Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response, is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine.
I’ve had chills down my spine, I think, but it always seemed unrelated to anything that has happened around me. Sometimes it was referred to as the feeling when someone is walking over your grave. But now there are a lot of videos on YouTube where the poster of the video claims that the video, though not intended for the purpose, can or will give you ASMR by watching and especially listening to it. I’ve watched a couple of these, and mostly what I felt was boredom.
So I was wondering if anyone reading these words has experienced this phenomenon.
Yes, I’ve experienced it all my life-- a very pleasant tingly sensation that’s triggered sometimes when someone is talking or explaining something to me in a friendly and helpful manner. There’s no sexual component to it-- it’s more of a general positive human interaction thing.
It happens at random for me; I can’t trigger it. I tried watching a couple of those YouTube ASMR videos once and I felt nothing but vague embarrassment.
For years I had no idea whether I was the only one who experienced it or not. I used to think the expression “getting the warm fuzzies” described it, but I looked it up once and it’s just defined as generally happy feelings. So I was interested to find out about the budding ASMR info that only started showing up in the late aughts.
If you want, maybe try a few minutes of this one (below), which is a bunch of rapid-fire ‘triggers’. One of them might elicit the response. Again, wear earbuds to have the 3D illusion of the sound happening around you.
Although pleasant for most, I suspect it is a vestigial instinctive evolutionary fear response to the sound of potential danger around you. Or the sound of something intruding into your personal space. So perhaps not surprising that it isn’t present in everyone.
Thanks. I gave it a listen-- and nothing. I don’t think sound effects will do it for me; it has to be a real human interaction.
I don’t know about that; at least not with me. For one thing, I need to be relaxed and in a good mood in the first place for it to happen at all.
My theory (based on no evidence other than my own experience) is that, since we’re a very social species in which complex social interactions are important, it’s a reaction that evolved as sort of a ‘reward system’ to encourage positive non-sexual social interaction.
Yeah, same here. And some of them are just … weird … and gross me out. Like sounds of licking. I don’t get the whole ASMR thing, but, that’s okay. I just don’t have that response I guess.
My experience with it is very similar to @solost - for me it usually happens in a health care setting when someone is helpful and comforting. I’ve never experienced it from a video.
I don’t know that there needs to be a polar opposite to ASMR. Our bodies have all sorts of positive and negative feedback loops to either encourage or discourage certain things. You touch a hot stove and it hurts. So you avoid that in the future. What’s the opposite of pain-- pleasure, or just the absence of pain? Maybe the opposite of ASMR is just not having ASMR.
I was talking about having a physiological reaction that is similar to that described in ASMR, but not for pleasant things, and even though the reaction is similar, it is not, IMHO, similarly pleasant.
The DPP chanel that @romansperson suggests (which I have no intention of visiting) suggests that there are those who do find such a reaction to be pleasant.
I’ve only got one trigger as far as I know. If I’m laying in bed and have my back to my gf, and she leans over and starts speaking directly into my ear (as in “what do you want to do for dinner tomorrow”), I get the tingles.
It’s “pleasant”, but not really bc it’s sensory overload and I have to remove myself from it.
This is the circumstance in which I’ve experienced the ASMR sensation. The various videos that are supposed to trigger it do nothing for me. For me it seems to have to do with having something explained to me. Not always–there’s a certain vocal cadence to the explanation that seems to be required. It’s hard to describe, but it definitely happens.
This is all fascinating. It sounds reasonably pleasant for most people who have it. I’m not sure if I should feel deprived, but I don’t really know what I’m missing.
