The Crane Wife and ASMR

[kaberett]

Here is an article in the Paris Review: The Crane Wife. I found most of it luminous and compelling, in ways that made my whole body feel more alive, and then the concluding paragraphs -- about connection and autonomy and agency -- somehow left me unsatisfied.

But it reminds me: the sensation it gave me, that I think is what is now described as ASMR (passim), is something that throughout childhood I described at least sometimes as "a goose walk[ed/ing] over my grave". It was the best approximation I had; I'm not sure whether that usage is typical, or more widespread, or wildly unusual, but I remain curious about ways we have of talking about this thing.

Comments

[sciatrix]

I always described it as feeling like a tuning fork that had been recently tapped--vibrating pleasantly all over. ASMR is such a more inelegant concept, and just sounds annoyingly pseudoscientific--although I think it's more well known now than it was when I first started talking about it.

[kaberett]

lol, yes.

[chiasmata]

HUNCA FUCKING MUNCA. (Eloquent as ever, me.)

[kaberett]

R I G H T

[lunabee34]

We always said a rabbit ran over my grave (US South), but that was more for that weird shiver you get sometimes that comes out of nowhere or for a weird feeling of foreboding. I think the ASMR feeling is more like that feeling I got when I was a kid and you'd play that crack an egg on your head game--like tingly scalp shivers that radiate down. IDK

[wohali]

yes! exactly the same. ESPECIALLY for the crack-an-egg-on-your-head game.

(I'm originally from New Orleans, for what it's worth.)

[lunabee34]

I grew up in MS about an hour and a half away from NOLA, so that probably explains that. :)

[phi]

I just want to give that author a hug and loan her a cup o' self esteem. Jesus.

[kaberett]

YUP.

[jedusor]

I have no idea what that sensation feels like. I tried ASMR, it annoyed the crap out of me and I felt no tingling. Someone in the comments mentioned the egg-breaking game, which never did anything for me as a kid either. Maybe I just don't experience this thing, whatever it is.

[kaberett]

I find the idea of absolutely all the videos that are apparently A Thing intensely off-putting, but tingling-spreading-over-my-scalp-and-the-backs-of-my-limbs-in-response-to-abstract-stimuli is definitely a thing I get, so I'm gently fascinated by all the people talking about it!

[untonuggan]

i appreciate this perspective.

[sebastienne]

"ooh, someone just walked over my grave.." is the phrasing I picked up from my mum.

like another commenter I can see two different experiences under that same label: one a sudden, spasm-like shiver, completely out-of-the-blue; the other a tingling which starts at the back of my neck and radiates all over, often causing goosebumps (huh I wonder if that's etymologically linked to your phrase..) on arms and legs. The latter feeling usually has a trigger for me, often it's been speaking my own thoughts out loud to myself while feeling I'm speaking of something revelatory.

I had neither experience reading that article - just cried and cried and cried.

[kaberett]

I did a bit of poking and it looks like the goose/rabbit variants are USois, which makes me wonder whether the goose variant is actually Irish and thus popularised in the US...

<3.

[sebenikela]

"But it’s harder to tell the story of how I convinced myself I didn’t need what was necessary to survive. How I convinced myself it was my lack of needs that made me worthy of love."

oh. oh.

[kaberett]

RIGHT.

[khronos_keeper]

How interesting! The kind of "someone walked over my grave" sensation for me was always tied with fear or uncanniness, which was always very very different from the "rightness" shivers I got from say hearing beautiful music, or seeing something profound or awe-inspiring.

[silveradept]

That's a familiar-looking article, to say the least, especially the parts of it about making yourself less for someone else's benefit.