Based on your ASMR experiences…
Explain what triggers ASMR for you in the real world, include details like:
- Are you triggered by voices? sounds? sights? touches? smells? other?
- Which of the above trigger types is the strongest for you?
- What real world situations trigger your ASMR the strongest?
- Do your immediate surroundings make a difference?
- Is the sensation similar or different from ASMR triggered by a video or audio recording?
Scroll down and share your answers in the Comments section.
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ASMR University 
Real-life triggering does not happen often for me, unfortunately. One of my recent real-life triggers happened at my university. Someone in a work uniform was there to sketch out the interior of a building for renovations. The man’s careful contemplation, his furrowed brow, and his moving pencil were triggers for me. I could tell he was heavily concentrating. It was all visual for me.
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In the real world, I tend to be triggered by touch. The feel of certain fabrics or even delicate metals, like chain jewelry can trigger me.
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I am usually triggered by voices, sounds, and touches, but also once by written communication. Voices, touches and the last one (reading) seem to have been the strongest so far. Real world situations are: listening to certain women talk, or simply their presence next to me (like, seating in a couch in front of me). A visit to a female doctor whose demeanor is soft and kind. Reading a text from a particular female friend (this one just happened once, but the physical sensation was exactly the same). The surroundings dont make a difference, it can happen anywhere, unless there’s too much noise or chaos. The sensation triggered by real world situations is different from the one I get from videos or audio recording. When it’s a real world, accidental trigger, the sensation is stronger, it reaches my whole body, and I feel vulnerable, exposed, and emotionally engaged in the situation or with the person who caused it.
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I use to get the best tingles when the school nurse would come check our heads for lice. I remember wishing she would comb through our hair longer because I had these crazy tingles when she did. I also got them when the teacher would lick her finger to separate sheets of paper before handing them out to the class. Now most of my tingles come from eye exams, customer service phone calls, when I do my taxes at H&R block and they ask for information and then type what I said into the computer, and other instances involving another person.
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Hair being washed played with combed
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When people speak in a different language than their mother tongue; when I go for a haircut and they wash my hair, when people breath near me, when people near me are working and they whisper to themselves but I can still hear it, when I’m commuting and people accidentally brush my arms with their bags, when the cleaning lady come and clean my desk, when I see people washing windows.
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