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

[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. :)