Deep into the night with my headphones on, I randomly click into a video called ASMR, which could have been a food program as food is featured on the screen two-thirds of the time. The host does not utter a single word, but the pulling of the ring of the can is loud and clear. The bubbly Coke is poured into the glass and then gurgled down, with a sigh of “ahh..” to express his satisfaction. He then picked up a piece of fried chicken and bit through its crispy skin before tearing apart the tender meat and sucking the succulent juice. All these sounds of ingesting food are of such a high def quality that will make you feel as if the food is inside your mouth, lingering repeatedly inside your head. Oh, how tasty… or rather…how melodious! Other than a food program that may impart both visual and audio enjoyment, sounds like painting, banging the desk, uncapping a water bottle, flipping through the pages of a book, and soft whispers… will also trigger a sensory climax with their HD audio playback and the little finger gestures from the vloggers on the screen. Unlike the goosebumps, such an indescribable sensation is a kind of tingle, a very pleasant and even therapeutic feeling called autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR). “Imagine the the Coke running down your body from your head, that kind of very fizzy and bubbly feel…,” said Dr Giulia Poerio, psychology lecturer at the University of Essex as she tried to verbalize the ASMR sensation, “Some kind of warm feeling. Actually it is very hard to describe that feeling.” Could it be goosebumps? “No, even though it is somewhat similar. Goosebumps are piloerection where the hair on your skin stand up, but this won’t happen in ASMR.” Dr Poerio cited an example: It’s like the numbness having maintained a sitting posture for too long. ASMR is this type of tingling sensation that begins on the scalp and moves down the body. That makes ASMR really mystical. I myself have never had this response. Have you? Poerio is an ASMR responder. Whenever someone scratched her hair, or used a finger to write a letter on her back, or when foot was measured for the new school shoes when she was young, the ASMR sensation would be generated. She told her sisters about this feeling but none of them could actually understand. She found out what ASMR was all about and the fact that such sensation was also shared by many other people only after so many years. Nevertheless, few researches had been made on this phenomenon. “When I explained ASMR to other people, those who had not experienced it would not believe, as they downright couldn’t understand.” As a psychology scholar, Poerio decided that she should research on this thing through tests and experiments. In 2014, she began her researches on ASMR, and is currently working with Dr Marc Archer of the Center for Mental Health and Wellbeing (CMHW), […]
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