Want bliss with no drugs?

I thought my son was a little crazy when he fell asleep (on the floor, no less!) watching a video of a person opening a box containing a Mont Blanc pen. The video simply showed someone (presumably a man, with those hairy arms!) very slowly unfolding the flaps of the box, opening it, sliding out the pen, then reverently touching and stroking the pen (I realize what I'm describing could also be something else).

In any event, the rest of the video simply consisted of the man unscrewing the top of the pen to find the nib, then rolling out a white sheet of paper and slowly guiding the pen over the paper without touching it.

All the while talking in a soft, soothing voice about the pen, and how much he loves it, and rustling the paper.

I thought it was all a joke until my son sent me the site where he found this, where it's actually described as a real thing, "the good feeling no can explain."

Apparently, it's something the mind does, and it's called "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response" (ASMR). This particular video has 125,000 views and 800 likes on YouTube, according to Harry Cheadle.

In a nutshell, it's something the brain does at rest, and it starts with a tingle, "a kind of pleasurable headache that can creep down your spine. It’s a shortcut to a blissed-out meditative state that allows you to watch long videos that for someone who doesn’t have ASMR are mind-meltingly dull," Cheadle writes.The videos are also called whisper videos.

A woman named Maria, aka GentleWhispering, started all this, according to Cheadle. It doesn't hurt that she's attractive and speaks with a slight accent.

But, beats me. It's supposedly like the high you can reach when you meditate.  It's like "bubbles in your head," a source told Cheadle. To me it's like fingernails on a chalkboard.  But maybe I'm just lacking in ASMR.

Have you experienced this?  Please comment!







http://www.vice.com/read/asmr-the-good-feeling-no-one-can-explain

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