Binaural ASMR, Little Brain Orgasms

Videos of kittens, fragments of series and movies, gameplays, video clips... Youtube It is the kingdom of the moving image and it has become so popular that little by little it has been stealing viewers from the television. However, in some of the videos that we can find on this website, the image is a secondary element and all the prominence falls on the sound.

These small corners of YouTube are precisely the spaces in which a type of content in which the sound produces such intense sensations that it is enough by itself to guarantee hundreds of thousands of visits. And no, or it's about music videos. We are referring to recordings binaural ASMR, a new phenomenon related to the psychology, the new technologies and the communities formed on the Internet.

Defining the concept "ASMR"

ASMR is an acronym for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, that is, autonomous meridian sensory response. This opaque combination of words is an attempt to define a biological phenomenon that is difficult to explain. It is a

pleasant feeling associated with a tingling that runs through the head and parts of the neck and back and is produced by a mixture of auditory, visual and cognitive stimuli.

The subjective state to which the term ASMR refers is something like the sensation produced by massage based not on contact with different surfaces, but on the surround sound, the images and the psychological feedback that all this produces. Another more intuitive way of referring to ASMR is to "brain orgasms".

Its origin goes back to social networks

The curious thing about ASMR is how recently it was discovered. The term first appeared in early 2010 on a Facebook page, although the concept to which the acronyms refer had already been raised and debated in various Internet forums for two years before. Since the existence of the phenomena is known, videos have proliferated in which "ASMR artists" experiment with the sound of their voices and objects to trigger ASMR responses in their public.

The result? A relatively well interconnected online community and that, despite its youth, it is gaining followers by leaps and bounds.

What are ASMR videos?

ASMR is the label with which we refer to this biological phenomenon, but it is also used to refer to the videos designed to induce pleasant states of this kind on the viewer. To achieve this effect, people who are fond of creating this type of content use microphones prepared to capture sound in three dimensions (audio systems). binaural listening) that make it possible to create an enveloping sensation in the listener who puts on headphones.

It is also common to use whispers and repetitive sound patterns to create a kind of massage that is transmitted by sound waves. Binaural ASMR videos are characterized by being relatively long, without unexpected noises and being based on low volume sounds and without stridency. In addition, so that the enveloping sensation is greater, it is normal for the videos to be themed and include some role-playing.

Here's a little presentation on the idea of ​​ASMR:

What are ASRM videos used for?

Youtubers interested in the world of ASMR videos tend to see them as useful when promoting relaxation and meditation sessions, facilitate sleep or simply offer pleasure based on sound. But... do these recordings really work? The truth is that there are people more prone than others when it comes to experiencing this kind of pleasant tingling, and there are even people who are unable to notice anything.

Also, there is a great lack of scientific research in relation to studying the sensations and patterns of neural and hormonal activation triggered by ASMR sessions. However, the latter is so because the idea of ​​ASMR has only recently been known, not because the videos used to produce it don't work. In any case, it is very difficult to study something for which a theoretical model has not been established to explain its functioning, so it seems that we will have to wait a while to see promising lines of research in this sense.

And to finish... some more examples

It is possible to create ASMR videos based on touching objects, like the following:

This other one emulates an ASMR hairdressing session:

This youtuber receives thousands of weekly visits for creating ASMR videos in which she appears whispering in Polish: