ASMR

It's has been less than 3 months since I discovered that there is a name for what happens to me -- and millions of other people, but apparently not most people -- when we hear certain sounds. It's called ASMR.

Scientists haven't explained it yet. Its full name, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, might sound science-y, but it's not. It was coined by non-scientists. Apparently it doesn't happen to most people. One theory is that it is small seizures. I was surprised to learn that. I was mostly familiar with large, dangerous seizures -- not personally, but through knowing people who have experienced them. I don't know whether the theory that ASMR is seizures makes sense. Kinda doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway: I've experienced it my whole life. "It" is certain sounds which make me tingle, starting with my scalp and moving down my body, and which make me very relaxed. And I'm not talking about the wind in the trees or a burbling brook. They can be pleasant, but they don't give me The Sensation. Music doesn't do it either.

What does? Often, it's people's voices -- not singing, but speaking softly or whispering. The earliest example I can remember was a chess master who had a program on public television. This may have been earlier than 1970. I loved that show. I didn't pay any attention at all to what he was saying about chess, I have no idea but his voice made me feel great. Another example is the actress Lynne Gordon in the movie The Hot Rock, released in 1972, with Robert Redford and George Segal. Lynne Gordon plays the hypnotist Miasmo, in a short scene which I, and perhaps others who react to ASMR, wish was much longer. Hypnotists in general seem to set off my ASMR response. I can't honestly say that I've ever been hypnotized. I gather that some scientists claim that NO-ONE has ever actually been hypnotized. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me. But whether hypnotism is real or not, perhaps some of its fascination is due to the ASMR response.

Some people just naturally speak in a way which triggers the response in me. More than once, I have known someone personally who was psychotic, but whom I sought out and spent time with, because they tended to talk non-stop for long periods of time, and they had one of those voices.

Benny Hinn can definitely trigger that response in me. But not all of the time: just when he does those murmuring segments with soft background music. The times when he sounds like his mentor, Kathryn Kuhlmann. The problem with people like Hinn and Kuhlmann is, I'm not always able to ignore the content of what they're saying, content which is deplorable and disturbing. Much more disturbing than anything any of those psychotic people said.

It doesn't have to be a human voice. Here, for example, is a YouTube video from a woman who calls herself WhispersRed, with three and a half hours of ASMR, with no talking. There's a lot of sounds of fabrics being rubbed and crinkled and such. It works for me, and it seems to work for a lot of people, judging by the fact that it has 18 million views.



But more commonly, it's a human voice. And now ASMR has become big business on YouTube, with many people doing it deliberately. And some people do it much better than others. Or perhaps I should say: some ASMR performers work much better on me than do others. Perhaps it's as subjective as music. The following video, one of my favorite ASMR videos, is an example not only of something which makes me very relaxed, but also an example of something which, at least on YouTube, very often comes along with ASMR: Reiki. The lady who made this video, who goes by the name Cutebunny992, says in its title that it is "roleplay," and in the video description she says, "I am pretending to be a Reiki therapist."



The role-playing and pretending in this video doesn't bother me at all, but in many ASMR videos it puts me off. For example: Cutebunny992's native language is Greek, and other than this one video, I prefer the ones where she speaks in Greek, because I can't understand what she's saying, because the role playing of being in a doctor's office or a travel agency or whatever, is just a big distraction from the tingles and relaxation I came there for.

Some others who combine ASMR with Reiki on YouTube are most definitely not pretending. Or should I say: they most definitely SAY that they are not pretending, but are actually performing Reiki, which is a method of cleansing your aura and chokras of negative energy and replacing it with positive energy. I could write at least one blog post on Reiki on YouTube, and I found out about it even more recently than ASMR.