Speak of it in a Soft, Sharp Whisper Some More

Good luck with this post. Certain amount of made-up language here. And that may be the least of my problems....

A while back, I took perhaps something of a risk and posted publicly about a most bizarre, possibly genetic, and delightfully euphoric phenomenon for anyone who, like me, gets it. What follows is just sort of an improvised disorganization of some further thoughts on the topic of what the 'Net has come to call "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response", or ASMR. I just call it "meridian" myself, except on Twitter, whose format makes "#ASMR" advantageous. "Meridian" just sounds better than "a-ess-em-arr", doesn't it? Rolls off the tongue better, certainly.

One so-called "ASMRtist" came to follow me on the blue bird network. This is not someone whose work I had encountered previously, but unlike many people, most of whom follow me and then unfollow me a couple days later, she had the courtesy to respond when I sent her a greeting. (That's what I do when I gain a follower; I warmly greet them. I have thirty-six followers. I know the most recent one won't stay; they've not acknowledged my three-and-a-half-day-old greeting. Why do I keep getting sidetracked into people being anti-social on social networks? Ah, well...) Therefore, I took her to be someone worth investigating. I plugged in and donned my headphones, brought up her 'Tube channel, picked out a video that looked like my audio realm, and put it on.



Just short of 43 minutes. (By the way, I usually just listen to these meridian videos while they play and I look at other tabs. It's all about the audio; no reason to just sit here watching 'em. Eyes can be otherwise engaged all the while.) Maybe some gamers are actually paying wide-eyed attention to this material; an attractive, young female is whispering about their favorite thing! And that's fine; I will wholeheartedly grant that. But I do feel a need to say this: The meridian is quite strongly triggered in the beginning. However, as the video plays on, the effect diminishes, and by the half-hour mark, due either to natural exhaustion of whatever it is off which the meridian feeds, or to my own mind drifting into 2012 Appalachia or 13,291 Mediterranea and therefore away from the video audio, the meridian has gone for the moment, leaving only a sort of ambient audio piece I'm hearing, featuring whispers and the occasional click of a button or other item. Of course, ambiance can still be soothing in the more traditional sense; it's soft and gentle and capable of comfort. But the meridian, the supernatural euphoria darting yet beyond the reach of our human comprehension, has fled, to return another time soon.

A number of patrons of YouTube's "ASMarts" have chimed in with comments of gratitude, some claiming that the videos help put them to sleep. This is an interesting idea. The meridian-less, soothing ambiance that the, uh, "muggle" (unfortunate soul who doesn't get meridian) would get from the experience of listening to whispering (or tapping/crinkling/etc.) could certainly serve as a lullaby of sorts. (I just realized, a "lullaby" is "a" thing "by" which to "lull" to relative sedation. Ha ha.) But does meridian, when it happens, come with the standard hormones that could calm the person to sleep? In my high school, we had a choice between either physics or anatomy; I went with physics, so I'm kind of making things up about anatomy. But despite fairly frequently emerging from meridian indulgence (maybe there should be a word for "indulging in meridian", the way we have "masturbate" for "indulge in the pursuit of sexual orgasm"; "meristurbating"?) without feeling the least notable bit sleepier than before I clicked ►, I do have to wonder if the non-sexual upper-body euphoria is related to similar .....dopamine?.....releases within the body as with the traditional sexual orgasm. With traditional sexual orgasms, I usually — but not always! — do feel rather sleepy in the immediate aftermath. Or maybe that's because I tend to masturbate in bed, right before I'm aiming to sleep anyway, so it could be a bit skewed.* No, I still recall feeling sleepy in class during high school when having my private, hands-free sub-orgasm sexual euphoriae in my pants. Then again, why wouldn't I have been sleepy in class? Damn thing started at eight in the morning every friggin' weekday.

Meridian really does need some actual scientific studies. Control groups! Muggles and ....non-muggles. (Did we decide on a name for people who get meridian? I don't know.) Male and female. Young and old. Times of day. Intervals between meridian indulgences. See if there's a correlation between non-mugglehood and certain other selective genetic traits. Can non-muggles generally also wiggle their ears, or curl their tongue into a U? I can tell you that for me, just as I tend to feel meridian more strongly on the right than the left, so I am also better at wiggling my right ear than my left. My tongue curls nicely when so driven, and, for some reason, while I am right-handed, my left hand does the better "live long and prosper". And, I think we gotta compare personality types across the board. Are non-muggles ("meridianists"? "meridiots"? Help!) generally less violent than their unfortunate counterparts? You know, make orgasms, not war? Ahhh.....

Meridian needs scientific studies — if we can turn enough people on to the idea that the phenomenon exists. The very idea of it is still rather emerging, ever gradually, from our digitally collected conscience and risking making muggles bitter and angry. It ain't made its way into too many renowned publications, but I think it is, ever gradually, as I say, gaining momentum. Some of the 'Tube meridian community, according to one of the other videos on Donna's account, have evidently collaborated to produce a documentary about it. I recognized in that video one particular "ASMRtist" ⒜ whom I take to be the ambassador of meridian and its community to the world, and ⒝ whose videos I've most certainly enjoyed the most (often) since I discovered this whole technological revolution on the matter. I'll embed one of hers here: simple speaking and stereo close-up ear-to-ear whispers — in Russian, because, as with the German above, it's chock full of consonants, and the content of the words is like the points on Whose Line — it doesn't matter one bit. Also, it's significantly shorter than the above, at a mere 12.24. (Again, headphones are essential!)



Nobody so far triggers my left side like Maria. (Sounds like an old song, right there.)

Trying to think if there was more I wanted to say now while I'm on this topic. I can't stand reality television, but my mother gladly watches Big Brother, among other atrocities. I haven't talked at all explicitly aloud about meridian, but I did mention to Mom as I was passing through: "The one good thing about Big Brother is, sometimes they whisper." "What? What does that have to do with anything?" "I like whispering. Whispering is good. It's soothing." "[shakes head] That's one of the weirdest things you've said! You've said a lot of weird things, but this is one of the weirdest!" Yes, perhaps it is. Probably because, although I'm not about to listen to a Big Brother marathon with headphones (I know I said content doesn't matter, but please...), I have one of the weirdest phenomena in mind.



P.S. I wonder how I would react to an actual person whispering directly to me. Maybe....some day.....



Edit 2014-5-3: A third meridian post



*While there is no apparent sexual connection to meridian, I will often get one single meridian-style euphoric SHOT down my right side while I'm in bed and have just turned on to my side for sleep after sexually masturbating to climax. Actually, I'll sometimes run my thumbnails against the pillow and blanket right up by either ear while I'm in bed and "meristurbate" that way.

More Bodily Irks and Quirks: Trichotillomania

Another eyebrow gone. It's never a conscious choice to remove it manually, hair by hair (or three). I'm not out to make some sort of obtuse political statement with only one of the right and left sides of my face being naturally decorated in dark brown. It doesn't particularly hurt when I do this. It just seems that every now and then, my body, acting more or less independently of my mind, gets the feeling that perhaps there's too much weight or pressure or something at that one spot on my hairy self, and proceeds to alleviate, or think it's alleviating, the feeling there by plucking the cumbersome, protruding scapegoat occupants of that spot and apparently expecting a final, euphoric pull that will nab the main perpetrator and instantly restore total homeostasis. Of course, that may not happen — and the "spot" may sort of grow as the "partially euphoric" feeling of the pulls catches on. Hence, one whole eyebrow gone. Or, in the past, a set of eyelashes, a bit of my beard on and around my chin, a good-sized spot on top or near the front of my head (though it's been a delightfully long time since this last), or — dare I say it — "down there" when I'm on the can and in no hurry to get off it.

Describing "compulsions" is not so easy, especially with grace. I am not so much in the state of mind to look it up right now, but I'm sure there are plenty of stories, descriptions, and clinical terms available in a web search for "trichotillomania". I think I'm spelling that correctly. It's simply the manic pulling-out of one's own hair, and it may have gotten a couple bits of publicity here and there over the years.

In my relatively brief attempt to just get this out of my head and into the blogosphere during the two-o'clock hour ante-meridiem, I'll say this about my own "episodes": they usually happen when I'm alone, either in bed or at the computer (or on the can), and often when I'm supposed to be doing something specific. My mind just sort of spaces out, and my body is somehow not keen on just old-fashioned masturbating; it seeks other ways to be occupied: fidgeting, knuckle-cracking, grooming...and maybe getting carried away with the grooming, discovering what it proclaims is a pressured spot as I described it before and going to work. And I just drop what I pick out wherever I am. It'll get vacuumed up soon, I imagine. (Or, in the "down there" case, I'll soon flush.) Oh, and these episodes tend very much to be time vortexes, which can be important if I am indeed supposed to be doing something specific. I'm so glad to be done with school and all its assignments; on another tentacle, this whole "job hunt" thing is somethin' else.

Curiosity: In the times when I've freshly cleared what I'd think is a glaring spot on my face where everyone can see, usually the only person who ever mentions it to me is my own mother (who, of course, goes hysterical every time). Only once that I can recall did anyone else ever bring it up to me, and it was a good, delightful friend with absolutely no capability of mocking or malice. Do people honestly not care, generally? Do they say "What's up with that?!" among themselves after I've hit the road? If I went for a job interview like this, how would it go? Well, nobody's contacting me for interviews, so it might not matter. Anyway, it's only sometimes when I have an incomplete face. The stuff does grow back. Personally, I'm just glad I was symmetrical at my cousin's wedding; everything else seems dispensable.

This seems to be all I have to say for now. (I'm giving "bodily irks and quirks" its own tag on here.) If anyone has thoughts, please share them. Meanwhile, I think the feeling of pressure where I recently had an eyebrow has subsided, but my hands are still feeling a bit fidgety and "compulsory". I may try masturbating again. Good night!

Evolution: Something Went Wrong.

Wisdom teeth, tonsillitis, the need for glasses, hair that's utterly useless in providing warmth or protection, appendicitis, ingrown toenails, hands that require lotion to not dry up and bleed, cracking knuckles and other joints, having to wipe every time, and a useless bit of penis the removal of which improves everything. Just a few mind-boggling and irksome qualities of the human body. Now try to come up with some on your own. (I imagine women will have plenty to say here.)

Speak of it Only in a Soft, Sharp Whisper

Here's something no one ever seemed to talk about, even though it's totally a thing. I guess no one ever talked about it because it wasn't a universal thing, but it's a thing nonetheless. I've long known this thing from a handful of records, from people whispering around me in classes, and from other sources that escape me just now. Somehow, I never thought to mention it to anybody. Never thought to look it up on the net, either. Certainly never thought to give it a proper name. I just kind of enjoyed it when it happened and thought nothing more of it.

Then earlier this week, a cyberfriend of mine posted a link to an article. The article seemed to think it was talking about my thing, but I'm certain it was actually pursuing something different. But it was enough. For the first time, it was evident that a handful of people out there know the thing and are reasonably excited to talk about it. Even if the article missed the mark, it had plenty of links and references to people who didn't. All the while I was off in my own little world, other people were uniting theirs into one growing, marvelous globe. They even decided upon a name, albeit a clinical one that translates into an unmemorable set of initials.

The name is: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. ASMR for short. And what it is — are you ready for this? No you're not. Unless you've experienced it, in which case I retract that statement. What it is, basically, is this: A sort of upper-body orgasm induced by intimate, yet sharp, sounds. The best example of such a sound that comes to mind is a really close-up whisper on a quiet background, full of well-enunciated Ts and Ss. Sometimes and somehow, those sounds just perfectly hit something within my head, resulting in, at least in my case, a kind of flash-orgasm shooting from near my inner ear down into my upper back, usually on the right side near my shoulder.

I should add that I seem to need to be relaxed for it to happen. If I'm too tense, and given my current life situation, that does happen often, the tension seems to kind of block the sounds from getting through to the "sweet spot". So relaxation is a good thing to have. (When isn't it?)

So there you have it. Apparently, not everyone gets that. But there are plenty of people that do, and they are gradually emerging from the deepest recesses of the Internet (which happen to include YouTube and *ahem* Blogger). And, for whatever it may be worth, I'm happy to join them. This is why I was so stunningly tolerant of classmates whispering around me during class, back when I was actually an enthusiastic student eager to do well. Ah, that seems so long ago now.

This is not the original article to which my friend linked. But it's as good an information repository on the matter as we're likely to find at this point. There is supposedly an official research website, but it hasn't worked since I stumbled upon all this. And there are plenty of other links within this article.

But you know I can't just leave you hanging. I have to provide at least a couple of examples of my own "triggers". I'll start you with psychedelic pstaple Syd Barrett and his old band. Isn'T iT goooooD?



Next up, the acid folk stylings of Linda Perhacs. This demo appears on the expanded CD reissue of her classic 1970 LP Parallelograms. Listen in particular for the middle part with the right-channel-dubbed vocal.



I'll leave you with those two for now. YouTube can only do so much. (I have an mp3 copy of, of all things, Johnny Mathis' "Chances Are" where Johnny's voice is astonishingly crisp in the right channel. I don't think the 'Tube can match it.) And anyway, "chances are", we wouldn't want to overdose on these "back-gasms". Everything in moderation; always remember that.

Peace, love, and limited quantities of euphoria,
~C.A.~



Edit 2013-8-24: Further thoughts on this phenomenon here.