January 15, 2015 • 35 mins
Shhhh! Some of us are listening intently to a certain tone, one that sends waves of pleasure down our spine. It's called autonomous sensory meridian response. Robert and Julie explore, and while they're at it, they'll find out if whispering exists among any non-human primates.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcot the Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Duglats.
You sound very measured this morning. Julie. Well, I'm trying
out the smoothing it so it's a better whispering. And
(00:29):
I'm very interested in exploring the oral landscape. And Robert
that I mentioned to you that I'm also interested in
caring for your hair. Oh yes, yes, I do enjoy
a good haircut. Really I don't. I thought so. And
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to
brush your hair first, and I just want you to
(00:52):
close your eyes and enjoy the strokes of the brush
through your hair. Okay, it doesn't feel good. Okay, this
is getting so creepy. Hey guys, it's us and we're
exploring something called a s m R. Yeah. And in
a way, this is an episode appears nicely with our
our tripophobia episode because in both cases we have something
(01:16):
that is kind of not really emerging from the Internet age,
but it's the Internet has allowed individuals who have a
certain reaction to a certain type of stimuli to allow
them to come together and start talking about and say, Hey,
what's what's going on here? Why does why does this
make me feel this way? Uh? And why doesn't everyone
else around me seem to be affected in the same way.
(01:38):
With triple phobia, it was about looking at clusters of
holes and feeling the sense of repulsion. But with a SMR,
which we're talking about today, it's about something far more pleasant,
far more mellow, but but equally perplexing. Yeah. It's called
autonomous sensory meridian response. And we'll talk a little bit
more about what triggers it, but essentially what it is
(02:00):
is a pleasurable tingling that begins in the head and
scalp and then it shimmies down the spine and and
it reportedly relaxes the entire body when the person is
exposed to certain auditory cues. Yeah, in some cases, particularly
in headlines written by by male editors, I think you'll
(02:21):
see it compared to an orgasm, like it's an orgasm
in the brain, it's a brain gasm or whatever. But
I mean generally the descriptions you you hear, uh, it
is more of a mellow, comforting, relaxing sensation and less
um you know, psychedelic sexual mind explosion. Yeah, and a
lot of people will step in and say, hey, this
really is not a sexual thing. This is just this
(02:42):
um more than anything, this pleasurable, relaxing sense that you
get when you hear these triggers. So I wanted to
mention that most of these things, these cues are provided
by videos made by what are called a s m
AREST on YouTube, and it has a very intimate air
(03:03):
to them. And we'll talk more about that. And so
far a s m R isn't a medically or scientifically
recognized term, though studies are now beginning to be conducted,
and there's a ton of anecdotal information out there and
explanations abound. Yeah, it's entirely possible that by the time
you get around to listen to this episode, maybe one
(03:24):
of these studies will actually publish. Um. Well, we know
from from researching it that there's a guy at Dartmouth
College Bryson Launched, who did an f m R I
study on a SMR, which is one of the types
of studies that everyone's been clamoring for. Let's get one
of these brains inside the tube and actually see what's
going on in there. Um. But as of right now,
(03:44):
we don't have this kind of research to turn to. Alright,
So before we start explaining this really in earnest, let's
look at some of the terms, because I think these
terms will kind of tell you to what degree people
are really bound up in a s m R. Yeah,
even a s m R. Even autonomous sensory meridian response.
(04:04):
This is this is not a set in stone a
bit of terminology. This itself emerges from individuals on the
Internet coming together and talking about it. You'll see it
at times. It's been referred to as attention induced euphoria.
You've seen it. We've seen it called attention induced head
orgasm uh or, as referred to by Andrew mcmurris on
his blog that he started back in two thousand and ten,
(04:26):
the unnamed feeling. Uh let's you give you an idea,
because at the at the time there was everyone's still
coming together and saying what is it? What what should
we call it? And uh So around two thousand and eleven,
you see autonomous sensory meridian response really coming to the
forefront as the as the main term and pretty much
cemented in place by Yeah. In fact, if you look
(04:48):
at the Google history on this. You'll see in two
thousand eleven it starts to make a bit of a
footprint UM, but two two fourteen it rockets as search term,
which I think gives you an idea of the kind
of UM following or the kind of communities that are
gathering around this. I guess you could say phenomenon. You know,
(05:10):
what's weird is UM. And I'll get into this more
as as we as we discussed that my wife has
a SMR and I've known her since the first Saw
movie came out, whatever year that was, I don't know,
but I I love that you are always like and
we got together when Saw came out. Yeah, that's that's
what brought us together. Yeah, well anyway for a number
(05:32):
of years. But we've known each other for about ten years,
and so a s MR was not the predominant term
until very recently. But I can't, for the life of
me remember what she called it, or that even had
a name, uh, you know, back when I first met her.
And so what is her trigger? Her trigger is definitely, uh,
the sound of a pencil on paper, but more specifically,
(05:54):
it's uh, she she's she's sitting in a room with
someone who is drawing her with with soul and paper,
and she's so she's hearing the sound of it. She's
in the it's it's the you know, it's the sensation
of being drawn. I guess the attention, the intimacy of
that with the sounds, the soft sounds of the of
the drawing and you guys listening out there. I think
(06:14):
about that example in a moment because we're gonna talk
more about triggers, but that really hits on a lot
of the different factors that make this pleasurable for people. Um.
I wanted to mention that a couple other terms really
helped to frame this, or something called ascension when an
experience or levels up, and usually that means that the
control of a s MR has improved or that experiences
(06:38):
are much more intense. Again, these are people who are
seeking this out and really concentrating, even meditating on some
of these triggers. Now there's asthma or as marian person
who experiences I'm married you are married to That explains
a lot. Yep. And of course you already mentioned it brandgasm,
which is that colloquial term for SMR. So triggers. Yes,
(07:03):
let's get to this. I was whispering at the beginning
of this, and I was taking the pages and making
this kind of noise um. And these are both big triggers.
But probably whispering is the I would say, like the
headliner of all the triggers. Yes, indeed, a whispering voice
and oftentimes, like the subject matter is not necessarily important.
(07:27):
But in many cases the the the voice will be
providing instruction of some kind or taking the listener on
sort of an imaginative journey, kind of a storyteller. You're
walking through the park, you're passing a dog, next sort
of thing. Yeah, it's really interesting, and I think about
it as levels and whispering is sort of like the
base doc to a s m R. And Bob Ross
(07:48):
think about him. He's a perfect example of someone and
someone who's quite fetishized, I would say, although some might
take issue with that terminology of fetishizing, but people seek
him out in order to you have a a s
MR experience. But now think about and I should I
should jump in if you're not familiar with who that is.
He's the PBS joy painting guy who talks about painting
(08:10):
pretty little trees and happy trees, little trees. That was it,
and so he was that he's perfect because soft suiting voice.
I'll be at a male voice and some people take
a shoe and say that a female voice is preferable.
But but he's also instructing me you, and he's taking
you on a journey. Yes, it was very meditative in
nature if you think about it that way. Now, imagine
if someone had long nails and they would tap them
(08:33):
on a hard service or um lovingly scraped them against
plastic or something like that. There's the crinkling of a
bag of chips um again, the shuffling of pages turning
in a book. And then the personal care aspect, the
role playing aspect that you already sort of called out here,
and that's when someone looks at the camera you're watching
(08:57):
this video and they're looking at you the you are
and role playing with you some sort of self care
or some sort of uh nurturing thing that they're doing.
You could be pretending like you're at a spot, or
it could be an exam. And these I think are
amazing because it's sort of like the motherload of a
s MR. These these exam videos, especially the cranial exams,
(09:22):
because the cranial exam. I think it's like a real thing, right,
We're sensory cues would be introduced to you because you're there,
a doctor would be looking for neurological damage. But in
these role playing videos, they're just pretending like they're at
the doctor and they have different things, like they have
a feather that they're stroking the camera with and saying
do you feel this on your cheek? And that is
(09:45):
the motherload because it has the whispering, it has the crinkling,
it has the pen going up and down, the clicking
of the pen, the keyboard, um, all those different things,
and it has the nurturing aspect to it. Yeah, it's
interesting to to to look around at some of the
videos out there because there's been a kind of an
evolution um of the art form. Because some of the
(10:07):
earlier stuff is just yeah, let's just watch some Bob
Ross or here someone's gonna talk to me, or someone's
gonna provide a fake haircut, fake ear exam kind of
situation in video form. But as the as the the
art form evolves, it's all about layering things and providing
multiple triggers because not everybody is going to be affected
by these same triggers, the person who who prefers the
(10:29):
whispering is not gonna go for the tapping or the scratching. Um.
You know, my wife, for instance, the the the the
sound of just a soothing voice does not affect her
in that way. Um, but it's it's it's just that
that drawing on the paper or someone someone sketching her
and uh. And I do want to point out that
when I ask her about it, I said, well, you know,
(10:50):
what exactly do you feel when this happens? And she said,
it's a it's a tingling in my scalp uh, a
strong sense of relaction, and a strong but a short
lived feeling of just being really stoned. Um. Because I
asked her it was like a mild high, and she's,
I know, it's really intense high. It just doesn't last
very long, just falls off. Yeah. And I think that's
(11:11):
an important distinction to make, because I think all of
us can probably list off a bunch of different sounds
that are pleasurable too, you know, like I love paper
being kind of sorted around, but I don't get tingles,
and I don't have a sort of flash stone stoner response. Yeah. Likewise,
I mean I love I love a good white noise,
(11:32):
brown noise machine. I love ambient even some drone music,
you know, but but it doesn't have that kind of
effect on me. I mean we we both have listened
to the Headspace app, for instance, and hearing the soothing
voice of Andy pooticomb on that you know, very soothing voice,
and very can help get you in a meditative state.
But I don't feel high while it's taking place. No,
(11:55):
actually think that would be distracting because Headspace is actually
a meditation app, so it would be kind of wonderful,
but perhaps distracting to the point of you're trying to
calm your brain down, uh not elicit um some sort
of overreaction. You need an alternate Headspace app where there's
just a drill sergeant. I guess, yeah, you you definitely
(12:15):
have to do that. Although Andy does have a really
nice whispery voice, you know, another voice that came to mind,
and again this is a from a non Asmirian, but
Timothy Leary, I feel I feel like his voice is
always I've always found that super soothing, and I did
looks like there's some a SMR stuff that does utilize
some of his spoken word album work in the sixties.
(12:37):
And I want to mention too that it's not just whispering.
A lot of these artists are. They're using space. We
talked about this in music, like if you use space
in unexpected ways, that your brain pays even more attention.
And so you like the ambient sounds of a room
or no, I mean like I'm thinking about Dr Dmitri,
(12:59):
who does one of them? Can you describe? Um? I
will try to be doctor Dmitri? Now what is your name?
So it's like, you know, he's not talking in the
(13:19):
sort of the pattern that we're used to write. And
so I think that is a part of it is
because and we've talked about this before, it's like it's
not like music, but there are some similarities in which
if your brain is grappling with those unpredicted spaces, and
those spaces resolve themselves like in a certain note, right,
(13:40):
um that you you get relief from that, or you
get a sort of pleasure from that. And now a
lot of as Marian's will say, this is not like
the musical chills, yes, that they make generally make a
strong point of that being significantly different. That is known
as fregen is it French reim the spine tiggling sensation
(14:02):
of listening to music that you know a lot a
lot more people can can relate to. But in Asmara
will be quick to tell you no, that is separate.
That is not my thing. That may be your thing,
but that's not my thing. Yeah, And if you want
to know more about that, check out our episode on
does music hijack that brings? So we get a little
bit deeper into that. Now within as Marian community, there
are two types of as Marian's as reported by the community,
(14:27):
that's type A and type B. Type A is through
just sort of meditation or thinking about the thing, right,
So if you hear the auditory queue, that may just
be enough to trigger that sort of sensation, but type
bees need to actually experience the trigger. So for instance,
getting a haircut, that's why I was pretending to cut
(14:48):
your hair earlier, which was again super creepy um or
any sort of exam or close personal attention. So it's
the difference again between imagining the haircut and happy the haircut.
If you're type A, you don't. All you have to
do is think about the trigger. The type you need
to trigger. Yeah. One of our producers, Paul, was telling
me that his trigger is when he is on an
(15:10):
airplane and they begin to describe all the safety precautions
that passengers must take in the oxygen coming down and
the exits and all of this, And he said, it's
not just the voice, but it's the actual, like taking
care to tell you how to protect yourself. It's a
kind of nurturing quality. We see that nurturing theme and
a lot of these it's like sometimes it's just merely instructional,
(15:33):
which can be a form of nurturing. Other times it's
actual physical care, a doctor and patient relationship, or a
parent and child relationship. I'm gonna groom your hair. I'm
gonna look after your your hygiene, your well being. And
that is a good point for us to actually take
a break, because when we get back, we're gonna delve
a little bit more into the A s MR artists,
(15:55):
but also the reasons the possible explanations for white people
experience this. Alright, we're back. We're still discussing autonomous sensory
meridian response or a s MR. The the domain of
(16:15):
the asmirians. I feel like they should it sounds like
they should have their own planet. They should. Yeah, and
it's probably a indistinguishable from our own. It's the thing
because I was looking around at some of the videos. Uh,
there's a there's a reddit for as Mirian's where people
are just throwing up, you know, various videos and they
range from the like highly produced professional a s MR
(16:37):
video realm to stuff. Literally there's a video where someone
just has an audio and video recording of chefs at
five Guys Fries preparing to make French fries. So they
just send a little bit of ambient clanging and echo
and the opening of the potato bag and that that clip.
I looked at, the clip had the like ten thousand,
(16:59):
five hundred views. Well, okay, all right, so let me
tell you that Maria, who is known as Gentle Whispering
if you want to look at her on her YouTube channel,
she has something like forty plus million views of her videos.
Now granted she's up in the hundreds in her videos,
but still some of them will fetch up to eight
(17:20):
hundred thousand to a million views. I think there was
one that was two million views. And she is she's
really sort of the czar of a s MR and
she's a Russian woman who moved to the US in
two thousand and six, and she had a lot of
she says, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety,
and she began to actually seek out videos, not realizing
(17:45):
that the whispering stuff was actually helping her anxiety. And
she found herself doing it more and more and more.
And I believe in two thousand and nine she started
doing this in earnest making her own videos. Um. So
obviously people like her who have a genuine interest in
the a s MR community, or even not a genuine interest,
(18:06):
can make a small income doing this. Yeah, and not
to at least put back into your your product and
uh and pump out more videos. Um. It's it's interesting
too that she's she's Russian and has a Russian accent,
because I saw that mentioned a lot in them shows.
We're looking at that. Uh, you know, everyone has their
their different taste as far as a SMR material, but
(18:27):
a lot of people do prefer an accent of some kind.
And it kind of goes back to what you were
saying earlier about Uh, you know, a different mode of speech,
being less predictable. Reminds me of of of Bella Leegostia's Dracula.
One of the reasons Dracula resonated so much with Bella's
performance because bell didn't speak English at the time, so
he was he was saying these words but not actually
(18:48):
speaking them, so his his mode of his delivery was
what it was a little unpredictable and a little little haunting,
which is interesting because that the unpredictability factor I think
is present. And whispering anyway, I mean, the best way
to get my kids attention is to actually whisper to
her because it's unusual, right, and you're like, you have
to lean in and really pay attention. So you have
(19:09):
that going for you, and then you have those spaces
in the actual speech pattern making it a little bit
even more skewed, right. And in addition to this, a
lot of a s MR artists like Maria use three
D or binural microphones, which create a stereo recording that
(19:30):
makes the listener feel like they're in the same room
as the speaker. Oh yeah, a lot of people uh
in the SR community. So you do have to have
the headphones. You need that that surround feeling you're just
not going to get from your laptop. Speaker. Yeah, this
is from the Atlantic article how to have a Brain orgasm.
There it is again. Uh. Maria is interviewed and she says,
(19:51):
of the experience, I definitely think it has something to
do with proximity. When you watch a SMR videos, you're
completely vulnerable the viewer is. It's all most uncomfortable for
you to be that close to another person. But if
you feel how much they care about you at that moment,
it just puts you in that shape of euphor you
So imagine you've got your headphones on and you have
the three D microphones making it feel that much more intimate. Huh.
(20:17):
You know. I I also did a quick chip check
and there are videos of individuals who are pretending to
draw you with a pencil. Ah. So your wife would
be like, Hey, that's the incisers with the sound and
there's the kind of attention, right, and that's sort of like, Hey,
I care for you, I care for you, I care
for you enough to set here and draw you. Yeah.
(20:38):
So you have pointed out before why mostly women. Yeah,
that's kind of a lingering question about this, isn't it again?
We're still waiting on studies, so we don't have anything
really hardcore, but but as best as we can tell,
if it comes down to that nurturing energy. Yeah, and
I had mentioned Dr dmitriv but he is uh, he's
(20:59):
in a nominally among all the A S MR artists,
And yeah, there's that that sort of nurturing role playing
going on, And it would make sense that this kind
of stereotype would play down the lines of gender. Yeah,
Like I almost felt weird saying it because it sounds
a little sexist for me to say, Oh, well, you know,
nurturing energy. Of course females are into it. But you know,
(21:22):
I mean if that's the predominant stereotype, then I mean
we see that carried out through all types of media,
So it would makes sense that this is something that
is acceptable. Now. I was fine with Dr Dmitriev, but
my husband was like, oh, that was totally creeping me out.
What did your husband think about Bob Ross? Uh? You know,
we didn't talk about Bob Ross, but I'm yeah, who
(21:44):
doesn't like Bob Ross? Some artists don't like Bob. I
have a friend who's an artist and she hates him. Well,
is that because the content of his work? I think so?
I think she's just kind of like blah. I think also,
maybe maybe it's because her mom was an art teacher
or something. I'm not sure that she does not like
the happy little trees. Yeah, she wants dangerous trees. She's
a weird dug that one. But but yeah, for the
(22:06):
most part of most people would like Bob Ross. What
can you be offended by? Indeed, uh real, real quick,
we're talking about the nurturing power of it. And I
do want to mention as well that my wife said
that when she was a little girl, Um, she and
a friend would take turns combing each other's hair and
she would also experience a SMR in those situations. Huh.
(22:28):
So I mean she's kind of a type and type
bee or maybe actually she would probably would be a
type be just I think surely experiential. Yeah, I think so,
because especially since as far as I know, the videos
don't even work that well that well on her, Like,
it has really got to be someone in the room
drawing her. Yeah, And then I did it once and
I think it kind of worked for but then she
(22:48):
saw that my drawing was stupid because I can only
draw the monsters. She's like a stick figure. Yeah, because
you know, I'm just not good at drawing actual things,
all right, So what I wonder is, does she maybe
have any other synesthesia, you know, because that is something
that has come up before that possibly a s MR
(23:10):
is a subcategory of this phenomenon where a person experiences
one sense or you could say a cognitive pathway which
results in the experience of another one. So for instance,
you might see the letter B as red or hear
a word that makes you taste a certain flavor. Yeah,
as far as I know, she does not experienced this,
(23:32):
but indeed you do see this possible connection between synesthesia
come up a lot, especially among Asmirians trying to make
sense of their I don't want to say condition, but
there response response, Yeah, the response. And indeed synesthesia is
a is a great place to turn to because at
least with synesthesia we have actual science behind it. Because
(23:53):
some of the other explanations floating around out there among
the Asmrians dip a little, perhaps a little bit too
much into the pseudoscience realm or into the just the
spiritual realm. And I'm you know, I'm not saying don't
turn to those things to explain something for your own
personal worldview. But if you're looking for a scientific explanation,
then you know, the third eye, uh and the peneal
(24:15):
gland might not be a strong answer the normal you know,
certain theories about it being the next stage and the
evolution of consciousness, um, synaesthesia is a little more set
in stone. Yeah, you came across the same stuff that
I did, where I was like, yeah, I don't know
if you could say that this is uh an increased
level of awareness. Um. Are you meditating on something? Are
(24:39):
you engaging with it? Yes? Um, just as you might
during about of synaesthesia. So yeah, we need some rigorous
studies here. We need a boatload of them because all
we can do is sort of kind of scratch at
these possibilities. And another possibility, which is going to be
really obvious by now, is the early mother child bonds.
(25:03):
That could be this sort of re enactment of that, right,
And this seems like a pretty strong theory just you know,
again just from especially from the outside looking in at
something that does not have a lot of rudreus um
uh study behind it. But but it does seem to
line up fairly well with that and it's something we
can all really I mean we all there are things
(25:23):
in are in all of our lives that we can
point to and say, you know, there's there's something about
this is tied up in the nurturing energy of my childhood. Yeah,
and especially if you look at the A. S. M
Are artist as occupying the mother role in in the
viewer as the child role and um. Mark O'Connell, writing
for Slate Magazine in the article The Soft Bulletins, says,
(25:45):
there's something about the typical s MR video that seems
to address itself to a desire to regain some prelapsarian
state of mother child unity. And that is that that
mother child state in which you're being cared for to
um a pretty huge degree. Right. Your hair is being brushed,
your teeth are being brushed, you're being washed. Um, there's
(26:09):
something that's just very comforting about that. Yeah, despite how
much a two year old fights against every one of
those things. Sometimes I'm trying to brush your teeth. You're
gonna you're gonna look back on this and feel this
weird sense of nostalgia and comfort in the fact, well,
you just open your mouth long enough for me to
get in there. You know, I'm going to share this
(26:31):
and you guys judge as much as you want, oh care.
But recently I went to Ju, which is a Korean spot,
and they offer a full body scrub. And so the
setup is this, You're in the female locker room and um,
you're naked. And you should describe the female locker room
because when when someone says, you know you're getting some
(26:52):
sort of a bobby body rubber massage, some people may
think of gentle candles, soothing music. No, I mean, this
is just like it's kind of a a locker room
that's had a lot of money put into it. So
you have marble floor, so it's kind of like a spa,
but it's also like a locker room and there's a
lot of there's a huge Korean community and Russian community
(27:13):
and people who just don't care about being naked among
one another within the same gender. Yeah, I mean it's
really comforting. I love going there as well because you
just go in body types of all all kinds, all sizes.
You just feel good. Oh yeah, I mean that's the
whole other lesson and um in body image. But it's
interesting to me about this is that you go for
(27:34):
the body scrub, there're a bunch of massage tables. There
are older women in their sixties and seventies who work
there in in their lace underwear because you know, if
you're gonna if that's your uniform, you want it to
be nice right on them inside. It's kind of a
like a diaper speed o thing. That's different. Um, But anyway,
it's basically like a grandmother scrubbing you down, that's my point.
(27:57):
And it's so it's such a nice experience because no
one is going to scrubby down like that except for
like your mother when you were a child. But here
is this grandmother type really getting your ears clean like
head to toe. It's a little thought. Yeah. Now another
possible explanation here is that it's all a matter of suggestibility, right, Yeah,
(28:20):
because you mentioned fear poles, right, this idea that if
you have to prophobia it maybe because it actually came
into your awareness, right and you assumed it for yourself.
This sort of internet awareness and support that has sprung
up around this idea of fear of poles. Yeah, because
it's kind of like joining a community, right, Who doesn't
(28:41):
want to be a part of community that has its
You know that not everyone can be a part of
this group. We have our own terminology. We may even
call ourselves something like as Marian's. I mean it sounds
nice and everyone can released relate to. Well, I like
white noise machines. Maybe I have this And if you
think about it and maybe you want it long enough,
then if you can, you can convince yourself that you
(29:02):
have it. Yeah, and so it's the question becomes are
people being primed for this and that in fact don't
normally have this response, but now that they're aware of it,
will they then become primed to experience it for themselves.
I feel like I would be more inclined to buy
into that of my wife didn't have it, you know.
(29:24):
And I'm and I'm not just being like, you know,
I support my wife in her craziness, no matter what
I'm saying that. You know, it's like it seems too
real on her part, and she's and she's been talking
about it for years before it was blowing up in
the internet. Yeah, to your point. There's an article by
Harry Cheetle writing for Vice magazine, and he says that
back in two thousand and a Yahoo group called the
(29:45):
Society of Sensationalists, I think you might have mentioned that
already formed with a somewhat vague manifesto quote. All we
have right now are questions, and we need answers. We
need help, not in the sense that we want to
solve or cure this sensation, but rather instead to learn
what causes this. And so that's I think to your point.
(30:05):
It's kind of like people are experiencing this and the
reporting on it, and maybe some people would pick up
from that and feel primed and then have that sensation
to Yeah, I imagine it's a mix, you know. I mean,
you're probably you have people who actually experienced this, and
you probably have some outliers and people who think, well,
maybe I have it or I just really want to
have it, and they're playing into the suggestion. But but
(30:28):
we won't know, and we won't know if it's just
always existed and just hasn't been named, or if the
Internet birthed it into being. And that reminds me. I
was looking around at the the a s mr Reddit
and I saw people talking about why about how they've
developed the ability to do something like they're they're transitioning
perhaps from type B to type A. So that makes
(30:51):
me wonder, like is that how much is suggestion playing
into that? And if it's possible to go from type
B to type A, then is it possible to go
from type nothing of type or is it that in
engaging in all these videos or these experiences, are you
ramping up the reward pathways in your brain and therefore
(31:12):
it makes it a lot easier to seek out, not
just seek out, but to experience that. And that was
a question that Stephen Novella, a neurologist at Yale University
School of Medicine, put out there because he tried to say, hey,
let's try to figure this out. Is this actually real?
And of course this can't be answered, um, but he
did say that he's inclined to believe that it is. Quote,
(31:34):
it's similar to migraine headaches. We know they exist as
a syndrome primarily because many different people report the same
constellation of symptoms in natural history, including hallucinations. We've ended
that a bit with our Lepricron episode if you're interested
in checking that out. Yeah, so he's thinking a s MR. Hey,
it could be a small seizure or it could just
be activating the pleasure centers of the brain. And again,
(31:59):
I don't think it's too far of a stretch to
think that might be happening, just because we've talked about
pro pre receptive drift before, this idea that it's really
easy to sort of gain your brain to reconsider the
boundaries of your body. And there are plenty of studies
to support that, um, and there's mere neurons and then
(32:21):
of course suggestibility, and who doesn't need a little nurturing. Yeah,
I mean again, as a non as marian, I I
love like musical tracks and incorporate soothing spoken word into them.
Uh the books, for instance, they have an album that
that uses a lot of that, and it's they're using
like some new ag self help samples in the background.
(32:44):
And there's one track on that album that is listening
to over and over again in large part because it's
just such a nice, soothing, uplifting voice. And they're you're
talking about like they even use uh, you know that
that false bit of science about you are only using
tempers in your brain. So it's like I'm not even
buying into the message at all, but just I appreciate
that somebody is telling me these nice things all set
(33:06):
to some really interesting music. You know, That's funny because
we've talked about this before in the context of some
electronic music having the criticism Levey Data that it was
infantilizing and that you know, we were returning more to
like this womb state and trying to recreate that oral
state of a heartbeat or you know, the sound of
(33:27):
liquid rushing past us. Yeah, why not, there's nothing wrong
with that. Yeah, yeah, returned to the womb if you
can go for it. Oh, while I'm at it, since
we're drifting off topic and here at the end of
the podcast, I do want to mention as well that
I recently ran across an artist who all all he
does is create ambient tracks based on the the ambient
(33:48):
sound from spaceships in various science fiction properties and also
some other places, but mostly it's starships. So it's like
the Enterprise, it's the Nostromo from Alien and it's really
interesting stuff. So you can find a link to that
particular blog post on the landing page for this episode.
I have to say that it's a fine line for
(34:08):
me those sort of ambient sounds, like sometimes it can
be a bit too um, sort of removed from the
human experience, where it feels like existential angst, and then
sometimes it's a little bit more intimate and it feels
more womb like. But well, I kind of like sometimes
existential angst is nice in a track. I mean, well,
(34:30):
there's a there's a lot of electronic music, all of
music in general. It's not necessarily about it's not about
feeling comforting. It's about maybe maybe connecting with with something
alien and something weird and isolating. You know what that
is going to be money year's resolution for this year. Yeah,
to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Okay, Yeah, you've inspired me. Okay, alright,
(34:54):
Well I hope that doesn't end in disaster me too.
So there you have it. A m R in a
nutshell Again. We're still waiting for some of these studies
to come out and get a little more information about
what's going on, and as soon as that happens, hopefully
we'll revisit this topic. In the time being, be sure
to check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That is our mother ship. That is where you will
(35:15):
find all the blog post, all the videos, all the
podcast episodes way back to the area at the beginning
and uh and the landing pages for those podcasts will
include you know, art and some some links to related
materials and some outside materials as well. Be sure to
check that and if you have some thoughts that you
would like for eyeballs too lovingly caress, you can send
(35:37):
those thoughts to us at blew the Mind how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcot the Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Duglats.
You sound very measured this morning. Julie. Well, I'm trying
out the smoothing it so it's a better whispering. And
(00:29):
I'm very interested in exploring the oral landscape. And Robert
that I mentioned to you that I'm also interested in
caring for your hair. Oh yes, yes, I do enjoy
a good haircut. Really I don't. I thought so. And
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to
brush your hair first, and I just want you to
(00:52):
close your eyes and enjoy the strokes of the brush
through your hair. Okay, it doesn't feel good. Okay, this
is getting so creepy. Hey guys, it's us and we're
exploring something called a s m R. Yeah. And in
a way, this is an episode appears nicely with our
our tripophobia episode because in both cases we have something
(01:16):
that is kind of not really emerging from the Internet age,
but it's the Internet has allowed individuals who have a
certain reaction to a certain type of stimuli to allow
them to come together and start talking about and say, Hey,
what's what's going on here? Why does why does this
make me feel this way? Uh? And why doesn't everyone
else around me seem to be affected in the same way.
(01:38):
With triple phobia, it was about looking at clusters of
holes and feeling the sense of repulsion. But with a SMR,
which we're talking about today, it's about something far more pleasant,
far more mellow, but but equally perplexing. Yeah. It's called
autonomous sensory meridian response. And we'll talk a little bit
more about what triggers it, but essentially what it is
(02:00):
is a pleasurable tingling that begins in the head and
scalp and then it shimmies down the spine and and
it reportedly relaxes the entire body when the person is
exposed to certain auditory cues. Yeah, in some cases, particularly
in headlines written by by male editors, I think you'll
(02:21):
see it compared to an orgasm, like it's an orgasm
in the brain, it's a brain gasm or whatever. But
I mean generally the descriptions you you hear, uh, it
is more of a mellow, comforting, relaxing sensation and less
um you know, psychedelic sexual mind explosion. Yeah, and a
lot of people will step in and say, hey, this
really is not a sexual thing. This is just this
(02:42):
um more than anything, this pleasurable, relaxing sense that you
get when you hear these triggers. So I wanted to
mention that most of these things, these cues are provided
by videos made by what are called a s m
AREST on YouTube, and it has a very intimate air
(03:03):
to them. And we'll talk more about that. And so
far a s m R isn't a medically or scientifically
recognized term, though studies are now beginning to be conducted,
and there's a ton of anecdotal information out there and
explanations abound. Yeah, it's entirely possible that by the time
you get around to listen to this episode, maybe one
(03:24):
of these studies will actually publish. Um. Well, we know
from from researching it that there's a guy at Dartmouth
College Bryson Launched, who did an f m R I
study on a SMR, which is one of the types
of studies that everyone's been clamoring for. Let's get one
of these brains inside the tube and actually see what's
going on in there. Um. But as of right now,
(03:44):
we don't have this kind of research to turn to. Alright,
So before we start explaining this really in earnest, let's
look at some of the terms, because I think these
terms will kind of tell you to what degree people
are really bound up in a s m R. Yeah,
even a s m R. Even autonomous sensory meridian response.
(04:04):
This is this is not a set in stone a
bit of terminology. This itself emerges from individuals on the
Internet coming together and talking about it. You'll see it
at times. It's been referred to as attention induced euphoria.
You've seen it. We've seen it called attention induced head
orgasm uh or, as referred to by Andrew mcmurris on
his blog that he started back in two thousand and ten,
(04:26):
the unnamed feeling. Uh let's you give you an idea,
because at the at the time there was everyone's still
coming together and saying what is it? What what should
we call it? And uh So around two thousand and eleven,
you see autonomous sensory meridian response really coming to the
forefront as the as the main term and pretty much
cemented in place by Yeah. In fact, if you look
(04:48):
at the Google history on this. You'll see in two
thousand eleven it starts to make a bit of a
footprint UM, but two two fourteen it rockets as search term,
which I think gives you an idea of the kind
of UM following or the kind of communities that are
gathering around this. I guess you could say phenomenon. You know,
(05:10):
what's weird is UM. And I'll get into this more
as as we as we discussed that my wife has
a SMR and I've known her since the first Saw
movie came out, whatever year that was, I don't know,
but I I love that you are always like and
we got together when Saw came out. Yeah, that's that's
what brought us together. Yeah, well anyway for a number
(05:32):
of years. But we've known each other for about ten years,
and so a s MR was not the predominant term
until very recently. But I can't, for the life of
me remember what she called it, or that even had
a name, uh, you know, back when I first met her.
And so what is her trigger? Her trigger is definitely, uh,
the sound of a pencil on paper, but more specifically,
(05:54):
it's uh, she she's she's sitting in a room with
someone who is drawing her with with soul and paper,
and she's so she's hearing the sound of it. She's
in the it's it's the you know, it's the sensation
of being drawn. I guess the attention, the intimacy of
that with the sounds, the soft sounds of the of
the drawing and you guys listening out there. I think
(06:14):
about that example in a moment because we're gonna talk
more about triggers, but that really hits on a lot
of the different factors that make this pleasurable for people. Um.
I wanted to mention that a couple other terms really
helped to frame this, or something called ascension when an
experience or levels up, and usually that means that the
control of a s MR has improved or that experiences
(06:38):
are much more intense. Again, these are people who are
seeking this out and really concentrating, even meditating on some
of these triggers. Now there's asthma or as marian person
who experiences I'm married you are married to That explains
a lot. Yep. And of course you already mentioned it brandgasm,
which is that colloquial term for SMR. So triggers. Yes,
(07:03):
let's get to this. I was whispering at the beginning
of this, and I was taking the pages and making
this kind of noise um. And these are both big triggers.
But probably whispering is the I would say, like the
headliner of all the triggers. Yes, indeed, a whispering voice
and oftentimes, like the subject matter is not necessarily important.
(07:27):
But in many cases the the the voice will be
providing instruction of some kind or taking the listener on
sort of an imaginative journey, kind of a storyteller. You're
walking through the park, you're passing a dog, next sort
of thing. Yeah, it's really interesting, and I think about
it as levels and whispering is sort of like the
base doc to a s m R. And Bob Ross
(07:48):
think about him. He's a perfect example of someone and
someone who's quite fetishized, I would say, although some might
take issue with that terminology of fetishizing, but people seek
him out in order to you have a a s
MR experience. But now think about and I should I
should jump in if you're not familiar with who that is.
He's the PBS joy painting guy who talks about painting
(08:10):
pretty little trees and happy trees, little trees. That was it,
and so he was that he's perfect because soft suiting voice.
I'll be at a male voice and some people take
a shoe and say that a female voice is preferable.
But but he's also instructing me you, and he's taking
you on a journey. Yes, it was very meditative in
nature if you think about it that way. Now, imagine
if someone had long nails and they would tap them
(08:33):
on a hard service or um lovingly scraped them against
plastic or something like that. There's the crinkling of a
bag of chips um again, the shuffling of pages turning
in a book. And then the personal care aspect, the
role playing aspect that you already sort of called out here,
and that's when someone looks at the camera you're watching
(08:57):
this video and they're looking at you the you are
and role playing with you some sort of self care
or some sort of uh nurturing thing that they're doing.
You could be pretending like you're at a spot, or
it could be an exam. And these I think are
amazing because it's sort of like the motherload of a
s MR. These these exam videos, especially the cranial exams,
(09:22):
because the cranial exam. I think it's like a real thing, right,
We're sensory cues would be introduced to you because you're there,
a doctor would be looking for neurological damage. But in
these role playing videos, they're just pretending like they're at
the doctor and they have different things, like they have
a feather that they're stroking the camera with and saying
do you feel this on your cheek? And that is
(09:45):
the motherload because it has the whispering, it has the crinkling,
it has the pen going up and down, the clicking
of the pen, the keyboard, um, all those different things,
and it has the nurturing aspect to it. Yeah, it's
interesting to to to look around at some of the
videos out there because there's been a kind of an
evolution um of the art form. Because some of the
(10:07):
earlier stuff is just yeah, let's just watch some Bob
Ross or here someone's gonna talk to me, or someone's
gonna provide a fake haircut, fake ear exam kind of
situation in video form. But as the as the the
art form evolves, it's all about layering things and providing
multiple triggers because not everybody is going to be affected
by these same triggers, the person who who prefers the
(10:29):
whispering is not gonna go for the tapping or the scratching. Um.
You know, my wife, for instance, the the the the
sound of just a soothing voice does not affect her
in that way. Um, but it's it's it's just that
that drawing on the paper or someone someone sketching her
and uh. And I do want to point out that
when I ask her about it, I said, well, you know,
(10:50):
what exactly do you feel when this happens? And she said,
it's a it's a tingling in my scalp uh, a
strong sense of relaction, and a strong but a short
lived feeling of just being really stoned. Um. Because I
asked her it was like a mild high, and she's,
I know, it's really intense high. It just doesn't last
very long, just falls off. Yeah. And I think that's
(11:11):
an important distinction to make, because I think all of
us can probably list off a bunch of different sounds
that are pleasurable too, you know, like I love paper
being kind of sorted around, but I don't get tingles,
and I don't have a sort of flash stone stoner response. Yeah. Likewise,
I mean I love I love a good white noise,
(11:32):
brown noise machine. I love ambient even some drone music,
you know, but but it doesn't have that kind of
effect on me. I mean we we both have listened
to the Headspace app, for instance, and hearing the soothing
voice of Andy pooticomb on that you know, very soothing voice,
and very can help get you in a meditative state.
But I don't feel high while it's taking place. No,
(11:55):
actually think that would be distracting because Headspace is actually
a meditation app, so it would be kind of wonderful,
but perhaps distracting to the point of you're trying to
calm your brain down, uh not elicit um some sort
of overreaction. You need an alternate Headspace app where there's
just a drill sergeant. I guess, yeah, you you definitely
(12:15):
have to do that. Although Andy does have a really
nice whispery voice, you know, another voice that came to mind,
and again this is a from a non Asmirian, but
Timothy Leary, I feel I feel like his voice is
always I've always found that super soothing, and I did
looks like there's some a SMR stuff that does utilize
some of his spoken word album work in the sixties.
(12:37):
And I want to mention too that it's not just whispering.
A lot of these artists are. They're using space. We
talked about this in music, like if you use space
in unexpected ways, that your brain pays even more attention.
And so you like the ambient sounds of a room
or no, I mean like I'm thinking about Dr Dmitri,
(12:59):
who does one of them? Can you describe? Um? I
will try to be doctor Dmitri? Now what is your name?
So it's like, you know, he's not talking in the
(13:19):
sort of the pattern that we're used to write. And
so I think that is a part of it is
because and we've talked about this before, it's like it's
not like music, but there are some similarities in which
if your brain is grappling with those unpredicted spaces, and
those spaces resolve themselves like in a certain note, right,
(13:40):
um that you you get relief from that, or you
get a sort of pleasure from that. And now a
lot of as Marian's will say, this is not like
the musical chills, yes, that they make generally make a
strong point of that being significantly different. That is known
as fregen is it French reim the spine tiggling sensation
(14:02):
of listening to music that you know a lot a
lot more people can can relate to. But in Asmara
will be quick to tell you no, that is separate.
That is not my thing. That may be your thing,
but that's not my thing. Yeah, And if you want
to know more about that, check out our episode on
does music hijack that brings? So we get a little
bit deeper into that. Now within as Marian community, there
are two types of as Marian's as reported by the community,
(14:27):
that's type A and type B. Type A is through
just sort of meditation or thinking about the thing, right,
So if you hear the auditory queue, that may just
be enough to trigger that sort of sensation, but type
bees need to actually experience the trigger. So for instance,
getting a haircut, that's why I was pretending to cut
(14:48):
your hair earlier, which was again super creepy um or
any sort of exam or close personal attention. So it's
the difference again between imagining the haircut and happy the haircut.
If you're type A, you don't. All you have to
do is think about the trigger. The type you need
to trigger. Yeah. One of our producers, Paul, was telling
me that his trigger is when he is on an
(15:10):
airplane and they begin to describe all the safety precautions
that passengers must take in the oxygen coming down and
the exits and all of this, And he said, it's
not just the voice, but it's the actual, like taking
care to tell you how to protect yourself. It's a
kind of nurturing quality. We see that nurturing theme and
a lot of these it's like sometimes it's just merely instructional,
(15:33):
which can be a form of nurturing. Other times it's
actual physical care, a doctor and patient relationship, or a
parent and child relationship. I'm gonna groom your hair. I'm
gonna look after your your hygiene, your well being. And
that is a good point for us to actually take
a break, because when we get back, we're gonna delve
a little bit more into the A s MR artists,
(15:55):
but also the reasons the possible explanations for white people
experience this. Alright, we're back. We're still discussing autonomous sensory
meridian response or a s MR. The the domain of
(16:15):
the asmirians. I feel like they should it sounds like
they should have their own planet. They should. Yeah, and
it's probably a indistinguishable from our own. It's the thing
because I was looking around at some of the videos. Uh,
there's a there's a reddit for as Mirian's where people
are just throwing up, you know, various videos and they
range from the like highly produced professional a s MR
(16:37):
video realm to stuff. Literally there's a video where someone
just has an audio and video recording of chefs at
five Guys Fries preparing to make French fries. So they
just send a little bit of ambient clanging and echo
and the opening of the potato bag and that that clip.
I looked at, the clip had the like ten thousand,
(16:59):
five hundred views. Well, okay, all right, so let me
tell you that Maria, who is known as Gentle Whispering
if you want to look at her on her YouTube channel,
she has something like forty plus million views of her videos.
Now granted she's up in the hundreds in her videos,
but still some of them will fetch up to eight
(17:20):
hundred thousand to a million views. I think there was
one that was two million views. And she is she's
really sort of the czar of a s MR and
she's a Russian woman who moved to the US in
two thousand and six, and she had a lot of
she says, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety,
and she began to actually seek out videos, not realizing
(17:45):
that the whispering stuff was actually helping her anxiety. And
she found herself doing it more and more and more.
And I believe in two thousand and nine she started
doing this in earnest making her own videos. Um. So
obviously people like her who have a genuine interest in
the a s MR community, or even not a genuine interest,
(18:06):
can make a small income doing this. Yeah, and not
to at least put back into your your product and
uh and pump out more videos. Um. It's it's interesting
too that she's she's Russian and has a Russian accent,
because I saw that mentioned a lot in them shows.
We're looking at that. Uh, you know, everyone has their
their different taste as far as a SMR material, but
(18:27):
a lot of people do prefer an accent of some kind.
And it kind of goes back to what you were
saying earlier about Uh, you know, a different mode of speech,
being less predictable. Reminds me of of of Bella Leegostia's Dracula.
One of the reasons Dracula resonated so much with Bella's
performance because bell didn't speak English at the time, so
he was he was saying these words but not actually
(18:48):
speaking them, so his his mode of his delivery was
what it was a little unpredictable and a little little haunting,
which is interesting because that the unpredictability factor I think
is present. And whispering anyway, I mean, the best way
to get my kids attention is to actually whisper to
her because it's unusual, right, and you're like, you have
to lean in and really pay attention. So you have
(19:09):
that going for you, and then you have those spaces
in the actual speech pattern making it a little bit
even more skewed, right. And in addition to this, a
lot of a s MR artists like Maria use three
D or binural microphones, which create a stereo recording that
(19:30):
makes the listener feel like they're in the same room
as the speaker. Oh yeah, a lot of people uh
in the SR community. So you do have to have
the headphones. You need that that surround feeling you're just
not going to get from your laptop. Speaker. Yeah, this
is from the Atlantic article how to have a Brain orgasm.
There it is again. Uh. Maria is interviewed and she says,
(19:51):
of the experience, I definitely think it has something to
do with proximity. When you watch a SMR videos, you're
completely vulnerable the viewer is. It's all most uncomfortable for
you to be that close to another person. But if
you feel how much they care about you at that moment,
it just puts you in that shape of euphor you
So imagine you've got your headphones on and you have
the three D microphones making it feel that much more intimate. Huh.
(20:17):
You know. I I also did a quick chip check
and there are videos of individuals who are pretending to
draw you with a pencil. Ah. So your wife would
be like, Hey, that's the incisers with the sound and
there's the kind of attention, right, and that's sort of like, Hey,
I care for you, I care for you, I care
for you enough to set here and draw you. Yeah.
(20:38):
So you have pointed out before why mostly women. Yeah,
that's kind of a lingering question about this, isn't it again?
We're still waiting on studies, so we don't have anything
really hardcore, but but as best as we can tell,
if it comes down to that nurturing energy. Yeah, and
I had mentioned Dr dmitriv but he is uh, he's
(20:59):
in a nominally among all the A S MR artists,
And yeah, there's that that sort of nurturing role playing
going on, And it would make sense that this kind
of stereotype would play down the lines of gender. Yeah,
Like I almost felt weird saying it because it sounds
a little sexist for me to say, Oh, well, you know,
nurturing energy. Of course females are into it. But you know,
(21:22):
I mean if that's the predominant stereotype, then I mean
we see that carried out through all types of media,
So it would makes sense that this is something that
is acceptable. Now. I was fine with Dr Dmitriev, but
my husband was like, oh, that was totally creeping me out.
What did your husband think about Bob Ross? Uh? You know,
we didn't talk about Bob Ross, but I'm yeah, who
(21:44):
doesn't like Bob Ross? Some artists don't like Bob. I
have a friend who's an artist and she hates him. Well,
is that because the content of his work? I think so?
I think she's just kind of like blah. I think also,
maybe maybe it's because her mom was an art teacher
or something. I'm not sure that she does not like
the happy little trees. Yeah, she wants dangerous trees. She's
a weird dug that one. But but yeah, for the
(22:06):
most part of most people would like Bob Ross. What
can you be offended by? Indeed, uh real, real quick,
we're talking about the nurturing power of it. And I
do want to mention as well that my wife said
that when she was a little girl, Um, she and
a friend would take turns combing each other's hair and
she would also experience a SMR in those situations. Huh.
(22:28):
So I mean she's kind of a type and type
bee or maybe actually she would probably would be a
type be just I think surely experiential. Yeah, I think so,
because especially since as far as I know, the videos
don't even work that well that well on her, Like,
it has really got to be someone in the room
drawing her. Yeah, And then I did it once and
I think it kind of worked for but then she
(22:48):
saw that my drawing was stupid because I can only
draw the monsters. She's like a stick figure. Yeah, because
you know, I'm just not good at drawing actual things,
all right, So what I wonder is, does she maybe
have any other synesthesia, you know, because that is something
that has come up before that possibly a s MR
(23:10):
is a subcategory of this phenomenon where a person experiences
one sense or you could say a cognitive pathway which
results in the experience of another one. So for instance,
you might see the letter B as red or hear
a word that makes you taste a certain flavor. Yeah,
as far as I know, she does not experienced this,
(23:32):
but indeed you do see this possible connection between synesthesia
come up a lot, especially among Asmirians trying to make
sense of their I don't want to say condition, but
there response response, Yeah, the response. And indeed synesthesia is
a is a great place to turn to because at
least with synesthesia we have actual science behind it. Because
(23:53):
some of the other explanations floating around out there among
the Asmrians dip a little, perhaps a little bit too
much into the pseudoscience realm or into the just the
spiritual realm. And I'm you know, I'm not saying don't
turn to those things to explain something for your own
personal worldview. But if you're looking for a scientific explanation,
then you know, the third eye, uh and the peneal
(24:15):
gland might not be a strong answer the normal you know,
certain theories about it being the next stage and the
evolution of consciousness, um, synaesthesia is a little more set
in stone. Yeah, you came across the same stuff that
I did, where I was like, yeah, I don't know
if you could say that this is uh an increased
level of awareness. Um. Are you meditating on something? Are
(24:39):
you engaging with it? Yes? Um, just as you might
during about of synaesthesia. So yeah, we need some rigorous
studies here. We need a boatload of them because all
we can do is sort of kind of scratch at
these possibilities. And another possibility, which is going to be
really obvious by now, is the early mother child bonds.
(25:03):
That could be this sort of re enactment of that, right,
And this seems like a pretty strong theory just you know,
again just from especially from the outside looking in at
something that does not have a lot of rudreus um
uh study behind it. But but it does seem to
line up fairly well with that and it's something we
can all really I mean we all there are things
(25:23):
in are in all of our lives that we can
point to and say, you know, there's there's something about
this is tied up in the nurturing energy of my childhood. Yeah,
and especially if you look at the A. S. M
Are artist as occupying the mother role in in the
viewer as the child role and um. Mark O'Connell, writing
for Slate Magazine in the article The Soft Bulletins, says,
(25:45):
there's something about the typical s MR video that seems
to address itself to a desire to regain some prelapsarian
state of mother child unity. And that is that that
mother child state in which you're being cared for to
um a pretty huge degree. Right. Your hair is being brushed,
your teeth are being brushed, you're being washed. Um, there's
(26:09):
something that's just very comforting about that. Yeah, despite how
much a two year old fights against every one of
those things. Sometimes I'm trying to brush your teeth. You're
gonna you're gonna look back on this and feel this
weird sense of nostalgia and comfort in the fact, well,
you just open your mouth long enough for me to
get in there. You know, I'm going to share this
(26:31):
and you guys judge as much as you want, oh care.
But recently I went to Ju, which is a Korean spot,
and they offer a full body scrub. And so the
setup is this, You're in the female locker room and um,
you're naked. And you should describe the female locker room
because when when someone says, you know you're getting some
(26:52):
sort of a bobby body rubber massage, some people may
think of gentle candles, soothing music. No, I mean, this
is just like it's kind of a a locker room
that's had a lot of money put into it. So
you have marble floor, so it's kind of like a spa,
but it's also like a locker room and there's a
lot of there's a huge Korean community and Russian community
(27:13):
and people who just don't care about being naked among
one another within the same gender. Yeah, I mean it's
really comforting. I love going there as well because you
just go in body types of all all kinds, all sizes.
You just feel good. Oh yeah, I mean that's the
whole other lesson and um in body image. But it's
interesting to me about this is that you go for
(27:34):
the body scrub, there're a bunch of massage tables. There
are older women in their sixties and seventies who work
there in in their lace underwear because you know, if
you're gonna if that's your uniform, you want it to
be nice right on them inside. It's kind of a
like a diaper speed o thing. That's different. Um, But anyway,
it's basically like a grandmother scrubbing you down, that's my point.
(27:57):
And it's so it's such a nice experience because no
one is going to scrubby down like that except for
like your mother when you were a child. But here
is this grandmother type really getting your ears clean like
head to toe. It's a little thought. Yeah. Now another
possible explanation here is that it's all a matter of suggestibility, right, Yeah,
(28:20):
because you mentioned fear poles, right, this idea that if
you have to prophobia it maybe because it actually came
into your awareness, right and you assumed it for yourself.
This sort of internet awareness and support that has sprung
up around this idea of fear of poles. Yeah, because
it's kind of like joining a community, right, Who doesn't
(28:41):
want to be a part of community that has its
You know that not everyone can be a part of
this group. We have our own terminology. We may even
call ourselves something like as Marian's. I mean it sounds
nice and everyone can released relate to. Well, I like
white noise machines. Maybe I have this And if you
think about it and maybe you want it long enough,
then if you can, you can convince yourself that you
(29:02):
have it. Yeah, and so it's the question becomes are
people being primed for this and that in fact don't
normally have this response, but now that they're aware of it,
will they then become primed to experience it for themselves.
I feel like I would be more inclined to buy
into that of my wife didn't have it, you know.
(29:24):
And I'm and I'm not just being like, you know,
I support my wife in her craziness, no matter what
I'm saying that. You know, it's like it seems too
real on her part, and she's and she's been talking
about it for years before it was blowing up in
the internet. Yeah, to your point. There's an article by
Harry Cheetle writing for Vice magazine, and he says that
back in two thousand and a Yahoo group called the
(29:45):
Society of Sensationalists, I think you might have mentioned that
already formed with a somewhat vague manifesto quote. All we
have right now are questions, and we need answers. We
need help, not in the sense that we want to
solve or cure this sensation, but rather instead to learn
what causes this. And so that's I think to your point.
(30:05):
It's kind of like people are experiencing this and the
reporting on it, and maybe some people would pick up
from that and feel primed and then have that sensation
to Yeah, I imagine it's a mix, you know. I mean,
you're probably you have people who actually experienced this, and
you probably have some outliers and people who think, well,
maybe I have it or I just really want to
have it, and they're playing into the suggestion. But but
(30:28):
we won't know, and we won't know if it's just
always existed and just hasn't been named, or if the
Internet birthed it into being. And that reminds me. I
was looking around at the the a s mr Reddit
and I saw people talking about why about how they've
developed the ability to do something like they're they're transitioning
perhaps from type B to type A. So that makes
(30:51):
me wonder, like is that how much is suggestion playing
into that? And if it's possible to go from type
B to type A, then is it possible to go
from type nothing of type or is it that in
engaging in all these videos or these experiences, are you
ramping up the reward pathways in your brain and therefore
(31:12):
it makes it a lot easier to seek out, not
just seek out, but to experience that. And that was
a question that Stephen Novella, a neurologist at Yale University
School of Medicine, put out there because he tried to say, hey,
let's try to figure this out. Is this actually real?
And of course this can't be answered, um, but he
did say that he's inclined to believe that it is. Quote,
(31:34):
it's similar to migraine headaches. We know they exist as
a syndrome primarily because many different people report the same
constellation of symptoms in natural history, including hallucinations. We've ended
that a bit with our Lepricron episode if you're interested
in checking that out. Yeah, so he's thinking a s MR. Hey,
it could be a small seizure or it could just
be activating the pleasure centers of the brain. And again,
(31:59):
I don't think it's too far of a stretch to
think that might be happening, just because we've talked about
pro pre receptive drift before, this idea that it's really
easy to sort of gain your brain to reconsider the
boundaries of your body. And there are plenty of studies
to support that, um, and there's mere neurons and then
(32:21):
of course suggestibility, and who doesn't need a little nurturing. Yeah,
I mean again, as a non as marian, I I
love like musical tracks and incorporate soothing spoken word into them.
Uh the books, for instance, they have an album that
that uses a lot of that, and it's they're using
like some new ag self help samples in the background.
(32:44):
And there's one track on that album that is listening
to over and over again in large part because it's
just such a nice, soothing, uplifting voice. And they're you're
talking about like they even use uh, you know that
that false bit of science about you are only using
tempers in your brain. So it's like I'm not even
buying into the message at all, but just I appreciate
that somebody is telling me these nice things all set
(33:06):
to some really interesting music. You know, That's funny because
we've talked about this before in the context of some
electronic music having the criticism Levey Data that it was
infantilizing and that you know, we were returning more to
like this womb state and trying to recreate that oral
state of a heartbeat or you know, the sound of
(33:27):
liquid rushing past us. Yeah, why not, there's nothing wrong
with that. Yeah, yeah, returned to the womb if you
can go for it. Oh, while I'm at it, since
we're drifting off topic and here at the end of
the podcast, I do want to mention as well that
I recently ran across an artist who all all he
does is create ambient tracks based on the the ambient
(33:48):
sound from spaceships in various science fiction properties and also
some other places, but mostly it's starships. So it's like
the Enterprise, it's the Nostromo from Alien and it's really
interesting stuff. So you can find a link to that
particular blog post on the landing page for this episode.
I have to say that it's a fine line for
(34:08):
me those sort of ambient sounds, like sometimes it can
be a bit too um, sort of removed from the
human experience, where it feels like existential angst, and then
sometimes it's a little bit more intimate and it feels
more womb like. But well, I kind of like sometimes
existential angst is nice in a track. I mean, well,
(34:30):
there's a there's a lot of electronic music, all of
music in general. It's not necessarily about it's not about
feeling comforting. It's about maybe maybe connecting with with something
alien and something weird and isolating. You know what that
is going to be money year's resolution for this year. Yeah,
to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Okay, Yeah, you've inspired me. Okay, alright,
(34:54):
Well I hope that doesn't end in disaster me too.
So there you have it. A m R in a
nutshell Again. We're still waiting for some of these studies
to come out and get a little more information about
what's going on, and as soon as that happens, hopefully
we'll revisit this topic. In the time being, be sure
to check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That is our mother ship. That is where you will
(35:15):
find all the blog post, all the videos, all the
podcast episodes way back to the area at the beginning
and uh and the landing pages for those podcasts will
include you know, art and some some links to related
materials and some outside materials as well. Be sure to
check that and if you have some thoughts that you
would like for eyeballs too lovingly caress, you can send
(35:37):
those thoughts to us at blew the Mind how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
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