This week I went for a while with next to no sleep. I just could not get my actual sleep mode to fit with when I needed to be asleep. I was tired when I needed to work. I was awake when I needed to sleep. (I watched quite a lot of television). My partner pointed to the fact that I am making one of the cardinal sins which is that I sit and read in bed before sleeping and a number of articles point out that the bed has to be for sleep only.
The one thing that did come out of it was that when I finally did manage to get a few hours how delicious it all was. So wonderful I could have been tempted to give thanks for every precious second of unconsciousness. My eighteen-year-old self would have looked upon that sentence with incredulity.
I think, of late, that the professional ASMR has been improving and the inadvertent ASMR not quite so much. This is a disappointment. But I always imagined that finding good material might eventually prove difficult. Even that which at first sight appears suitable, often, ultimately, is not quite so much – as we have found. However, the endeavour persists – we’ll see what we can find.
I must admit that I am now tiring of some of the approach (I’ve been doing this three years) and I am thinking that another shake up will be required soon. Possibly to start with moving away from a medical theme for a while might make a nice change. I’m off on holliers soon so I’ll see what happens when I come back with a fresh perspective.
This week’s Calm item is this:
Inspiration
https://www.calm.com/app/player/iViiLizTTt
Daily Jay
Soul Grow
NARRATOR
Jay Shetty
Which is about becoming a more extraordinary version of yourself.
Whilst exploring this letter https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kurt-vonnegut-xavier-letter_n_4964532
Bearing in mind that if you want to listen you also have to buy a subscription (which I imagine will put a few people off).
This week let’s look at a very different kind of professional ASMR video which is this one:
ASMR The Reincarnation Station 🔃 Choosing Your Next Life
It is from the channel Cosmo Whispers ASMR which, again, I cannot remember having been to before. It has 172k subscribers, six hundred and fifty one videos, eighteen playlists and it looks bizarre like it is an ASMR version of Sesame Street.
There are notes on the channel:
“Cosmo Whispers ASMR
Description
Hi! I’m Cosmo! Your friendly neighborhood pink fuzzy monster and this is my ASMR channel!
I make ASMR videos with a little purple goober named Jeremy, a video editor named Lennard, and my close friends to help you relax, have a good laugh, and fall asleep!
I hope you can find comfort and maybe even have a few laughs from my silly little channel.
And of course, the video also has notes:
“21 Sept 2026 11 products
Remember to leave a LIKE!
Thanks for watching! 💖
And make sure to subscribe and hit the bell button so you are notified when I release a new video! ☺️
New to the world of ASMR? That’s okay, I was once too! Welcome! ☺️
What is ASMR?
“ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) or TINGLES are a relaxing, often sedative sensation that begins on the scalp and moves down the body that are triggered by placid sights and sounds such as whispers, accents, and crackles.”
I remember my first time experiencing Tingles!
Watching a friend of mine read a book while listening to him flip the pages and lick his finger before doing so.
It made my head feel soooo fuzzy that I fell asleep right in the armchair I was sitting in.
My goal is to help recreate that feeling for some of you!
I also LOVE hearing other people’s first experiences with ASMR so drop me a comment or message!
Much love my friend! 🫶”
Which I have heavily edited because they were comprehensive to say the least.
The video is thirty minutes long. It starts with music and some sci-fi sounding noises. It is reasonably quiet and I had to run the sound up a bit for the review. I am not a fan of music in ASMR videos and I am certainly not keen on videos where the music forms an actual part of the video. Some people seem to find music and ASMR fit well together (a number of the sleep-orientated Calm tracks do this for example). I think it is a very unsound marriage and I think ASMR should be voice only. I very rarely get my wish. When the vocal track starts, a background hiss starts at the same time. That is not too distracting. However, it is comfortably masked by the music in any case.
The voice sounds like it is artificially slowed as if the person would prefer to be talking more quickly. However, after a very short while I soon got used to that. There is a strange background crackling noise as if the track was being played on a badly stored vinyl record. I’m not sure why this was done.
I thought the concept of the video a good one. The idea that you are met by an individual once you have died and are offered a series of choices. That sounds a lot more appealing than disappearing into a box with all consciousness snuffed out. I would say it is more a calming experience than actual ASMR as such and I am not convinced, personally, I would find it that conducive to sleep. I bet there are a large number of people think differently.
After a while I decided I liked the voice, either that or the voice settled down and got comfortable in its role. I hankered after a music free version of the same video – I do not see this option sadly.
Despite my reservations I did find myself nodding to this which must be a good sign. Why not review it for yourself.
I was thinking about blog feedback. I realised that the last (non-spam) feedback comment I had was from Aidan Blunt. A the time I remember thinking it is little moments like this that make the blogging process worthwhile. When someone reaches out from their lives to interact with mine over a small piece of work I completed some months ago.
Given that Hollie Berry was and remains once of my favourite voices since I started reviewing unintentional ASMR videos, it was a high point for me to rival being given permission to use one of Lindisfarne’s album covers back when I restarted blogging.
This appears a long time after I got the comment but I thought I would provide encouragement, to anyone that happens across this little blog, to feed back about what they have read.
The blog has been about ASMR since December 2022 (a bit of a mélange prior to that) and I have (nearly) consistently been focused on unintentional ASMR videos on YouTube. Firstly, because that is still where most of the videos seem to reside. Secondly WordPress offers me the rather nice option of embedding them in the blog post to illustrate a little of what the article is about.
The demand for unintentional ASMR videos seems to continue unabated and I have been keen to try to find as many as I can, assemble them into a great long playlist and then share the playlist so that others with similar tastes can listen to it of a night time. Particularly if they find themselves towards the insomniac side of restfulness.
Today I am back on message with a medical orientated video and one involving an examination so far so back where this all started
It is this one:
02 – Assessment of muscle tone after stroke
At just shy of twelve minutes it is a good length. It starts without startup music (God be praised) and is a lovely muted introduction – shades of delight creeping in already.
The notes state: “841,613 views 6 Sept 2017 STARs – Management of Tone & Spasticity After Stroke: A Role for Everyone
This resource is from the Stroke Training and Awareness Resources (STARs) website – http://www.stroketraining.org
Copyright © Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and The University of Edinburgh 2017 CC BY-NC-SA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…”
Comments are permitted but thankfully so far the trolls appear to be on holiday. However, there are no ASMR orientated comments which is a surprise I would think that the ASMR fans would be all over this.
Not only is the medical professional excellent in terms of his voice for our purposes even the patient appears to have a great voice as well.
The medical professional is incredibly gentle – just the sort of approach that we look for in one of these videos and a number of commentators applaud him for this. The patient we find is Alan (possibly misspelled)
Given the title of this video starts 02 we can assume I think there is a 01 and quite possibly a 03 so it is worth determining if they are also worth reviewing.
The channel is Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and it turns out that our video is one of six contained in this playlist:
STARs – Management of Tone & Spasticity After Stroke: A Role For Everyone
With notes: “these resources are from the stroke training and awareness resources (stars) website – http://www.stroketraining.org
Copyright © Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and The University of Edinburgh 2017 cc by-nc-sa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike 4.0 International License.
Https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/”
It appears that we might have a gem into terms of video series so let’s take a look at the other 5.
01 – Reflexes After Stroke
This is short it’s only just over one and a half minutes. It is consistent with the first one reviewed in this article – which is a benefit of professionally produced videos.
It is there for moments and then is gone, but it is so relaxing I think it belongs in the Procrastination Pen playlist. In fact, I’d be prepared to guess that all six videos in the Management of Tone & Spasticity After Stroke playlist belong there.
03 – Muscle position and stretch
Just over three minutes so we are definitely at the short end of videos that we’ve included in the Procrastination Pen Playlist.
However, this remains an excellent quality video lacking extraneous noise or distractions which have haunted some of the material that we have reviewed (and consigned some of them to the Procrastination Pen Archive list).
04 – On and off bed
A bit over two and a half minutes so not huge in terms of length either. It remains consistent with the previous videos in this playlist.
05 – On and off chair
This is a little less than there and a quarter minutes and it is beautifully calm and quiet, if I have to be treated for a difficult condition this would be the way I would like it to happen.
06 – Walking and tone
Supportive, calm, relaxed, quiet, not only a medical professional but a tutor and caring person. This set of videos has been a thoroughly good set for us and all of them are going into the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The channel Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland has three hundred and fifty-seven videos and 41.8K subscribers which I’m sure you will agree is a few. There is every incentive therefore to come straying back here in the future in search of more excellent videos at this quality.
It is unusual to find a set of videos in a playlist where every video is suitable both for ASMR and for restfulness as a precursor to sleep but I think this set may well be they. I think we will be back here in due course to determine if Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland have any more material for us.
That’s it on this occasion, more next time.
See you again next week.
The Chest Heart and Stroke playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
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
