Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works by brain stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Christian Sager. When people start throwing around the term
Speaker 1: brain orgasm, it definitely gets your attention even more than
Speaker 1: brain stuff. Right. But that's just one way that autonomous
Speaker 1: sensory meridian response or a s MR has captured the
Speaker 1: interest of one corner of the Internet. Another is a
Speaker 1: s MRS effect itself. It's described by many as a
Speaker 1: satisfying tingle running from the top of your head down
Speaker 1: your spine. It causes a variety of sensory stimuli, from
Speaker 1: the sound of whispering to the sight of someone combing
Speaker 1: their own hair. And I have to admit I experienced
Speaker 1: it myself. And look, if it's true, who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to feel good and relaxed. So let's examine what a
Speaker 1: s MR is, what triggers it, how science responds to it,
Speaker 1: and how it's online community works. Maybe then we'll get
Speaker 1: a little closer to unraveling its mystery. The actual term
Speaker 1: a s MR was coined by healthcare I t professional
Speaker 1: Jen Allen, who also started a research institute dedicated to
Speaker 1: analyzing the euphoric phenomenon. The orgasm association isn't necessarily sexual,
Speaker 1: but a s MR does feel comparably good. Each individual
Speaker 1: responds to sensory triggers differently, but in general, a s
Speaker 1: MR is described as meditative and soothing. Trigger examples include
Speaker 1: light sounds of crinkling, a person whispering slowly, or someone
Speaker 1: completing a task with personal attention like painting or cutting hair.
Speaker 1: A s MR is described much like synastasia, the phenomenon
Speaker 1: where one sense produces the experience of another, like when
Speaker 1: you hear a musical note as a color or you
Speaker 1: see a letter as a flavor. The merger of these
Speaker 1: senses is extreme compared to normal sensations. Not everyone can
Speaker 1: experience it, and like cinnastasia a few years back, a
Speaker 1: s m are is having trouble getting recognition in the
Speaker 1: scientific community. In fact, because the term isn't medically recognized,
Speaker 1: there's been a prolonged battle over whether or not it
Speaker 1: should even have a Wikipedia entry. Research on a s
Speaker 1: MR is still in its infancy, but neuroscientists Stephen Novella
Speaker 1: believes it likely has real neurological causes that could potentially
Speaker 1: be miniature seizures or hardwired evolutionary reactions. Wow Other people
Speaker 1: theorize that dopamine or saratonin are involved, or that it's
Speaker 1: a bonding phenomenon connected to mother child nurturing releasing the
Speaker 1: hormone oxytocin. The sound of a young woman's calm, reassuring
Speaker 1: voice obviously reminds us of our ideal infancy, So this
Speaker 1: seems reasonable. If you've never experienced a SMR and want
Speaker 1: to try it out, I've got good news. There is
Speaker 1: a whole community online primarily cultivated by whisperer videos. Are
Speaker 1: people called evokers record a s m R triggers by
Speaker 1: speaking softly and making sounds with objects like feathers, brushes,
Speaker 1: and plastic bags. Evokers tend to be young women who
Speaker 1: often play roles like travel agents, hairdressers, or optometrists. When
Speaker 1: an evoker uses a three D microphone, the triggers intensify,
Speaker 1: providing an auditory experience that moves up close and personal.
Speaker 1: This isn't just a niche group either. Hundreds of evokers
Speaker 1: are uploading thousands of videos to help their viewers relax.
Speaker 1: Some hope to lull insomniacs to sleep, while others simply
Speaker 1: purse their lips provocatively and say things like I would
Speaker 1: like to blow smoke into you. There are mail evokers too,
Speaker 1: but they're rarely welcomed by the A s m R community,
Speaker 1: possibly due to the cultural expectations of gender roles and nurturing.
Speaker 1: But that's a double edged sword when the most popular
Speaker 1: videos feature young women on YouTube not exactly know for
Speaker 1: its sympathetic humanitarians. Read the comments on any a sm
Speaker 1: R video and you'll see battles play out between trolls
Speaker 1: and defenders of the host. In a prolific evoker's YouTube
Speaker 1: account was actually hacked to portray her as a pedophile,
Speaker 1: eventually driving her away from the community. Despite this incident,
Speaker 1: the a s m R community is mostly democratic and
Speaker 1: provides a shared experience for those who can feel the
Speaker 1: tingle of the brain work as check out the brain
Speaker 1: stuff channel on YouTube, and for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.