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It is called ASMR. ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Essentially, this is a very personal experience in which the person feels some sort of soothing physical sensation, such as tingle like feelings in different parts of their body, when listening to someone whisper or speak in a soft tone. Other sounds also trigger these tingle sensations such as listening to someone go through their purse belongings, reading a book, crinkling pages, using brushes, etc. These tingles and positive sensations have been often referred to as "brain orgasms" in the past. It is just another name for the ASMR sensation.
No one really knows why ASMR occurs in certain people. It has been speculated that ASMR may possibly be a type of Synesthesia. Synesthesia is characterized by the blurring of one sense into another. For example, people with synesthesia may see a color associated with a certain word or they may taste a specific food when hearing a certain word.There is no hard evidence that that is what is happening when experiencing ASMR, although there is a clear link between the sense of hearing and physical sensations within the body. One speculation about synesthesia,and therefore maybe ASMR, is that when the individual is born, they have an excess of brain cells which then somehow cause an overflow of one sense into another.
A lot of people with ASMR don't realize that the "thing" they are feeling has a name. They may not tell anyone about their feelings because they may assume that everyone feels the same, or that they are in fact so different that they do not want to be viewed as weird. ASMR is definitely a very real and very personal experience.
Again, there is little known about ASMR and what, if any function, it may have. One thing that is certain, is that there is nothing wrong with a person's brain who experiences these feelings. But, with that being said, I am sure that some people might feel funny telling others of their experiences. Please know, however, that you are far from alone! And, you should count yourself lucky to have such a soothing and pleasant experience just by simple sounds that you encounter! The brain is certainly a magnificent and astounding thing!
I finally figured out how to comment!! You are very informative and your syntax and iamb gives me ASMR!!
ReplyDeleteFascinating topic! I have experienced something like the "grapheme → color synesthesia" described on Wikipedia: the coloration of text one is reading. Although with me it is a sort of iridescent aura hovering around the text as their meaning opens, rather than individual graphemes taking on individual colors.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia also describes as synesthetic "ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, [wherein] days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities." Who doesn't have inexplicably illogical and varying feelings about different numbers, say, 7 as opposed to 4?
The reasons behind the rise of the ASMR "community" on the Web, however, and the proliferation of the "whisper videos," do strike me as less scientific than narcissistic, singing sweetly to the old "I'm not like everybody else" impulse. Here be dragons.
you can tell that it's real when two people talk about it and once they start talking about it, each knows exactly what the other is talking about. Two people can talk about the creativity they experience when smoking pot. It's the same thing. A real experience that is identical in two different people. I don't feel creative when I'm high, but I that doesn't mean other people don't have that experience that is identical to many others.
DeleteI wouldn't agree about the narcissism bit Dennis. I guess that can be said about any community though. Thanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteSome claim that holophonic and 3d Binaural sound sends sensations through their body.
ReplyDelete