'Everyone' Is Talking About ASMR, But Is It Real?

ASMR And The Media

The term "brain orgasm" has informally stuck around, but the "Attention Induced Head Orgasm" or AIHO first coined right here turned into something more. The now-defunct forum AIHO.org appeared in 2008, while the Society of Sensationalists Yahoo group that had over 3,000 members within three years was launched in the same year. 

Jennifer Allen came up with the more scientific-sounding term of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) in 2010, when she started a Facebook group dedicated to the strange sensation. She started the ASMR Research & Support website in the same year. Since that time, the sensation has been featured by many media outlets, including Time, Slate, The Huffington Post, Oprah's O magazine, and the British New Musical Express.

People experiencing ASMR on a regular basis definitely benefited when the phenomenon became an internet "thing". They report being able to go sleep much more easily with the YouTube ASMR videos, for instance, and enjoy finding new triggers. Perhaps most of all, these people have finally found recognition. Some wondered if they were the only ones who enjoyed the strange sensation, while others simply assumed that everyone got "the head tingle". 

There are still plenty of skeptics, though. Wikipedia — not usually the most reliable source of scientifically correct information — was unsure enough to remove its entry on ASMR, and only restored it after lots of protests from those who experience the phenomenon.

Is There Any Scientific Evidence For ASMR?

What do actual scientists say about it? Tom Stafford, Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield, UK, was quoted in the British newspaper The Independent as saying: "It might well be a real thing, but it's inherently difficult to research. The inner experience is the point of a lot of psychological investigation, but when you've got something like this that you can't see or feel, and it doesn't happen for everyone, it falls into a blind spot. It's like synaesthesia – for years it was a myth, then in the 1990s people came up with a reliable way of measuring it."

See Also: All about orgasm

There are currently no scientific studies into the phenomenon. With so many people reporting that they experience ASMR and feeling very passionate about it, it seems no more than reasonable to assume that this sensation does exist. It could be some kind of neurological condition, a seizure perhaps, or a psychological or cognitive phenomenon that leads to physical symptoms.