Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response

...or, as it's known on the interwebs, ASMR.

ASMR is defined as "a recently described perceptual phenomenon characterized as a distinct, pleasurable tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in response to visual, auditory, olfactory, and/or cognitive stimuli" according to Wikipedia.

In layman's terms, ASMR is that pleasurable "tingly" sensation you get when you see, hear, or experience certain things.
You ever get that tingly feeling when someone runs their fingers through your hair, or lightly caresses your arms or back with their nails? It's kind of like that sensation, but without physically being touched.
Common 'triggers' include nail tapping, personal attention, and soft speaking, but there's millions of other things that could cause someone to feel these tingly sensations.

There's really no scientific evidence to support even the existence of ASMR, and there is a lot of criticism on both sides of the board about it. All I know is that there's a pretty huge cult following on YouTube about these videos that produce "tingles."

Lots of people attribute these types of videos to specific niches of fetish pornography because of the inherent desire to produce these mental tingles. I think this is kind of silly, as there's nothing sexual or sexually arousing intended about ASMR, though I bet there are some out there who will feel otherwise.

This video interview, conducted by The Electric Feast with Heather Feather (one of the top ASMR content creators on YouTube) does a better job of explaining ASMR and goes further into detail than I ever could:





So what do you guys think? Has anyone else had any experience with this weird ASMR thing? Got any favorite videos or experiences to share?

...

I had my first experiences with ASMR waaaaay back when I was younger. I used to really enjoy going to see my pediatrician, not because I was excited to get looked at from every which way, but because I really liked the personal attention. It made me feel super relaxed and, sometimes, gave me this tingly feeling in the back of my head. I was able to re-create this sensation by watching the "Doctor Barney is Here!" episode of Barney and Friends, so I was watching that well into my high school years. Of course I didn't tell anyone because I thought that people would think I was insane.

Eventually, when I got into watching videos on YouTube, I would look for Doctor-type instructional videos and would sometimes watch the same video on repeat for hours. At this point even I thought I was insane; who in their right mind spends 4 hours watching someone give a physical exam on YouTube? Seriously?

Then about a year and a half ago I stumbled across a video for a head examination role play by a YouTube user called CalmingEscape. That's what first introduced me to this weird thing known as "ASMR." Did some searching and found out that this is the explanation for that weird stuff I was doing as a child and a young adult.
Since then I've been hooked. I have subscriptions to multiple ASMR channels and I listen to an ASMR video every night as I go to sleep. I've noticed that it really helps me relax and has been a major contributing factor to me getting more sleep at night, and is also something that I can do when I'm having a super crappy day as most of the role plays completely immerse me and get my mind off of whatever's bugging me.

That's just me, though. What about you?

 

Someone on the Internet came up with a scientific-sounding name for something that may or may not exist, a community sprung up around it, and a bunch of people have built large followings on YouTube around it? Doesn't do anything for me so I have no interest until someone does some actual scientific research on it, but I'm glad to see that some of the popular content producers had the good sense to monetize their videos so they're not wasting their time.