ASMR: The Feeling Science Hasn't Explained Yet

[Broderick]

This was an odd sensation indeed. The earliest I remember it happening to me was when some soldiers came to our school and helped us with math by holding up flash cards. For some reason the one on one sessions with the flash cards gave me this sensation. I suggest everyone watch this video, it might give you the sensation too. I suggest wearing headphones and closing your eyes while listening to it.

Spoiler

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Most of the other stuff on this thread didn`t really have much effect, but this. Oh boy, it felt good. Got chills and everything at one point. Even couldn`t breathe from the ....well, not really sure what it was, but it made me hold my breath. And interesting, i actually thought for a split second during the end i was in an actual barber shop. So, yeah. Freaky would be a good word to describe it. And really damn interesting. And thanks for the vid!

You are welcome, I figured this was the perfect chance to link it heh. It is an odd feeling, good, but odd. I only figured out last year that people other than just myself has experienced it. It can be quite relaxing too; sometimes I use videos like the one I link to help me get to sleep.

 

[lechat]

very interesting
certain noises make me agitated or nervous while whispering depending on the source can be pleasant or infuriating which might be related to something similar

to those suffering (enjoying?) this. would you say that it might be a form of Synesthesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia wherein your brain confuses certain senses with others and often gives them a duality? being able to taste colours or smell sounds for example. if that was the case i would imagine certain sounds would be exhibited as pleasant while others would be offensive or irritating. is that the case for anyone?

I'm no neuroscientist, but based on my own experience I don't think so, at least not entirely. The particular sound of teeth crushing ice (or anything that closely approximates is) is a trigger for me, but I get more than the simple "buzz" people keep talking about. When I hear it, there's a fuzziness in my scalp and along the back of my neck, but I also feel the sensation of the vibrations of my molars rubbing against the ice, and the distinct pops as the ice cracks. Depending on how loud/crunchy the sound is, my jaw will actually feel cold. As far as I can tell, it's tied to a distinct sensory memory of a particular time that I chewed on ice, and not because of synesthesia.

EDIT: After going through that this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlDFG2SCgn8] trigger compilation video, I'm definitely more inclined to believe it's tied to sensory memory. The frosted glass in particular immediately brought back memories of a glass chess set I used to have, and how I would rub the frosted pieces together, or run my nails along the frosted parts of the board to feel the vibrations. Squeezing the stuffed soccer ball worked as well; if she'd had a bigger stuffed thing (like a stuffed animal or one of those fake mini-American-footballs) and squeezed it more intently, I would have had a much more pronounced response.

I find it curious that the ASMR videos focus on the very quiet and the subtle--my triggers seem to require more volume or longer sounds, and I highly doubt I'm the only like this. Like running a fingernail along the teeth of a zip-tie (hee hee, just thinking about one gives me fuzzies), or the hum of an iron bar.

and the plot thickens
interesting you mention ice cause the sound of someone munching ice infuriates me

so would you say you are a particularly empathetic person? are there any sounds that make you feel something else like nervous or agitated? would you say there are sounds you have not heard before, particular weird sounds unrelated to anything you have heard before that trigger any other form of reaction?

still amazed that this is a (apparently common) thing and i have heard nothing about it

 

[Vuliev]

so would you say you are a particularly empathetic person?

Quite so, in fact, to the point that I've been trying to develop my ability to directly perceive the emotions of others, with limited (but very real) success. Why do you ask?

are there any sounds that make you feel something else like nervous or agitated? would you say there are sounds you have not heard before, particular weird sounds unrelated to anything you have heard before that trigger any other form of reaction?

I can hear the whine of some high-frequency electronic devices, like CRT [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube] TVs and computer monitors, or some varieties of theft detectors in retail stores, and it's probably one of the most aggravating sounds to me. Since it's a very high frequency (~20+ kHz), most people can't hear it, and it's fairly quiet even to me--but it's like having a million microscopic needles bore into my eardrums with agonizing slowness. If I get particularly close to a source, it hurts. My university library is probably the worst I've experienced so far; I usually wear a pair of simple behind-the-neck headphones, and so every time I walk through the detectors in the library, my headphones greatly amplify the sound (like 10x or something) and the pain becomes excruciating after only a couple seconds.

But "alien" kinds of sounds? Probably, but I can't think of any that stick out, aside from maybe vague snippets of dreams from long ago.

 

[2fish]

I know of what you speak but it seems my sex muscles are broken...or work mostly on touch as that is the last time I remember those spine chills in a good way. But my oh my that is too old for some of you. Been years I tell you.

 

[RJ 17]

Evidently I have no soul, because none of the videos in the OP evoked that sensation.

A number of my favorite songs certainly do, but none of those videos did. I don't see why anyone would think a clearly reflexive reaction would be creepy, though. It's essentially the same as the doctor whacking your knee with that little hammer.

 

[Ljs1121]

I guess that makes sense. I always tend to get a warm fuzzy feeling inside whenever somebody talks softly. I'll sometimes even find myself rewinding Youtube videos because I liked the way somebody said a sentence.

 

[lechat]

so would you say you are a particularly empathetic person?

Quite so, in fact, to the point that I've been trying to develop my ability to directly perceive the emotions of others, with limited (but very real) success. Why do you ask?

are there any sounds that make you feel something else like nervous or agitated? would you say there are sounds you have not heard before, particular weird sounds unrelated to anything you have heard before that trigger any other form of reaction?

I can hear the whine of some high-frequency electronic devices, like CRT [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube] TVs and computer monitors, or some varieties of theft detectors in retail stores, and it's probably one of the most aggravating sounds to me. Since it's a very high frequency (~20+ kHz), most people can't hear it, and it's fairly quiet even to me--but it's like having a million microscopic needles bore into my eardrums with agonizing slowness. If I get particularly close to a source, it hurts. My university library is probably the worst I've experienced so far; I usually wear a pair of simple behind-the-neck headphones, and so every time I walk through the detectors in the library, my headphones greatly amplify the sound (like 10x or something) and the pain becomes excruciating after only a couple seconds.

But "alien" kinds of sounds? Probably, but I can't think of any that stick out, aside from maybe vague snippets of dreams from long ago.

i ask about empathy because ppl have noted that they experience this effect when they see others heavily concentrating
quite possibly what you have is a short circuit in the brain linking an empathic reaction with sounds and outputting it as a physical/emotional reaction

do any of you that experience this have trouble perceiving or understanding the emotions of others? do you find yourself empathizing with inanimate objects like a toaster with a face or to a lesser extent a barely humanoid robot?
would you say that in this video

<youtube=4fDMSLLMk4Q>

you are perceiving the pleasure that the tin can may be feeling?

sorry for the potential dumb questions but you peaked my interest and i would like to further understand what is going on here

 

[Vuliev]

A number of my favorite songs certainly do, but none of those videos did. I don't see why anyone would think a clearly reflexive reaction would be creepy, though. It's essentially the same as the doctor whacking your knee with that little hammer.

I dunno, the reflex hammer is used for the specific purpose of checking the functionality of the peripheral nervous system, and it works on all humans (well, the ones that don't have peripheral nervous disorders, anyway.) ASMR triggers apparently vary greatly, and the responses to triggers are widely varied as well, so it doesn't seem like it's reflexive in nature.

i ask about empathy because ppl have noted that they experience this effect when they see others heavily concentrating
quite possibly what you have is a short circuit in the brain linking an empathic reaction with sounds and outputting it as a physical/emotional reaction

do any of you that experience this have trouble perceiving or understanding the emotions of others? do you find yourself empathizing with inanimate objects like a toaster with a face or to a lesser extent a barely humanoid robot?
would you say that in this video

<youtube=4fDMSLLMk4Q>

you are perceiving the pleasure that the tin can may be feeling?

sorry for the potential dumb questions but you peaked my interest and i would like to further understand what is going on here

Not at all, it's nice to see a genuinely curious person probe a mystery.

While I'm going to say that I don't "perceive the pleasure" that a zip-tie may "feel" when I run my nail along its teeth, I do see where you're going with that. I'm not sure about it, though, since personification of objects that don't have structural patterns that are instinctively recognized requires conscious thought, and ASMR feels more sub-conscious to me. Or, at least, based below conscious thought; while I can influence my ASMR response through concentration or meditation, I can't create a response through such personification. Kinda like scratching an itch: I can scratch an itch and it'll feel good, but I can't imagine an itch and then scratch where I imagined it to be and get anywhere near the same result

 

[lechat]

ok progress provided others agree with what you say

personal question time. feel free not to answer if offended or overly personal
would you define ASMR as sexual on any level? would you say your early sexual experiences were in anyway significantly auditory? do you recall any form of ASMR before sexual maturity?

are there any sounds from your past that make you feel overly nostalgic? or do any sounds trigger vivid memories of your past? i ask these last questions because while i have said that the sound of someone munching ice makes me angry the smell of stickers (particularly the lick and stick type) make me nostalgic and at some points have brought me to tears pointing to an emotional link to those sensory stimulation which you may yourself feel

capture: how interesting
seriously fuck you capture

 

[Joe136]

And here I am always feeling weird for staring at people when they do the strangest things. I seem to remember having this feeling more often when I was a child. I wonder if age has much to do with it...

 

[RJ 17]

A number of my favorite songs certainly do, but none of those videos did. I don't see why anyone would think a clearly reflexive reaction would be creepy, though. It's essentially the same as the doctor whacking your knee with that little hammer.

I dunno, the reflex hammer is used for the specific purpose of checking the functionality of the peripheral nervous system, and it works on all humans (well, the ones that don't have peripheral nervous disorders, anyway.) ASMR triggers apparently vary greatly, and the responses to triggers are widely varied as well, so it doesn't seem like it's reflexive in nature.

The body's automatic reaction to some form of external stimuli...certainly sounds like a type of reflex to me.

 

[lacktheknack]

ok progress provided others agree with what you say

personal question time. feel free not to answer if offended or overly personal
would you define ASMR as sexual on any level? would you say your early sexual experiences were in anyway significantly auditory? do you recall any form of ASMR before sexual maturity?

are there any sounds from your past that make you feel overly nostalgic? or do any sounds trigger vivid memories of your past? i ask these last questions because while i have said that the sound of someone munching ice makes me angry the smell of stickers (particularly the lick and stick type) make me nostalgic and at some points have brought me to tears pointing to an emotional link to those sensory stimulation which you may yourself feel

capture: how interesting
seriously fuck you capture

OP here.

My ASMR experiences have been entirely non-sexual. If anything, arousal wrecks the mindset I need to really feel them.

And while I've had the tingles since I was about six, they aren't nostalgic. I don't even remember what my triggers were at the time.

 

[Lieju]

Well, when I still had my cat, her purring did this. It also made my teeth itch.

 

[Vuliev]

The body's automatic reaction to some form of external stimuli...certainly sounds like a type of reflex to me.

I'll clarify here: ASMR is most likely not a reflex [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex] in the medical sense of the word, since it doesn't involve any kind of movement.

ASMR also isn't always automatic, and it's definitely not guaranteed to happen. Concentration seems to have a significant effect on magnitude of response, and (for me, at least) constant repetition of the stimulus dulls or negates the response.

would you define ASMR as sexual on any level? would you say your early sexual experiences were in anyway significantly auditory? do you recall any form of ASMR before sexual maturity?

No, not really. Sexual stimulus feels distinctively different to me than ASMR. As for ASMR before puberty? Hell if I know. The ice crunching, maybe. If it happened with other stimuli, I doubt I paid much attention to it, figuring that it happened to other people too and wasn't something to worry about.

There is a particular book-on-tape that I used to listen to just about every night before bed when I was little: The Tailor of Gloucester, read my Meryl Streep. I'll dig it up again and see if something in it triggers.

EDIT: So I found the recording [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF-qsn6w5Ls] on YouTube, and holy shit it set off so many triggers it's insane. While the responses weren't very palpable in my skin (unlike the ones from music or zip-ties or frosted glass), there is a very strong feeling of fuzzies--it's very much like I'm literally hugging my brain in happiness. Christ, I'm so happy right now that I'm crying. This is nuts.

EDIT EDIT: Now that I've calmed down a little, I'm pretty much convinced that that recording is the source of a huge number of my aural affinities: particular inflections and sounds in speech, particular timbres of voice, stringed instruments, Celtic and Gaelic instruments, particular note progressions, particular musical scales and modes, and probably more that my joy-addled brain can't think of right now.

are there any sounds from your past that make you feel overly nostalgic? or do any sounds trigger vivid memories of your past?

No, not really. I mean, yeah, there are things like hearing old songs or recordings, but those are definitely the result of consciously recognizing those sounds and associating them with clear, comprehensive memories. Nothing like ASMR.

 

[lechat]

The body's automatic reaction to some form of external stimuli...certainly sounds like a type of reflex to me.

I'll clarify here: ASMR is most likely not a reflex [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex] in the medical sense of the word, since it doesn't involve any kind of movement.

ASMR also isn't always automatic, and it's definitely not guaranteed to happen. Concentration seems to have a significant effect on magnitude of response, and (for me, at least) constant repetition of the stimulus dulls or negates the response.

would you define ASMR as sexual on any level? would you say your early sexual experiences were in anyway significantly auditory? do you recall any form of ASMR before sexual maturity?

No, not really. Sexual stimulus feels distinctively different to me than ASMR. As for ASMR before puberty? Hell if I know. The ice crunching, maybe. If it happened with other stimuli, I doubt I paid much attention to it, figuring that it happened to other people too and wasn't something to worry about.

There is a particular book-on-tape that I used to listen to just about every night before bed when I was little: The Tailor of Gloucester, read my Meryl Streep. I'll dig it up again and see if something in it triggers.

EDIT: So I found the recording [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF-qsn6w5Ls] on YouTube, and holy shit it set off so many triggers it's insane. While the responses weren't very palpable in my skin (unlike the ones from music or zip-ties or frosted glass), there is a very strong feeling of fuzzies--it's very much like I'm literally hugging my brain in happiness. Christ, I'm so happy right now that I'm crying. This is nuts.

EDIT EDIT: Now that I've calmed down a little, I'm pretty much convinced that that recording is the source of a huge number of my aural affinities: particular inflections and sounds in speech, particular timbres of voice, stringed instruments, Celtic and Gaelic instruments, particular note progressions, particular musical scales and modes, and probably more that my joy-addled brain can't think of right now.

are there any sounds from your past that make you feel overly nostalgic? or do any sounds trigger vivid memories of your past?

No, not really. I mean, yeah, there are things like hearing old songs or recordings, but those are definitely the result of consciously recognizing those sounds and associating them with clear, comprehensive memories. Nothing like ASMR.

argh that just confuses me

i was gonna say that subconscious memories of your child hood are stimulating the pleasure center in your brain leading to an ASMR response and your initial post confirms that but your last sentence completely contradicts it

try to look at it objectively. is it possible that the repetition of that early tape may be the source of your ASMR? the same question should be posed to anyone else with ASMR in this thread. is there a particularly notable instance in your childhood where you feel you were heavily influenced by a particular source of audio, more than likely without any symptoms of ASMR?

 

[Vuliev]

is it possible that the repetition of that early tape may be the source of your ASMR? the same question should be posed to anyone else with ASMR in this thread. is there a particularly notable instance in your childhood where you feel you were heavily influenced by a particular source of audio, more than likely without any symptoms of ASMR?

There's a difference between what you might call a "normal" memory and a sensory memory: "normal" memories are ones that involve higher cognitive processes like logic, language, pattern recognition, and so on, and a sensory memory is one that is directly tied to a particular sense felt by one of the senses. For example, I remember the time I put my uncle's car in neutral when it was on the steep driveway of the first house I lived in, with clear-ish visuals, distinct sounds of my parents shouting in panic (and me being like "why are they freaking out?"), the works of higher-level brain functions. But the Tailor recording is much different: while listening to the recording now prompts me to remember the sounds, I only process their meaning with the vocabulary of an adult. The sound of the particular inflections of Streep's pronunciations of the words, though, is what gives me fuzzies--the purely sensory memory of the sound of the words, of the music--nothing else.

And that' what I'd been leaning toward even in my initial posts in the thread, that ASMR is tied to basic sensory memory, not higher-level ones.

 

[Tumedus]

This may have said in the thread already, but I kind of doubt this is anything more than a subdued anticipatory activation of the pilomotor reflex or something similar. In other words, its a mild arousal related to what would normally cause goose bumps or similar tingling.

Notice that most of the activators are things that, if done directly and/or in an intimate setting would cause that type of reaction. The brain is good at making these kinds of associations so when the stimuli is received it goes into preparation mode.

Its sort of like how, before anything actually occurs, if you are about to do something that normally results in sexual stimulation, whether it be grabbing that special bottle, seeing that look in your partner's eye, or simply positioning your desk chair for proper internet porn viewing, you can become tumescent.

Edit: And while my comparison example was sexual in nature, arousal itself doesn't have to be. All that is required is that your brain associates the video stimuli with some other stimuli that would cause an arousal reflex.

 

[Vuliev]

Edit: And while my comparison example was sexual in nature, arousal itself doesn't have to be. All that is required is that your brain associates the video stimuli with some other stimuli that would cause an arousal reflex.

Okay, you completely lost me there. It also doesn't explain the definitely non-palpable experience I had from re-listening to The Tailor of Gloucester (see the few posts above yours.)

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

I.
DONT.
LIKE.
THIS.
HELP.

 

[Tumedus]

Edit: And while my comparison example was sexual in nature, arousal itself doesn't have to be. All that is required is that your brain associates the video stimuli with some other stimuli that would cause an arousal reflex.

Okay, you completely lost me there. It also doesn't explain the definitely non-palpable experience I had from re-listening to The Tailor of Gloucester (see the few posts above yours.)

Not sure where I lost you, I was just pointing out that arousal itself doesn't have to be related to sex in any way. It is simply a state, involving certain brain functions and hormonal releases, that increases the body's readiness to receive stimuli.

If your brain has made an association between sound A and stimulus B, hearing sound A could trigger an arousal response (readiness to receive stimulus B) or simply full on activate response B in expectation of an imminent stimulus. Because of the way memory activation works, though, cued responses can vary drastically between different people. It all depends on the strength of the association.

On the other side of the same coin, things like whispering can illicit a similar response because our body enacts an arousal state when we try to focus on a particular stimuli. And yes, believe it or not, relaxation and concentration are much more similar and related than most people commonly view them as.

Now I cannot tell you why that particular voice causes such a reaction in you, I just don't know enough about you or your development. But it falls in line with what I am saying. Your brain has made a strong association with some aspect of that voice and an arousal response. Thus, when sufficient activation of the memory cue occurs, the response is felt.

Also, just a semantic aside, what you are talking about earlier is not sensory memory. Sensory memory is the very very short term memory from your senses that gets transferred to your working memory. What you are talking about is something closer to procedural memory but I don't know what the actual term for it is, if there is one.


Caveat emptor: Although I have some eductation in it and peripheral fields, I am in no way shape or form a psychologist. This is just my take from what I do know of cognitive theory. And, fwiw, I get a slight chill up my spine from some of these but not much else, so I can only base my view on my own relative physiology and compare that to other's claims.