often when getting a haircut
5. When getting my eyes tested

Variations upon no. 2 (which is intentionally vague) produce the strongest ASMR response in me, and if it occurs on a TV program then I can watch it for hours, practically hypnotised.

So, does anyone have the foggiest idea what I'm talking about, or have I just outed myself as otf's biggest weirdo?

[Ginger Yellow]

Autonomous sensory meridian response

You've outed yourself as being massively behind the times. ASMR videos have been huge on Youtube for at least a couple of years, to the extent that there are legit ASMR Youtube personalities with millions of subscribers. They don't do anything for me, though.

[Various Artist]

Autonomous sensory meridian response

Just discovered this thread (such as it is) rather belatedly via a tangent on Vulgarian Visigoth's 'Unwrapping' thread, and as the subject interests me I thought I'd try plonking some thoughts here instead of clogging that one up with a sidetrack, even if this proves another dead-end. It certainly does resonate with me what Hofzinser was talking about above, though like him I didn't know until relatively recently that this tingling thing was a 'thing' and not just tingling, as it were, still less that there's a thriving YouTube community catering to it.

Looking back, from being a kid I associate the feeling mostly with visual cues: those calm, repetitive actions, in places with a certain pregnant quiet to the atmosphere. Which is to say, almost exactly what Hof describes:

Someone doing something in a very slow and deliberate way in an otherwise quiet environment

Waiting in the dimness of the little photo-developers shop (what an anachronistic notion that now sounds), watching them flick slowly through a drawer of envelopes of photos to unearth my set of 6x4s, I'd get this strange-but-nice narcotic, slightly heavy-headed sensation, settling in just behind my eyes like my sinuses were filling with candyfloss. And back before the computerisation of my local public library (in c.1993), when you handed over one of your allotted five cardboard ticket-holders upon taking a book out it would have the ticket from inside the front cover of the book slipped into it, then be placed into one of several narrow racks under the counter. I'd get into the same soporific trance when they were riffling gently through the racks of tickets to find mine when I returned books – I used to actively wish for them to take ages to find my tickets so as not to get snapped out of it too soon.
Ten or twelve years later, I was regularly carrying perhaps £3000 at a time in paper money from the shop where I worked down to the post office to bank it, where I used to get the same sensation watching it be counted. I'd invariably be hoping to end up at the window of that one clerk who always thumbed through the notes especially slowly and diligently, periodically dabbing his fingers in the little wet sponge pad, methodically folding each tenth note around the previous nine to make neat little bundles as he went along. It would be a weirdly blissful moment out from the day.
The most regular one over the years would be (as also noted by Hof) in the optician's chair: the way he would lean in very close holding that little light to peer into my eyes with the "Just look up to the right", then lean out, and back in again "... and now up to the left"; similarly that rhythmic repetition of "Does it look clearer with this lens?"...pause, switch... "or how about...now?", and so forth. There's a metric shitload of ASMR videos on YouTube replicating exactly this kind of 'examination' into the camera, so evidently a lot of people get the same brain stimulus from it.

I do get the pleasurable sensations from voices too – the 'mouth sounds', and certain accents: I used to occasionally tune into the BBC World Service in the small hours as I found some foreign tones – for example sub-Saharan African, Italian, Indian subcontinental and certain softer American voices – incredibly pleasant and relaxing to let wash over me while drowsing. Northern Irish accents though are what most reliably works on me at any time, for some reason, provided they're not Paisley-harsh.
I just don't think I gave the notion much thought that this might be part of the same whole phenomenon until stumbling across videos only quite recently on YouTube, when lying awake late one night and randomly trying to search for recordings of those kind of voices to drift off to, without knowing quite how to google such a nebulous concept. I came across a video by a bloke named TheWhisperCorner in (I think) Belfast, a static shot of a map of Northern Ireland with his hand simply pointing out places at random with a pen and him reciting them in a low voice, and it made my head go all fuzzy in just that way I was thinking of. I started clicking on follow-up links, and found he has a lot of very low-key videos of him solving sudoku, writing out maths equations and the like, which are pleasantly abstract enough to be very effective too. Before I knew where I was, I'd watched all through a 17-minute video of an attractive blonde lady with a Russian accent and implausibly beautiful manicured hands, demonstrating how to fold towels. It's a slippery slope.

By and large, though, I agree with Hof's verdict above – the bulk of the (deliberately aimed) videos are too forced and unnatural to be enjoyable. There's nothing to want to watch in an endless repetition of someone scratching and tapping their nails on a book while they read or talk about it, as I find that aural 'trigger' far too harsh so it leaves me cold; nor in a 20-minute "caring friend roleplay" type of thing, where someone coos into your 'face' about how they know you've had a hard day and things have been rough lately but you're a great person really, blah blah blah. Fortunately, though, TheWhisperCorner (the first and still the favourite I found) turns out to be a chap with a very droll sense of humour who occasionally posts piss-take videos, the best of which must be the mighty "Caring Friend Roleplay – For Men", joyfully pulling the rug out from underneath that entire genre in 22 seconds flat:
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[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Autonomous sensory meridian response

Interesting stuff, VA, thanks for sharing. I'm not sure if I have this response - I mean I find some visual and aural patterns kind of aesthetically pleasant, even soothing, but I'm not sure that I have a really visceral response to them.

Favourite sound - no brainer - waves gently lapping on the beach. Possibly might not work for someone who has had to worry about, or grieve in consequence of, a tsunami, or even some other maritime misfortune, but it works for me.

[Various Artist]

Autonomous sensory meridian response

Heh, a very thoughtful caveat at the end there EEG, though I hope it wasn't necessary for me to provide spoiler tags to the above for the protection of those who have suffered grievous towel-related trauma, for instance was it?

"Visceral" probably isn't quite the word, since almost by definition it's a much less violent sensation than that connotes, but yes, it's an innate thing – no different from synaesthesia or perfect pitch or the ability to see Magic Eye pictures – so you either have it or you don't. I don't believe you can teach yourself it, any more than you can learn to be colourblind, or magnetic, or able to hover.

The common ground seems to be things that go beyond "soothing" into a quite powerfully lulling, almost regressive, inward-drawing sensation, optionally with a cranial 'fizziness' or tingling attached. It's maybe analogous to getting pleasantly drunk or stoned or high (I wouldn't know), but entirely through watching and/or listening to something – therefore infinitely cheaper and without the side-effects, other than perhaps the hazard of actually falling asleep in public while tripping out on someone's Ukrainian accent. The acid test (no pun intended) is probably to look at a sample handful of videos, and if the most profound response is "Christ, this is boring" or "Who watches this weird crap by choice?" then you've probably confirmed you don't have it...

It doesn't really correspond with favourite sounds, per se, funnily enough. I mean I love the sound of waves on the shore too, likewise birdsong, the buzz of bees and crickets chirruping in long grass, but they don't create that effect. Too random, perhaps, or because for whatever reason the triggers seem to need a human dimension to them. It probably goes back to the womb, or something equally Freudian. Hence the metronomically repetitive rhythms, semi-inaudible murmurings, and breathing or wet mouth-sounds very close to the ear – the YouTube videos are expressly made to be listened to using headphones, and many 'ASMRtists' put great stock in their surprisingly high-end microphones (e.g. for an intimate ear-to-ear effect) in a manner that would make a professional sound designer gawk.

As noted though, just as effective or more so for some (i.e. me) are the everyday situations or voices that produce the effect completely incidentally. Witnessing someone simply engrossed in performing a small, precise task really well, like mending a watch or painting a model figure, becomes incredibly absorbing and mesmeric (if you've seen James May's recent BBC programmes The Reassembler you might know what I'm talking about), and I'd much rather watch an hour of venerable Belfast poet Michael Longley reciting his work (and feel I've got some cultural credit out of it at the same time), say, than just watch some people trying overly hard to recreate the same accidental effect deliberately. It's all the nicer when it just springs itself on you unlooked-for.

[Lang Spoon]

Autonomous sensory meridian response

Now half-wondering (but not making excuses - I regret nothing!) if having natural access to mild altered states from an early age helped start me on the path of wanting to get wrecked chemically (ahem, "experience heightened awareness") even before I could get proper drugs (raiding Ma's nutmeg at 14- worst most pukey trip ever, a sudafed popping experiment not long after). That or finding psychedelic music/Burroughs (for the delirious imagery more than the junky shit) hit the spot long before my first double dip.

ASMR is a mild buzz, for me similar to but weaker than the almost unbearable pleasure jolt that can go down my spine when my back is touched/stroked in a certain way. As 20 golf course picked Liberty Cap 'Shrooms are to DMT.