Based on your ASMR experiences…
Explain if you can stimulate or experience ASMR on command or spontaneously, include details like:
- Can you stimulate ASMR on command? If so, how do you trigger it?
- Does it ever happen spontaneously/randomly?
- Do you consider this meditation or something else?
- Do your immediate surroundings make a difference?
- How is the sensation similar or different from ASMR triggered by a video or by a real world stimulus?
Note: Sometimes self-induced ASMR is confused with self-induced frisson. If you feel chills, see your arm hairs rise up (piloerection), or experience goosebumps then you may be experiencing self-induced frisson (AKA voluntary piloerection) rather than self-induced ASMR.
- Read about frisson here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson
- Read about voluntary piloerection here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6071615/
If you think you are experiencing self-induced ASMR (rather than self-induced frisson), then please do share your answers and experiences in the Comments section below.
(To return to the full list of questions on the main ‘Voices of ASMR’ page, use your back browser button or click HERE)
ASMR University 
I can trigger it on my own. Just by focusing and thinking about it I can make myself feel it. Although it really doesn’t happen very frequently for me spontaneously.
LikeLike
I cannot trigger my ASMR on command. I can provide an ‘atmosphere’ conducive to experiencing ASMR but it is still, at its core, random/spontaneous.
LikeLike
Can you stimulate ASMR on command? If so, how do you trigger it?
Yep. Brushing my hair or listening to certain pieces of classical music. Better yet, THINKING about brushing my hair or listening to certain pieces of classical music can trigger minor versions of it. Show up at my door with a hairbrush and a can-do attitude…forget about it, I’m in love with you forever 🙂
Does it ever happen spontaneously/randomly?
No
Do you consider this meditation or something else?
I hadn’t considered that, but it is entirely likely.
Do your immediate surroundings make a difference?
No
How is the sensation similar or different from ASMR triggered by a video or by a real world stimulus?
Pretty much the exact same. Stimuli are pretty specific. The whispering thing and the rustling of paper thing never triggered me in the slightest, which I think is what you mean by videos. I’ve watched some, and nothing.
LikeLike
ASMR is fleeting for me. If I think about the concept of tingles and ASMR too much, I get out of the “zone” and I can no longer experience them. Hence, I can’t feel ASMR on command. I start watching ASMR videos to feel relaxed, and usually a few spontaneous tingles will hit me during the video.
LikeLike
I can’t trigger ASMR on demand. However, over the years I’ve learned to recognise when I’m in a certain state that is very likely to result in ASMR if I seek out some triggers.
By ‘certain state’ I mean that I’m feeling really relaxed and my body temperature is a little colder than it should be. It also helps if I’m already feeling really sleepy and my mind is calm. As I’ve been writing about ASMR a lot recently I find if I’m too alert, I start thinking too much about the tingles and that’s a sure way to scare them off!
LikeLike