To find ASMR really disgusting

Me too. I found some youtube videos of hair-brushing and hair-cutting a couple of years ago, which I'd forgotten about until I read this thread. I've also found a cute video of a guinea pig crunching things thanks to this thread! It's a big no to slurping, tapping etc though.

Seriously?
I have read this thread completely puzzled.... but willing to give it a try! Can you link to whatever it is that does it for you? I am dumbfounded what this is about but don't want to miss out !!

There is a building I work in from time to time, it's the communal areas of a very posh block of private flats built in the 1960s. The front doors are all stained dark wood. The carpet is brown. The walls are cream. At least two of the residents are smokers, and the smell of the smoke hits me as I walk in. It reminds me of just about every building I was ever in as a child of the late 70s/80s/90s.

While the smell of cigarettes on someones breath is enough to make me retch (likewise old ashtrays), that aroma of fresh cigarette smoke is so reassuring, because it was associated with a sense of safety, I suppose knowing adults must be nearby, this being a time where adults you knew or adults in authority were instantly trusted.

What you say about the the theater is interesting too, because a few years ago I had to wait in a long queue to enter a church hall for a particular treatment that the NHS were offering, and as I went through into the lobby-cum-cloakroom area, I could almost smell the cigarette smoke that would have filled the place (probably) on a Saturday night thirty and more years earlier, with the person on the cloakroom desk quite likely puffing away as they took in / handed out coats.

I don't think many people understand what ASMR is. I only remember experiencing at primary school when other girls would plait my hair and mess about with it. I don't get that feeling at the hairdressers and I don't get it from videos. It's just a lovely comforting, tingling feeling ...not sexual in any way. I guess it's an evolutionary thing to encourage mutual grooming.

Agreed, it's horrible. Makes my skin crawl.

Just the sight of a theatre (watching Michael McIntyre's big show last night, for example) and I can all but smell/taste marshmallows and mars bars (in a paper wrapper!). A happy memory from childhood pantomimes.
It's a lovely thing.

As some people have mentioned it's not just about "sounds". I get the strongest ASMR from personal attention, or watching other people focus intently on something. Watching someone do calligraphy, or having someone do my hair or makeup, paying really close attention. It's not just tapping and whispering.

From what I can see, it's a load of bollocks. Just weird and annoying soft and whispery sounds? Like why?!

The memories evoked from hearing a song and smelling a smell are truly staggering. However, while the internet has provided us with endless means to locate and play songs so as to exorcise a demon within, it has yet to do the same with smells of course.

Thus, if I wish to be reminded of being a 17 year old stacking lampshades on the shelves of a British Home Stores lighting department on a Saturday afternoon in the winter of 1995, I've only to ask Spotify to play Private Eyes by Hall & Oates (because that was on a friggin' loop along with Kiss on My List and It Must Have Been Love by Roxette) and I'm right back there.

I yearn for the day I can ask Google to provide me with the scent of Miss Wilkinson's perfume from when I was at nursery school in 1982. But If I got a whiff of it in the street, I'd think of her right away.

OK, what the fuck is this - is it like hypnosis??

Does this count cooking videos where every sound is enhanced from slicing to chopping to stirring - it drives me insane it is a sensory overload

It's mad to me that I've never heard of this before. I definitely don't have it.There are noises that I like and find soothing, but I've never experienced a physical tingle.

Someone mentioned rain upthread - are raindrop on windows on in forests examples? Because those have been around for ages, I had an ambient sound rainforest CD way back in the 90s.

What is ASMR? I have googled it but I can't get a straight answer.

I'm also prone to this! There are some sounds I can't stand, others eating is one of them. It's known as misophonia.

Similarly, in terms of sensory stuff, I get extreme nostalgia and happy vibes from certain smells (perfume, for example) and songs. A song can take me right back, like I'm almost in that moment again, to a happy time (the song Last Christmas takes me right back to Christmas as a child, for example). It's a very strong mental reaction, I'm not even sure how to describe it.

https://www.youtube.com/@GentleWhisperingASMR

https://www.youtube.com/@WhispersRedASMR

https://www.youtube.com/@ASMRMagic

Enjoy 😁

Nothing wrong with that. My personal theory is that the reason why so many find it relaxing, is because it might tap into very early memories of being safe in a cot, whilst hearing far off or gentle ambient noises around us.

ASMR and sexual arousal are completely opposite - ASMR relaxes rather than arouses, even to the point of falling asleep. The "sexy" ASMR videos are just people trying to get more views by covering more bases. The triggers tend to be completely personal, but at least those of us lucky enough to experience the buzz understand that and don't harass people with different triggers. Interesting how intolerant the non-ASMR people on this thread are.

The really strange ones are the towel folding ones, I want to shout “It’s a towel, fold it, put it in the linen cupboard then go and get a life you weird person.”

There are so many different kinds of ASMR - some are nice! Like rain drops on umbrella, for example.

Nail tapping and whispering are horrible though, does nothing for me. Whispering especially.

When did you find out about ASMR?

I ask because pre 2015 - 2016, it was mainly cozy, often lofi- videos of women whispering, crinkling paper and magazines & similar. There was nothing sexual about most videos as the whole point of ASMR, the reason why people are drawn to it, is because it's soporific, comforting & relaxing. It was strange to some people, but not in an unsettling way.

Then around 10 years ago, I noticed a large increase in very done-up women with cleave showing making videos of all sorts of things that would otherwise be banned in some places. Things like sucking bananas up & down, doing ASMR 'dates', videos of twins massaging each other & all sorts. In many cases I believe these new videos were simply a front to drive traffic to OnlyFans and other porn sites. They had discovered a popular new genre and were pushing the limits on what was allowed on Youtube.

If you discovered ASMR at this time or after, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was all like this, but it's really not.

I love ASMR but not really the whispered ones. But some voices/movements are just so comforting or mesmerising. First time I ever really noticed it was an interview with David O'Leary and it felt like being snuggled up in a quilt. The actual words were totally irrelevant he could have been reading War and Peace or the dictionary - he was in fact giving a post match football analysis, but the feeling of calm and contentment was amazing

My MIL used to tap her fingers inside the wash basin after washing her hands. Every. Time. I know, because I had to help oversee her self-care.

My reaction to it could probably get me sectioned if not arrested if I was to tell you how it made me feel...I'd be building up to her doing it as she washed her hands, because I knew it was coming.

It's an interesting phenomenon, triggers vary a lot. I don't often get it from watching/listening to things, more from stuff like having my hair played with, and also sometimes from the written word, though I gather that's quite rare. It's very idiosyncratic.

I think the problem is that people have started using ASMR to describe the noise, when it's actually the reaction to the noise.
As such the noise that triggers the response can be anything, although some things are more common than others.

So any video with sound could potentially be ASMR.

I love the sound of embroidery silk coming through the hole in aida fabric. Or a decent fountain pen on decent paper

The nail tapping can get in the bin though.