Binaural ASMR, small brain orgasms caused by YouTube videos

April 19, 2024

Videos of kittens, fragments of series and movies, gameplays, video clips ... Youtube it is the realm of the moving image and it has become so popular that little by little it has stolen spectators 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 protagonism falls on the sound.

It is precisely these small corners of YouTube spaces where a type of content is being multiplied, in which sound produces sensations so intense that it alone suffices to guarantee hundreds of thousands of visits. And no, or it's about music videos. We are referring to the recordings Binaural ASMR , a new phenomenon related to psychology, new technologies and communities formed on the Internet.

Defining the concept "ASMR"

ASMR stands 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 that is produced by a mix 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 surrounding sound, the images and the psychological feedback that all this produces. Another more intuitive way to refer to the ASMR is to "Brain orgasms" .

Its origin goes back to social networks

The curious thing about ASMR is the recentness of its discovery. The term appeared for the first time in early 2010 on a Facebook page, although the concept referred to by the acronyms had already been raised and debated in several Internet forums two years before. Since the existence of 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 audience.

The result? An online community that is relatively well interconnected and that, in spite of his youth, he is gaining adepts 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 interested in creating this type of content use microphones prepared to capture sound in three dimensions (binaural listening systems) that 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, with no unforeseen noise and being based on low-volume sounds without stridency. In addition, for the surround feeling to be greater, it is normal that the videos are thematic and include some role-playing.

Here is a short presentation on the idea of ASMR:

What are the ASRM videos for?

Youtubers interested in the world of ASMR videos tend to attribute them usefulness when it comes to enhancing relaxation and meditation sessions, facilitating sleep or simply offering 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 unable to notice anything.

In addition, there is a large lack of scientific research with regard to studying the sensations and patterns of neuronal and hormonal activation driven by the ASMR sessions. However, the latter is because the idea of ASMR has been known for very little time, not because the videos that serve to produce it do not work. Anyway, it is very difficult to study something that has not been established a theoretical model to explain its operation, so it seems that we will have to wait a while to see promising lines of research in this regard.