TABLE OF CONTENTS

i. INTRODUCTION

—A. JET PLANES

—B. BACK SCRATCHES

—C. SOFT-SPOKEN ASSISTANCE

II. YOUTUBE VIDEOS

—A. “DELIBERATE” VERSUS “UNINTENTIONAL” VIDEOS

—B. “GOLD” VERSUS “PYRITE”

III. CONCLUSION : HOW I USE ASMR VIDEOS

—A.  SOME OF MY FAVORITE VIDEOS

IV. A SHOUT OUT FOR “LUNAR SOL”

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I. INTRODUCTION

Happy New Year, all! This is my FIRST post of the year, 2021.  May this be a much better year. 

Anyway, when I was a kid, in my teens, I realized that there were certain types of stimuli that would relax me to the point that I would get what some people call the “tingles”. 

A. JET PLANES

For instance, while taking a break after mowing the lawn, I would often hear the distant sound of a jet airplane flying overhead, probably somewhere in the several-miles-in-the-sky range—perhaps three or four miles, maybe more, in elevation. 

It had to be pretty far, since although I could hear the  sound of the jet, I could not see it. 

I’d look up into the sky, but there would be no sign of it visually.

Yet, despite not being able to see it, merely hearing it was enough to trigger an intense feeling of relaxation . 

The sound was so mesmerizing, for lack of a more accurate term.  I suppose I use the term “mesmerizing” because  the feeling I experienced was similar to that one would expect in a person listening to a hypnotist to experience. 

Anyway, I’d stretch out on the picnic table as I listened to the jet  fly “past” my house., and as the sound faded  away—from it being too distant to be heard anymore—I’d be left with this hope that the time frame in which I was experiencing these sensations would be extended for as long as possible. 

It was almost “orgasmic” in that it could be addicting if one could deliberately self-trigger the sensations. 

B. BACK SCRATCHES

I’m not sure about anyone else, but I’d also experience a similar sense of complete contentment when I’d get a back scratch from my then- girlfriend, Roxanne, as she’d talk softly while her fingernails caressed my back ever so lightly, and I’d drift off, almost to the point of actually falling asleep on her. 

Similarly, the distant sound of a jet plane would generate a similar feeling of that same sense of complete relaxation.  

C. SOFT-SPOKEN ASSISTANCE

There was another time when a friend of mine, Donny, who lived across the street from me , saw me getting frustrated at my 10-speed bike, when I couldn’t get my chain to stay on the sprocket, as it kept falling off after I’d ride my bike only a few houses away from home, and I kept walking the bike back to my house , and sitting on my porch , with the bike upside down, as I re-laced the chain back onto the teeth of the sprocket, attempting to get the chain to stay put. 

After a series of loud curse words, and what he probably thought was a buildup of anger intense enough to cause me to throw the bike across the front lawn, he came over and said, “Let me take a look at it.”

While he was fiddling with the chain and sprocket, he was talking rather softly ( in a soft-spoken manner—which was not his usual M.O. when it came to speaking; which is probably why it caught my attention ) and in the two-fold process of watching him work, and listening to his soft-spoken voice, I found myself wishing Roxanne was behind me scratching my back.

With her fingernails scratching my back, and Donny’s reassuring voice , both tag-teaming my sensory responses, I would have been in Seventh Heaven. 

 That was in the early to mid-1970’s. 

Also, as a somewhat humorous side note, is my concern that my heightened sensitivity to this stimulus-response paradigm could cause me some problems in the job world.

For example, I worked at one company back in the mid-1990’s, and my immediate supervisor, Ken, took me out into the factory to go do some paperwork that was located out in this office-like enclosure that was smack dab in the middle of the main production section. 

Although the two-desked “office” did have an air conditioner installed in the wall that faced the overhead doors, it was mid-autumn so, it wasn’t turned on. Yet, it was still pretty warm outside, possibly in the mid- to -upper 60’s, so it was noticeably stuffy in that room.  It definitely needed some fresh air, but opening the door would also allow in approximately 100 decibels of very unpleasant noise levels coming from nearby machinery and cranes.

Anyway, we walked into the office, and Ken said, “Have a seat.” as he pointed to me which of the two desks to sit down at. 

I sat down, and he threw a 12-inch tall pile of those super wide (14″ wide?) green-and-white striped computer printouts from a dot matrix printer, with that detachable strip along the sides with all those holes in the strips, and he flipped open the first pile for me to work on.

Ken, who normally was always shouting because of the noise level in the factory, was—in the quiet of this relatively-soundproofed enclosure—suddenly talking very softly as he was showing me what  he needed me to do with this huge pile of printouts pertaining to production inventory. 

Leaning over my shoulder and pointing to the relevant columns to be focused on, he practically whispered the instructions, and I was fighting to stay awake. I literally started to nod out.

He might as well have been saying, “You are getting very sleepy. Your muscles are becoming completely relaxed, as the sound of my voice sedates your mood.  When I count to five, you will cluck like a chicken…”

Shaking my head in the attempt to revive myself, I looked over at the air conditioner, wondering if I should turn it on after he left, just to feel some kind of exhilaration in order to stay awake. 

Because of that incident, to this day, I always worry that if I’m ever at a new job, and being trained by someone, with a soft-spoken voice, while giving me verbal instructions, I might literally fall asleep on them during my training. 

Now that I think about it, I did have a professor in college, whose lectures I frequently nodded out during, simply because of her voice was such an auditory  sedative. 

Anyway, back to the subject of my initial discovery of my sensitivity to ASMR-like stimuli.

II. YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Post 1970’s, it would not be for another 40 years, until the 2010’s, when I was video-surfing on YouTube, that I would encounter a term, “ASMR”, which I was not familiar with, which stands for : Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which put a spotlight  on a sensation for which, up to that point in time, I had no term to refer to it as. 

In fact, I didn’t even think there was an official term for it, since I didn’t think it was a “thing” for anyone outside my own mind.  I literally thought it was “just me” being weird (well, many people think I am; but that’s besides the point).

I had no idea other people were having similar experiences.

Once I discovered that there was a smorgasbord of videos pertaining to this phenomenon, I went zealously looking through the YouTube Video Content search pages seeking out  the videos that would offer up the  exact content that would trigger the very sensations I enjoyed experiencing. 

About the only two negative aspects to this discovery were that :

First, the vast majority of videos available fell far short of the quality I was looking for—i.e., there were “deliberate” ASMR videos, and there were also “unintentional” ASMR videos, of which I preferred the latter by a ratio of 99 to 1; and 

Second, of those content providers that were “on the right track”, only a small portion of the videos they uploaded sufficed in the realm of eliciting the sensations I was seeking : that is, one person’s “gold” is another person’s “pyrite”.

A. “DELIBERATE” VERSUS “UNINTENTIONAL” VIDEOS

1. “DELIBERATE” VIDEOS

One of the original “deliberate” video creators was a woman who goes by the name of “Lita”, whose videos entailed her giving someone a massage while simultaneously talking very softly throughout the procedure. 

However, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t remember any of her videos containing the term “ASMR” in the titles, so, I’m guessing she was not marketing her product as  ASMR-related. 

Maybe she was and I just don’t recall the details that would point to such a claim. 

Anyway, her videos were very relaxing. 

Unfortunately, a deluge of “wannabees” soon followed suit with absolutely horrible content of “whisperers” who role play in their videos, usually in a doctor’s office, a library, a travel agency, a job interview—I’m surprised someone hasn’t uploaded a booking at a police station., yet ( “Do you have any priors?”, “Have you ever been arrested?”)  

I realize those people mean well, and there are plenty of people who find their videos pleasing or somehow filling whatever void they need filling, but for me, the whispering videos are just so unnatural and phony and unfulfilling on so many levels, especially those “starring” some 17-year-old girl whose whispering is actually far more irritating than relaxing. 

 

2. “UNINTENTIONAL” VIDEOS

In contrast, are the “Unintentional” videos, which are not officially created to be ASMR-related videos, but the  voices of the people “starring” in the videos are so relaxing, that an ASMR-like reaction is commonly experienced by those who watch them—or, more accurately, listen to them. 

I’ve embedded a few of such videos below in this post. 

Most of the videos are of people educating the viewing audience on the fundamentals of some topic—everything from coin-collecting to cooking to the Alexander techniques of the proper way to sit and stand and do The Twist to you-name-it. 

Still, there are others that are merely clips out of actual movies, where the actors are simply talking softly in a given scene ( I can think of at least three movie scenes—that I’d like to upload since no one else has)  that can trigger an ASMR-like reaction in those who listen to them.

Either way, instructional videos or movie scenes, I like these videos because they don’t seem to insult your intelligence the way I feel the “Deliberately”-created videos do. 

B. “GOLD” VERSUS “PYRITE”

Of those people who upload the “Unintentional” types of ASMR videos, there are some that really work for me, which I consider to be among the “gold” collection, and there are many that just aren’t as relaxing as the  gold ones. I consider these the “pyrite” videos, because they may initially appear to be potentially relaxing, but ultimately end up not having the same effect that it had on the person who saw fit to upload the video. 

The “soft-spoken” attribute is one that is subject to relative  assessments : what might be deemed as sufficient to one person, might fall short of the goal for someone else. 

For instance, if the soft-spoken attribute was measured in, say, decibels, my Goldie Locks-like range of what is “just right” and not “too whispered” or “too loud” might be  slightly or drastically different than someone else’s range. 

Perhaps someone finds the shouting of Sam Kinison still “within range” of a relaxing tone of voice, whereas, for me, even a normal talking voice is still much too loud to have any kind of sedative-like effect. 

The same goes for the other end of the decibel spectrum : the obviously acted-out whispering one person might find calming, another person (such as myself)  experiences it as displeasingly unnatural and therefore not relaxing at all.

III. CONCLUSION : HOW I USE ASMR VIDEOS

I am , by no means, any kind of “puritan” when it comes to pharmaceuticals in the sleep aid department : if I really think I need some assistance, I’ll be happy to take a 25 mg or 50 mg Benedryl capsule. 

BUT…benedryl frequently makes me feel groggy in the morning, so, if I can fall alseep via au naturale means, I will certainly choose that method any day, since there’s no hangover associated with drug-free methods. 

When foregoing pills, my chosen alternative is the use of ASMR videos. 

Toward that goal, I’ll use my computer to prepare for that task.

Actually, I have two computers on my desk :

[1] a desktop, which is my main PC, where I do all my job-searching and social media posts—and which has a tiny Bluetooth speaker hooked to it , so I can hear mp3 files or any YouTube videos I listen to on the fly ; and

[2] a laptop, which I use in my music studio applications, and which is piped into a large screen TV not only so I can see the laptop’s screen magnified, but also so I can hear YouTube videos much louder than the tiny Bluetooth speaker on my desktop  is capable of. 

When I listen to ASMR videos, it’s either on my laptop through the large screen TV, or on my Smartphone through a pair of headphones. 

When I listen to ASMR videos on my laptop, it’s  usually pre-bedtime, and I’m just testing to see if I’m really tired enough to go to bed. 

On the one hand, if I get through an entire video, and I haven’t experienced any relaxation or yawned at least once or twice, that’s usually a sign that I’m nowhere near ready for bed, and I’ll move onto something else for an hour, or so., at which point I’ll try “the test” again.

On the other hand, if I find myself not focusing on   whatever tasks I’m currently working on, and instead, staring out into space, or if I’ve actually closed my eyes for any amount of time, then, I’m probably ready for bed. 

If that’s the case, then I shut everything down in my studio and head on upstairs to our bedroom, where I put on my headphones, plugged into my Smartphone, and I just randomly pick one of my favorite ASMR videos to fall asleep listening to.

A.  SOME OF MY FAVORITE VIDEOS

As mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of “deliberate” ASMR videos, since the silliness factor goes off the chart on pretty much the whole series, which seems to be overabundant in “role-playing” styled videos. 

Hence I choose the “unintentional” videos, instead, and since there is no one person’s voice that stands out as the “master” of the genre, I just listen to each video and judge it on its merits— if I fell asleep listening to it, it’s a keeper.

I’ve embedded four videos below of which only the first three are ASMR-related.

I’ll explain the fourth video in the next section, “IV. A SHOUT OUT FOR “LUNAR SOL“.

The first three are “unintentional” videos, the last of which is by the YouTuber, “Lita” whose videos are often considered the mother of the genre. Her videos were 100 percent live, I think, by which I mean, she was talking while she performed her massages. 

There was one person, who started out doing Lita-like videos where she was giving massages, but, her talking was POST-production. Instead of talking live while giving her massages, she recorded her videos sans talking, and then did a voice-over in post production. 

For the most part, her videos did offer some relaxation-like qualities, although, in her earlier videos there were all kinds of issues with background noises, but eventually she worked out those glitches and started getting far-better audio tacks that accompanied the video.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the lines she must’ve started thinking that Lita-oriented videos weren’t going to generate the following she was seeking to create, so she later started incorporating into her video catalog the “role-playing” styled videos which I just can’t stand. 

But those didn’t “undo” the massage-oriented videos I did like. 

I think her real name is Melissa, and she goes by the YouTube name of “asmrmassage”.  The picture below is linked to her YouTube page listing her videos.  

asmrmassage (Melissa)

Although I generally go directly to the “unintentional” videos in my collection of links, I will, on occasion, watch one of Melissa’s videos just to break up the monotony .

Lastly… 

IV. A SHOUT OUT FOR “LUNAR SOL”

In a somewhat unrelated thought, I’d like to conclude this post with a mention of one YouTuber who, although originally started out doing deliberate ASMR videos (many of which she’s deleted for some unknown reason)  under the name “Hailey Whispering Rose”, has also done some NON-ASMR music videos under the YouTube account “Lunar Sol“, where she teamed up with this other musician , Dan Caine, and what a team they are. 

He’s a really good songwriter ; and I don’t know if he engineers his own recordings, or has some recording studio do all the work, but the final product is so polished-sounding. Four-Star quality!

In this relationship Hailey has dropped the word “Whispering” from her moniker, and is just “Hailey Rose”. 

In any case, her voice ( to me, anyway) is ANGELIC! ! ! 

She ranks right up there with Candace Night’s voice.

Dan Caine is one lucky S.O.B. to be her partner, whether that be musically platonic or even emotionally intimate.  

Whether she’s singing music or not, her voice hits all the right nerves with me. 

Anyway, I just wanted to advertise for Dan and Hailey, since the quality of their work warrants such exposure!

Anyway, again, Happy New Year!…And Sweet Dreams!

MY FAVORITE VIDEOS

 

 

 

 

A LUNAR SOL VIDEO

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