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ASMR: The 'Unnamed Feeling'

Yithian said:
I just occured to me to mention that I had very sensitive skin as a child and in states of excitement another person's touch was unbearably ticklish.

I've never made the link before, but the lemonade over ice sensation is very similar.
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It used to take me ages to lower myself into a bath when I was a kid for the same reasons Yith, when I got older, I used to envy people who could enjoy a shower because it was and still is mostly an uncomfortable experience for me .. I mostly body wash myself with multiple flannels now .. I also had eczma (or however it's spelt) so I think there might be a connection .. dunno ? ..
 
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Ah now there's an interesting thing... I have never been ticklish and didn't used to react at all when people tried it with me as a child. Perhaps it's me who's out of step with the rest of the world!
 
Swifty said:
It used to take me ages to lower myself into a bath when I was a kid for the same reasons Yith, when I got older, I used to envy people who could enjoy a shower because it was and still is mostly an uncomfortable experience for me .. I mostly body wash myself with multiple flannels now .. I also had eczma (or however it's spelt) so I think there might be a connection .. dunno ? ..
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Sorry, I'm not keeping up.

Are you also able to experience ASMR? And if so, do you think the sensation has anything in common with the feeling of skin sensitivity?
 
Spudrick68 said:
I recall watching the video for R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts in the gym when I heard the song for the first time. I nearly started blubbing on the treadmill. I am indeed, as the eldest told me. an 'emotional car crash'.
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I had only heard Loreena McKennitt's All Souls Night once on radio when I bought the album The Visit were it's one of the tracks. I got eargasm the first time I played the song on my stereo. The best songs get you teary-eyed.
 
Yithian said:
Sorry, I'm not keeping up.

Are you also able to experience ASMR? And if so, do you think the sensation has anything in common with the feeling of skin sensitivity?
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I haven't looked into ASMR enough to formulate an opinion .. I've jut got weirdly sensitive skin for some reason.
 
Vardoger said:
I had only heard Loreena McKennitt's All Souls Night once on radio when I bought the album The Visit were it's one of the tracks. I got eargasm the first time I played the song on my stereo. The best songs get you teary-eyed.
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is ASMR equated to emotionally charged and personally resonant music ? if so im onboard ...
 
While listening to the same host ChristopherNotWalken's excellent interview with Prince protoge Jill Jones, I stumbled upon the ASMR world by accident. Apparently ASMR is very popular among people who have difficulty with intimate touch to have an outlet for the sounds of someone close.

 
MrRING said:
Apparently ASMR is very popular among people who have difficulty with intimate touch to have an outlet for the sounds of someone close.

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Do you mean 'sexually intimate' or just the touch of another?

If the latter, that chimes exactly with what I was suggesting above.
 
henry said:
is ASMR equated to emotionally charged and personally resonant music ? if so im onboard ...
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You can say frisson and eargasm is the music equivalent to ASMR.
 
Yithian said:
Do you mean 'sexually intimate' or just the touch of another?

If the latter, that chimes exactly with what I was suggesting above.
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It’s been a little while since I listened to it, but it does seem to correspond to what you are saying. Less spanking the monkey, and more creation of touch & intimacy. I seem to recall that the host and many of his friends have had problems with getting and maintaining close human contact due to disability or appearance, and that these records fill that void of human closeness. ASMR is interesting stuff to listen to, and I can certainly get that tingly feeling from listening.
 
Swifty said:
I've jut got weirdly sensitive skin for some reason.
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Me too! And I had eczema when I was a kid. It disappeared when I went through puberty, which suggests to me that it's hormonal.
 
I only heard of this recently and decided to investigate further.

If likewise it's fresh, this New York Times article is helpfully informative:

How A.S.M.R. Became a Sensation

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/magazine/how-asmr-videos-became-a-sensation-youtube.html

So, first look at ASMR...


I might understand this..

Although not often nowadays I would read magazines, just so happens that in need of buying advice, I have been browsing through a copy of 'What Hi-Fi'.

Yes, I do flick through the pages similarly and can trace this right back, as it was a habit of my dad's when reading a newspaper and I presumed the correct manner.

I bring this up as it was a suggestion when in an idle moment, I wondered if anything Fortean related was on YouTube since I last looked ages ago.

Why the YouTube suggestion?

It wasn't specifically because of the subject matter - Fortean though it may well be - it resulted fron the following video.

I had a quick browse of same earlier - couple of minutes - and now require to decide if that's enough to understand the content, or would I like to watch more.

Absolutely the latter and not really sure why... compelling..?

Will do so later and hopefully have a more satisfactory perspective.

What a bizarre subject to inadvertently and somewhat forteanly stumble across though...

 
Comfortably Numb said:
.........................................................

So, first look at ASMR...


'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
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She's going too quickly and not concentrating enough on the content. The concentration part is important.
 
I’ve always enjoyed Bob Ross, he relaxes me.
The best part of the yoga class is the rest period at the end.
Lately I find myself watching videos of professional barbers cutting hair.
So, I like being put in a relaxing state of mind from time to time. I tend to live in my head a lot and think too much about abstract problems that I cannot solve. The state of society, do I like this art/music or not, what are my politics, how much is religion good vs bad, that kinda stuff. So zoning out, states of zen, whatever you wanna call it, usually does me good.

I’ll take the quiz if the quizzer cares to comment.

Do you especially-seek or specifically-avoid thrills (eg roller-coasters/motorcycling/extreme sports)?
Some of both. I enjoy a challenge. Never cared for amusement park rides In general though
because I don’t really trust the machinery or the people in charge Of maintaining it.
I ride a motorcycle, but am very cautious about over extending my ability, same as when I used to do a lot of whitewater kayaking.

Are your general reaction times good (eg are you a fast-but-safe driver, can you catch crockery before it hits the deck, are you good at raquet sports)? Or do you tend to be the converse of these?
Generally good, tho aware I’m not the greatest by any means.

Do you consider yourself to be a nervous person (jump/scream if very surprised, or are you generally steely-calm)?
I tend to give whatever I’m doing my full concentration, so yea, I can be easily startled if deep into something else.

Do you dream vividly/rarely/never?
I dream regularly and sometimes vividly, but I rarely remember them except for the rare extremely vivid dream.

Do you sleep lightly or deeply?
Like a rock. I can sleep thru a hurricane.

Do you consider yourself to be a practical person or a fantasist at heart?
Day to day decision making, I’m very practical. But I’m a dreamer at heart.

If you suffer loss (of ANY) type, do you laugh it off/ take it in your stride/ go bananas?
I tend to take things pretty hard, but I tend to recover fairly quickly.

Do you consider yourself immediately understood by friends, or do they struggle to understand your motivations?
I choose friends carefully and therefore tend to have very few close friends. I believe they generally understand me, at least on some level.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I'm not sure this phenomenon works on me, but I do find watching Bob Ross at work curiously restful.
I'm not particularly a fan of his painting style, but his videos are quite good.
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This Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) thing... reminds me of those films that have been on the Tele in the last year or so, about the train journey, or the bus journey etc, where the journey is totally without sound, but subscripts pop-up every so often with bits of information.
A great way to emphasise that boredom can be intriguing as well as informative - giving the brain the chance to absorb different stuff that in the norm it would totally ignore, and only deal with the here and now. Bit like Fortean really... H'mm? Now there's a thought!
 
Sid said:
This Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) thing... reminds me of those films that have been on the Tele in the last year or so, about the train journey, or the bus journey etc, where the journey is totally without sound, but subscripts pop-up every so often with bits of information.
A great way to emphasise that boredom can be intriguing as well as informative - giving the brain the chance to absorb different stuff that in the norm it would totally ignore, and only deal with the here and now. Bit like Fortean really... H'mm? Now there's a thought!
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Here's one from Norway. A seven hour train journey from Bergen on the west coast to Oslo in East Norway.

 
My friends in Melbourne Australia were telling me that their local multi-language TV service runs what they call "slow television" of things like long train journeys and barge journeys. I thought ASMR was the use of the stereo effect on the body's audio system to give people tingles. I find it rarely works for me. It's interesting that it has such a following. I assume it's a sex thing?
 
Well this is fascinating! I wonder if the sensation is a relatively modern thing? There's so much human made unatural noise around us. Back in the cave days we would've been acutely aware of nearby human sounds that were natural- the sniffing and chewing and other people whispering quietly to each other. It would've been a sign of safety and security and a cue to relax.

I however do not experience this. I guess its the mild misanthropy in me! Other people sniffing and lip smacking etc gets right on my nerves. That whispering video upthread sent annoyance shivers through me after about 30 seconds. The page turning one- the rustling paper was fine, the finger licking, hell no.

As i write there are very high winds outside and the trees blowing are making such noise they drown out a lot of the ambient human noises outside. Its just lovely. I guess i'd have been living in a cave of my own in ancient times!
 
I've had the warm, fuzzy feeling since I was a kid (not continuously!). It's not sexual, it's a feeling of extreme comfort, like a little burst of personal happiness running down from the top of your head down your back. I can sometimes induce it, other times it happens naturally. There must be a physical reason for it, but even though it's been commodified, nobody seems to know what that reason is.
 
Entirely unaware of my interest in this subject, my daughter sent the following link earlier tonight, as she thought it was, 'my kind of thing...'. :)

 
Having subsequently explained and she read this thread, it has just been suggested we might find the following of related interest:

 
I do love to listen to rain on a tent, and window and many other things, it helps me sleep, it relaxes me, tho i cant remember having any tingles, i just started the train journey that Vardoger posted and it seems like that one will be relaxing as well, on long journeys i loved to fall asleep in the car or on the bus cause of the noises they made, it was kinda comforting, like you feel safe.
 
Get a fucking grip people. If you’re going to flip out over the flake of a Flake, your judgment system on any other phenomenon has gone right out of the tinkly broken glass window.
 
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Analogue Boy said:
Get a fucking grip people. If you’re going to flip out over the flake of a Flake, your judgment system on any other phenomenon has gone right out of the tinkly broken glass window.
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It's not about judgement though, is it - it's about feeling: the seemingly exaggerated emotional/physical response to apparently insignificant stimuli. Bit like what you just did there.
 
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I'm not sure that I get anything like what's been described on this thread, and I'm kind of envious.

The closest thing I can think of is being in a moving car at night (as a passenger, rather than the driver). I've always loved this, since I was a very young child. I can very soon slip into a kind of deeply comforting but unfocused reverie - I imagine similar to some form of meditation.

(Thought so - we touched on this not so long ago on: Let's Dig Up Old Threads!, thread - starting with Recycled1's post at #43.)
 
The train journey was going ok till he opened his fat trap *grumbles* The chocolate one annoyed me, i think i will stick to rain, and also i love the walking in the rain with an umbrella, soooo relaxing, still no tingling tho. I do like people chattering in the background but not loud and not whispering
 
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