This week I have been trialling L-Tryptophan. After recent blog articles in which I warned about the dangers of supplements and the taking of too much magnesium, I am taking a supplement. This supplement contains magnesium. I’m currently not sure if it is working. It is probably too early days (I read somewhere that any change takes about six weeks to really start making a difference). However, what I can say is that I am getting much more vivid dreams and nightmares since I started taking it. Initially it was all bad dreams, so disturbing that I had just about resolved to stop the supplement altogether. But recently the dreaming has turned onto a more pleasant footing. I do seem to be having more dreams though and remembering more of them. I am not certain if that is a good thing or not a good thing. To be honest, as long as the vicious ones stay in abeyance I do not mind either way.
Finding audio material of a restful nature on the Internet which a) does not require payment and b) is not on YouTube, is proving one of those challenges a Greek hero might have risen to. Leafing through some old meditation tracks I found a couple by Stephen Doetsu Snyder. Not someone I have listened to a lot, but obviously someone I did listen to.
The two I seem to have spent time with were:
and
which fail to qualify, as both (as you will have noticed) are on YouTube.
However, a shufty around the Internet turned up this: a site actually full of dharma talks by Stephen:
https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/261
Plenty there to work out if you like his voice or not, I would have thought.
The Calm resource this week is this one:
https://www.calm.com/app/player/Lh8XCYkB5O
Daily Jay
Sensations vs. Emotions
NARRATOR
Jay Shetty
What your body is trying to tell you and how you can use this information to make better decisions. I am still nervous about including material from here as Calm is not free. You can probably tell as I consistently keep this section brief.
The professional ASMR video this week is from a channel I cannot remember ever having reviewed before, so this one is as much an adventure for me as it is for you. The channel is BehindTheMoons. This has 262k subscribers, two hundred and eighty four videos, but only four playlists, I’m interested to see that one of these makes delivery in French:
I occasionally do cover ASMR in another language taking into account that I have no idea what is being said, and so there is a risk I am reviewing something that is lewd or divisive.
The notes on the channel are the habitual level of comprehensive:
“BehindTheMoons
Description
Hello everyone!
I’m a French ASMRtist who has been making ASMR videos on the Internet since 2013.
You can call me Moons 🔆 and use they/them pronouns to refer to me (ael or elle in French)
You will find on this channel ASMR videos both in French and in English to help you relax, unwind, calm down or even fall asleep. I’m working hard to offer you a safe space where you can go back to when you need it.
I created specific playlists of my videos depending on the language spoken, so you can avoid the videos in French or in English depending on what you want to hear.
I currently use a Nikon Z6II to film my video, a Zoom H5 and two Lewitt LCT 440 Pure microphones to record the audio.
Zoruasmr introduced me to ASMR, without him, I wouldn’t be doing ASMR videos.
Margot Lambin designed the subscription badges and emoji, here is their Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/margotlambin/
Thank you for reading!
Take care 🌻”
I almost hacked about those notes as they feel a bit long.
The video (which is in English) is this one:
ASMR – Futuristic Hearing Test [The Personal Enhancing Hearing Device â—‰] English Version
At least if it is in a language I understand, I have some assurance no one is swearing out of the screen at me without my knowing.
The video also has notes, which are equally as lengthy as we have come to expect:
“Premiered on 2 Apr 2023 #HearingTest #CranialNerveExam #ASMR
Please use your headphones to get the best experience from this video 🎧
Disclaimer: This is an ASMR video solely made to help you relax and unwind. I am not a medical professional, please get in touch with one if you need to have your hearing checked. Also, the Personal Enhancing Hearing Device â—‰ doesn’t exist yet, unfortunately 😦
Hi everyone,
Today is the day. Let me onboard you and tell you everything about the Personal Enhancing Hearing Device â—‰, as you are about to get yours installed and improve your experience of the world around you.
This device enhances your auditory field, as well as creates bridges between your senses. For example, a visual or olfactory stimulus will create an auditory response. Welcome into the Future.
The ASMR triggers you will get mostly ear to ear soft-spoken voice and close-up whispers, follow the light exercise, all senses exercises, instructions to follow, personal attention, hand movements, additional dreamy visuals and sounds.
In this video I mix your usual cranial nerve exam and well as hearing test with science fiction, I hope you will like it.
Here is the link to the French version of this video: • ASMR – Test auditif futuriste [Le Disposit… “
I’ve edited these down a fair bit; notes can get a bit yada-yada after a while.
The video is just less than thirty-three minutes in length and so is in keeping (in terms of length) with other professional ASMR videos that we have seen of late.
There is brief music at the start which isn’t terribly distracting. I loved the accent of the presenting person. Immediately the pace is nicely slow and we do not appear to be getting a whispered rendition. That is a pretty rare discovery.
I like the voice; there is no attempt to maximise triggers such as mouth clucking, nail scratching or stroking of cloth (all of which you will have heard if you have stuck with this blog for any period of time.)
In all I would say this is the style of video that I search for – something realistic but still relaxing; calm but without trying to exploit every trigger. I do not often find sound like this in my YouTube exploration.
I notice that the comments seem to share my perspective with the levels of ASMR fan adoration being elevated up to that reserved for rock stars.
It’s unusual (and kind of affirming) to find people sharing my perspective on anything at all (let alone my perspective on videos). I am certain it can’t last.
I think I only rarely find non-English ASMR video presenters. Off the cuff I can remember Japanese, Chinese and one other French person. However, perhaps I need to search more carefully if the videos are of this quality.
There is a period of muted presentation which is part of the theme of the video (it is about hearing). There is a strange click, come buzzing noise, which is the hearing device “calibrating”. I found this a clever idea and not off-putting.
This calibration stage takes a little while and there is occasional music involved. I did not find that distracting (much as I am not a fan of music in ASMR videos).
The video does suggest use of headphones and certainly if you are listening to it from out of a set of old PC speakers, as I am, the directional quality of some parts of the presentation are less pronounced. (Elderly hearing also doesn’t help).
I always imagine that people reading this blog are in any case half way between snooze and alert and so the visuals are unlikely to be of a pronounced benefit. This one is clever, a lot of professional ASMR videos are I find. I do try to focus on the sound though.
As the video progresses, the presentation seems to get quieter and quieter until we are back on the whispered footing with which we are more familiar. I rather like whispering but I hear so much of it in ASMR I do like it when I find material that isn’t whispered.
Shame this video did not stay at the volume we had at the start but I can’t have everything…
There is the odd extraneous noise. I notice clicks, clonks, (mainly items being picked up and placed down again). There is a kind of squirting noise – I think that is supposed to be distribution of a perfume into the air. There are the sounds of the bristles of a brush being riffled through; there are very brief moments of breathiness.
I was quite impressed by this. I would think it worthwhile your giving it a review as well.
The inadvertent ASMR material has been in blog posts from me since I started the blog up again, some multiple months ago now. So, I consider it a mainstay.
This week’s selection is this one:
Head-to-Toe Assessment
This is a bit more substantial than some we have reviewed of late (given it is a little over twenty-two and a half minutes in length).
It comes from the channel Kaylee Peters, which is not doing so badly given it has 1.31k subscribers from only six videos, unsurprisingly there are no playlists (I suppose you don’t need a playlist on your channel if you have only six videos). All the videos were posted twelve years ago and then the channel goes into abeyance. This has all the symptoms of a student assessment video.Any regular readers will know that we have seen many such videos.
The channel is very sparse note wise: “Kaylee Peters
More info
http://www.youtube.com/@kayleepeters5092
Joined 11 Sept 2013
1.31k subscribers
6 videos
955,885 views”
The video has no notes at all. Most of the comments are not positive but there is the odd ASMR fan in there, which can be reassuring. We do not all like the same things though I notice so it isn’t a given this will deliver.
The video starts without music; there is no obvious background noise. The presentation is relatively loud (at least for me). The presentation is way too fast, I think. I tend to find this with students who need to cram everything into one of these videos. This tends to be reaffirmed by the fact that the student refers to a checklist which is visible to the camera at frequent intervals. I did not find the voice of the student relaxing but the patient was a little more measured (not that she got a great deal of opportunity to talk).
There is a prominent shoulder patch on the student’s uniform but I think you would need to be in the know to determine where it was from as it is too faint for me to make out. So, limited chance of determining where this was recorded. However undeterred I sent it to a google image search which, even in its smudged state, Google tells me it is Claflin University (I’m not sure I set much store by that answer).
The student says “um” roughly once per minute, after a little while it becomes quite noticeable. Many commentators point this out. There are no extraneous noises. However to get a great ASMR experience I think a good first step would be to get into the video play controls and slow this down to half speed. The pace does slow down gradually as the video progresses, as if the student presenter settles into her stride (potentially calms down a bit in a stressful situation). There are sirens at one stage, an obvious hazard recording in a medical facility I would have thought.
It is quite a thought-provoking experience seeing the kind of motion (and balance) that is accessible to a person at this age (and which I do not have now). No doubt many people my age reflect the same thing.
There are genuine quiet and calm moments where I get the opportunity to hear what might have been (there are ever so many videos that I have reviewed previously that are like that, some of them are in the Procrastination Pen archive list right now). I usually give most of them a trial in the main list (as I will this one) but I give up on them when I either lie awake listening to them, or worse was quietly drifting off and one of the videos wakes me up.
I find when a presentation is at speed, not only is volume and calmness sacrificed but expressions of empathy as well. I wonder if the people who set these kinds of exercises in play take such considerations into account.
On that basis, just one, video this time.
That’s it on this occasion, more next time.
See you again next week.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
Until next time.
Photo by Deep.ai
The Procrastination Pen 