The mystery of "Himmmm"

Brains are weird. I have first-hand experience in this. Weird doesn't always mean bad, however, so occasionally I rummage around the internet trying to figure out if any of the weird things work to my advantage.

If you've ever heard of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), your reaction was likely either, "Hey! It has a name!" or "You people are bizarre." It's a little complicated, but the gist is that it's the exact inverse of that cringe response most people have to nails on a chalkboard: Some sort of stimulus, often but not always auditory, makes you melt into a puddle of goose-pimpled goo. The ASMR community is pretty adamant that it's not sexual, despite the existence of ASMR erotica. (I'm inclined to believe them. I feel like this is less a case of 'the lady doth protest too much' than of just plain ol' Rule 34.) Common triggers include whispering, the rustle of book pages turning, tapping of rain on a hard surface or fingernails on glass, lapping water, hair brushing, and other such quiet ambient noises.

Soft, semi-rhythmic noises have been recognized as relaxing since time immemorial; it's why we sing lullabies to babies and put fountains in our public squares. Human brains like things that are patterned, and they like having something to focus on. Random noise like raindrops or the rustle of cloth gives us something to listen to as we search for the recurring cycle of sounds that never quite comes together. It's harmless and helps us block out other stimulus that might make it difficult to sleep.

Aside from the fairly straightforward soundscape, another common trigger cited is just someone paying a lot of attention to something. Most seem to enjoy it best when the person is paying particular attention to the listener/viewer, but also reported getting the feeling from watching someone absorbed in another task. This aspect seemed like it might involve some mixture of a flow state and mirror neurons, where watching someone else deep 'in the groove' of some task activates the bits of the brain that help us relate to what other humans are experiencing by imagining what it would feel like to have that experience ourselves. I can see why that would trip a 'reward' feeling of some kind.

My brain does plenty of weird things, I thought. Let's see if it does this one!

I am so far very disappointed.

I was hoping to find someone with a soothing voice, sitting very close to the mic, talking me through the process of getting a spa facial or a full body massage. Sort of a mix of guided meditation and audio drama. Not so much. It turns out that when people say 'personal attention,' it's literally just the interaction they want to simulate. They are fairly indifferent to the topic.

I found one video that was dubbed an "ASMR role play" spa day, and I thought Oooh! Spa day! Excellent! Only to discover that it started out not with a pretend aesthetician describing the exfoliation treatment she was about to give the viewer, but with an extensive check-in at the front desk, all done in whispers. I don't know how long it went on, because I got indescribably bored after four or five minutes of it and clicked on something else. It was the exact part of the interaction that any editor worth their salt would scribble a great mess of lines through and tell you to condense it to two sentences max, if not scrub it from the script entirely. In whispers. Foreverrrrrrrr.

More useful on the 'sleep aid' front have been the Let's Find Out ASMR and ASMR University podcasts, which feature people with soothing voices droning on and on about something of moderate interest. The former is a channel (also available audio-only via iTunes/Spotify/your favorite podcast app) that covers an eclectic selection of topics, mainly kind of nerdy science and philosophy stuff, and the latter actually covers the history and nature of the ASMR phenomenon. They don't give me any kind of tingles, but they are both reasonably soporific.