AI – The Procrastination Pen

Sleeping With ASMR

As life rushes onwards and time disappears, there come little points at which one starts to re-evaluate whether the activities one has been engaged in were ever worthwhile. Occasionally I get enlivening feedback. More usually not. I am not clear how many people I have reached and if any of them had better sleep as a consequence. It is also clear that the amount of time to deliver content is slowly disappearing.

In the present, I continue to try and evaluate sources of restful content and give you my opinion of it. I hope that it may help on the evenings when your mind will just not be quiet. If only as a distraction regarding the hours that are passing, and in which you would have preferred to have been sleeping.

A little while ago, rather foolishly, I did mention that I would look for resources that were outside of YouTube and did not require payment (such as the Calm subscription that I keep banging on about). The time for locating new sources is at a premium so in a bid to satisfy this statement I am falling back on material that I have used in the past (pre-YouTube playlist) most notably during lockdown. One name that I recall was Gil Fronsdal. I have no idea how I first came across him but I do recall that he had a splendid voice.

Of course he appears on YouTube for example:

and

but the point is to find material that is outside of YouTube and subject to less of the godawful advertising that dogs the heels of each and every video.

One amazing resource is this:

https://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/1/

and here we find the audio equivalent of the YouTube series I just outlined. For example:

https://www.audiodharma.org/series/19711

Gil has a beautiful, relaxing voice. As we would expect, the content has a definite Buddhism leaning. You may find that off-putting. In which case this review will probably stand to put you off. I am not particularly worried that it has a religious focus as long as the content is relaxing. I would say almost anything from Gil is likely to fit the bill. Some people may miss the video aspect of YouTube (I can understand that). However, this might be compensated for by the fact that you are not likely to be ripped from your sleep by some objectionable advert.

I may return to Gil. Re-acquainting myself with some of his material today I remembered how much I used to like it.

Those who read this blog reasonably often will know that I have been reviewing material from Calm.com for a little while, with the understanding that some people will not have (nor want) to have a subscription to Calm. This is reasonable, in which case after this brief overview of something from Jay Shetty we’ll get back to some YouTube content.

Today’s Calm content is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/OJtPBsWToz

Daily Jay

Humility & Curiosity

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

It is from Jay Shetty and I have found that whilst Jay does not have the voice I most like on Calm, he quite often has the most interesting content.

This is quite short (it is less than eight minutes). It considers what happens when you are lost or adrift in the world (and who isn’t). It reflects how temporary everything is and how facing that successfully requires humility and curiosity. (The world is interesting, not threatening).

At this stage, for quite a while in this blog now, I have been reviewing a professional ASMR artist. The results have been a little so-so. Not actually disappointing, but I have had to ratchet my expectations down a little. I am sure that people in YouTube videos are universally attractive but they do not universally have attractive voices. They do not always know how to create a consistently restful video. In this way, my original decision to focus on inadvertent ASMR does not look as crazy as perhaps at one time it might have done.

This week’s is a little left field in that it is only vaguely to do with examinations (medical or otherwise). I saw the title and I was intrigued…

It is from a channel called gumoochie. This channel has 192K subscribers and one hundred and thirty-two videos, so a pretty respectable subscriber per video created ratio. To be honest though, I have not always found that translates towards high quality content. I am not certain why that is, but it does seem to be a valid finding.

This is the first time I have encountered a channel from a professional ASMR artist where there are plenty of videos but no playlists. I’m guessing there is a reason, I do not know what it is.

The video is:

iq test but you’re an idiot (asmr)

a little less than twenty three minutes, the setting appears to be domestic – probably a bedroom from the background, not that I expect you’ll be watching, but listening instead. The video-associated notes are refreshingly brief: “430,120 views 24 Apr 2025

if you want a non-idiot ver, check out the bonus vid on my patreon!!

————————- ♡ ————————-

SOCIALS

email: basicklegwp@gmail.com

insta: / gumooochie

letterboxd: https://boxd.it/9z0jz

patreon: / gumoochie

tiktok: / gumoochie “

The comments are suitably off the wall, with a low count of dedicated sycophancy. That, in itself, is unusual for a professional ASMR artist.

The voice, as you would expect, is relaxing. There is no introductory music. The participant does engage in that strange clucking behaviour which ASMR artists believe is a trigger for someone. In which case they are probably right. Just not me. I would be happier with just the voice. This voice does not dwell on whispering, which is refreshing, although some ASMR afficionados no doubt will disagree with me. Not to say that there is no whispering because there is some but it does not predominate.

There are no offensively loud noises. People who enjoy pencil on paper noises or mouth-clicking noises are well served here. There is no tail-end music and no content dedicated to sponsors.

I’m not sure I am up to IQ tests any longer (assuming that I ever was) but I do recommend the video as being worthy of review.

At this point I review a video that is inadvertent ASMR. Since I have been looking at non-YouTube content, these blog posts have got rather long. I am conscious that perhaps I soon need to start dropping something.

This time, however, I am going to limit myself to just the one video and that one being a very brief one at that.

Assessment of abdomen & blood vessels

It is a bit over ten and a half minutes in length. There are no notes and relatively few comments. The Channel is Cassidy George which has 1.07k subscribers but only eight videos – that seems a very high performance for so few videos but perhaps there is a reason for that. The video seems to be one of the student assessment videos which is a type of video that has been reviewed on this blog multiple times previously.

The video was posted on 12 Apr 2023 but already has 30, 786 views. Cassidy seems to me a bit loud to be honest, and the background noise similarly. If it is air conditioning it is really working hard. I am not sure that those views were by ASMR fans. I am thinking not. The presentation is as if presenting to a huge room and yet I would think the recording equipment was nearby and this would have been unnecessary. As the examination is performed, the voice does get quieter but, if anything, this just demonstrates how loud the air conditioning is. The setting is domestic, as far as I can tell it is someone’s front room and examination is performed on their sofa.

I tried turning down the air conditioning noise (which also muted the vocal track) and found that the whole thing was a great deal more palatable. As one of the people commented, there is a regular beep which could be a low battery warning for example from a smoke alarm.

This appears to be another situation in which any listener will be reaching for the volume control in a disgruntled fashion. It is a shame about that air conditioning (how many times have I said that on this blog).

So, not startling. However, I notice the channel has eight videos. If I had not used up so much space reviewing Gil at the start of this article I would have reviewed some more. I think I will be returning to this channel in the future.

On that basis, just one, video today.

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 DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

This week nothing whatsoever is working. As such I have time to stop and have sympathy for people who struggle for sleep. I notice that the links between sleeplessness and dementia are being used as a fuel to stoke our fears.

I’m not sure that a terror about losing your mind is exactly the mindset you need for a long, restful snooze. Just in case you would prefer a restful track designed to be quiet and to distract those kind of thoughts, the Procrastination Pen exists as a site that reviews video tracks in the hope of finding the odd one that may do that. If it turns out that you get ASMR affects from the video, so much the better but you do not need to regard it as a pre-requisite for enjoying the videos.

There is a playlist of tracks that have been reviewed so far and it always occurs at the close of these articles. So if you want to give it a review, scroll right to the end and try it for yourself.

For a while now, I have been swaggering on about having a Calm subscription and how much quieter I am finding it all than the advert-infested YouTube experience. It is true that if you have a subscription to Calm, you probably already make more use of it than you do of YouTube for night-time relaxation. Not because YouTube videos are not restful. Many of the ones already covered by this blog are quite adequate in this respect (some of them are even great).

However, the insistence of ramming loud and distracting adverts into every interval does make the experience in the round a little more testing.

I am on the search for some other free resource with restful tracks of some kind that does not require commitment to receiving a ton of adverts. When I locate such a thing, I will flag it here.

Today’s Calm track is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/XYoEpl-gZW

It’s Like This

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

I like Tamara’s voice. Sometimes I think it might be my favourite voice on Calm, sometimes not. I enjoy the content that she delivers but I often listen to Jay Shetty or Jeff Warren, dependent on what the track seems to have in it.

Mel Mah is much more about activity and I have to say I have not yet bought into the activity aspect. It is probably one of those New Year’s resolution things. To Do but not yet To Done.

The track is a little over ten minutes so it probably will not quite be enough to doze off to unless you are properly tired already. (Perhaps if you’re more bought into activity than I am and, hence, have come in from a long run or similar).

This track is about acceptance which I suppose is not a bad skill to have if your life is heading towards Alzheimer’s.

Recently I have been considering a professional ASMR artist at this stage. So why buck the trend if it seems to have worked for us so far.

This week the video is this one:

【ASMR】Eye Exam for Bloodshot Eyes and Vision Loss🏥 | Ophthalmology Roleplay【Eyelid Injection💉】

It is from the channel Runa ASMR【るな氏】, this channel has 236K subscribers three hundred and nine videos eleven playlists. The longest playlist has nearly one hundred videos in it. This seems to be an ASMR artist that is doing something right.

There are notes of course “299,990 views Sep 10, 2025 #ロールプレイ #mouthsounds #asmr

#roleplayasmr #asmr

#お耳 #talkingasmr #asmrvideo #makeyousleep #mouthsounds

#originalstory #ロールプレイ #ロールプレイ #医療ASMR #doctor #clinic

💭視力良くなりたいヨォ、コンタクト毎日変えるの大変だヨオ

🎮セカンドチャンネル

/ @るなちの遊び場

🌙メンバーシップの参加はこちらから

/ @runaasmr575 “

However, I cannot read them.

Google translate at least reassures me that there’s nothing untoward here: “299,990 views Sep 10, 2025 #roleplay #mouthsounds #asmr

#roleplayasmr #asmr

#ears #talkingasmr #asmrvideo #makeyousleep #mouthsounds

#originalstory #roleplay #medicalASMR #doctor #clinic

💭I want to improve my eyesight, but changing my contacts every day is such a pain.

🎮Second Channel

/ @Runa’s Playground

🌙Join Membership Here

/ @runaasmr575″

Comments are permitted but the feedback is predominantly using a character set I do not understand, so they could be instructions for building a space shuttle. More likely they are commenting about how marvellous the video is because that level of adulation commonly accompanies professional ASMR artists.

The video is a little under thirty-nine minutes and so is a little longer than anything we have listened to recently. It has no startup music for which I am very grateful. The voice, as you would expect, is excellent.

Fortunately, when playing, the subtitles were in English so I’m at least clear it didn’t consist of swearing. Sadly, the keyboard features rather loudly, at least initially. But given how good the voice is, I think it is worth persisting with.

At intervals it does not appear to be about the voice. There are tapping noises, liquid sloshing noises, container unscrewing noises, pouring noises, clicking noises, gloves-related noises, equipment noises, liquid noises, plastic crinkling noises, sounds of a pestle and mortar being used to grind stuff.

All of these are a waste of time for me, I’m only here to listen to the voice. But I am betting each one is a trigger for someone. It does mean that we get a lot less of the voice than we would do otherwise, which is a shame.

I still think the voice makes it worthy of a review, why not listen for yourself.

I also think I will be revisiting this channel in the future.

I’ve been spending a lengthy amount of time of late evaluating the sleep offerings through Calm and falling asleep to them. Some excellent voices involved but given Calm is not free it would not be of much service if I start evaluating the content of Calm.

As a result, I have not written much in a while regarding YouTube content and I have been bolstered by the fact that I had written a great deal of content in the past and it was simply a case of editing it sufficiently to bring it up to date before pushing the correct button to put it out there. Calm is certainly interesting and some of the content is worth listening to but whether it is worth the money I can only leave it up to you to decide.

For me it is good to have something else available after YouTube decided to take my channel down one time, and with it all the playlists I had spent time curating. Where anybody has the power to do that to you it is well worthwhile having some other strategy available.

This is probably the message of everything available via the Internet. It is at best transient and so it is not too sensible to base anything permanent around it.

Today’s video draws from previous work indeed it is from an old favourite channel Moran Core from the Moran Eye Center. (UK readers note that is apparently the correct spelling of centre).

The video is this one:

Learning the Ophthalmoscope

It is just five- and three-quarter minutes so don’t sneeze or you’ll miss it. It’s another professional video and as we have established by now, these videos tend to come with notes (not uncommonly because they also serve to promote a service of some kind).

This video has the following notes:

“194,819 views 11 Aug 2018

Title: How to Use the Direct Ophthalmoscope

Author: Tania Padilla Conde, 4th Year Medical Student, University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine; Christopher Bair, MD and Michele Burrow, MD

Date: 08/10/2018”

Tania seems to have a good voice for us, although the volume for me was a little loud, sufficient to sound echoey in the space where it was recorded. The video starts without extraneous startup music which is so rare that sacrifices need to be offered up to the video-recording-god in supplication for the beneficence shown.

If you are listening to this one as part of the larger Procrastination Pen playlist, you might be rolling over to the tablet and giving the volume down button a couple of disgruntled presses. Tis a shame that I do not have control of the videos in the playlist or I would normalise the volume of them a bit. I too am sometimes awakened when the playlist changes from a quiet video to a louder one.

In this case the video is interrupted by a comment by Tania which is even louder. It is all a shame because otherwise she does have a good voice.

Tania does not appear on another video on the Moran Core website so if we are going to stick with her, then a search of YouTube is in order.

Tania Conde returns quite a number of channels and a brief perusal reveals that the majority are just not going to be helpful to us.

Using “Tania Padilla Conde” instead reveals a lot of content in Spanish.

This one:

Nancy Reynoza Entrevista a la doctora Tania Padilla Conde

Which is at the pace of Speedy Gonzalez and so not at all restful.

And a couple of playlists

The first one is:

COVID-19

Consisting of twelve videos. Ranging in length from two and a half minutes to in excess of twenty minutes. Not one of them seems to be a medical examination as such.

I am also hampered in that I have zero comprehension of Spanish, so I am trusting that nothing untoward is being relayed as part of the video.

The first video of the playlist is:

Cómo usar máscara correctamente

This video starts way-way too loud and it continues at a fast pace, this is really not a suitable video for us.

Como tratar los sintomas de COVID-19 en casa.

Double the length of the previous one it starts just as loud with fast paced music. This is just not conducive to sleep.

¿Qué es la hidroxicloroquina? Ensayo clínico aprobado por Kristi Noem en South Dakota.

Continues as for the previous two videos and as such I am convinced there is no purpose in reviewing the rest of this playlist. There is nothing here that we can make use of ASMR-wise.

The second playlist is this one:

Health/Salud

Somewhat more hopeful (given the title) that there might be restful content. It contains fifteen videos ranging between two and three quarter minutes and in excess of twenty minutes.

The first video is this:

Como tratar los sintomas de COVID-19 en casa.

And oh no just as before loud start up music. It strikes me that this is eerily similar to those that we’ve just looked at. So, unfortunately, I think that this playlist isn’t going to offer anything useful either.

On that basis just one, short, video on this visit.

Onwards till next week.

That’s it on this occasion, more next time.

The Moran Core 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 DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

A narrowing amount of time to deal with blog posts as I am about to be out of the country for a while. I was reflecting this week on the stresses of being able to travel. All the documentation, insurance, tickets, booking forms and online details. Then there are the things to remember, the money, the property information, the boarding passes, the passports, the details of the rental car. There’s the need to be up-and-Adam at stupid-o-clock. A lengthy journey to an immense building designed to beat the resistance out of the most chipper individual. The interminable queues. The seating crammed with strangers’ backsides. The security akin to an abattoir holding pen.

After all that the wedging into a tiny space for hours entertained by a constant background droning, coughing, sneezing, snoring and children crying. Pitching out somewhere strange. The need to find the car rental, the place you are staying, the negotiations over check in. Then and only then the rest that this entire process was supposed to promote.

And I reflect that every one of these is a first-world problem that many in the world would fight to have the possibility of.

I begin to see that it is all kind of mad and perhaps we are all a little mad for continuing to indulge in it.

Perhaps when such events are normal it is unsurprising that life is not that beneficial for sleep and many of us have to adjust in any way we find feasible to get what shut-eye we can. If we just can’t get enough sleep to afterwards compensate with any legal chemical (such as caffeine) to keep going when getting enough sleep is looking unlikely.

In such circumstances if you have managed to find even a few minutes to look at the Procrastination Pen I reflect upon the miracle that must have relied upon. I welcome you, however briefly.

If you have not been here before, this little blog really tries to find anything that is restful. To review it for its restfulness and to present it as a possibility to listen to when your mind is racing and will not be assuaged by visions of jumping sheep.

As is usual this week I have a track from Calm. Calm is a paid-for service and I appreciate that you probably pay for way too much already. The advantage, for me, is that it does not have advertising. You will not be interrupted whilst you are trying to get some sleep. The disadvantage is that it does not provide a mechanism for assembling playlists that I have been able to ascertain (In the web-based version at any rate) and of course the need to pay before listening.

This week’s Calm track is this one:

https://www.calm.com/app/player/PTAKI4ZSz_

Daily Jay

Self-Stories

NARRATOR

Jay Shetty

It is about the stories that we tell ourselves. How these stories influence our self-image and self-worth. It isn’t obviously sleep material. To date though I have found the Calm dailies to be better in terms of restfulness than the Calm material that is supposed to be about sleep. Jay isn’t the most restful voice on Calm; I think that is Tamara Levitt. However, Jay does great inspirational material. I find myself listening to him more often than not.

Recently I have been reviewing YouTube videos for professional ASMR artists and being hyper critical. Often finding much to be critical about. As I review professional ASMR artists I find that the inadvertent ASMR videos, I have been looking at, have actually been maintaining a higher standard than I had previously given credence to. With this history in mind, I approach this week’s video. I had noticed that since I reviewed an ASMR video with a steampunk theme the purely medical nature of the YouTube videos that appear in my recommendations has filtered down somewhat. Perhaps the variety will appeal to my audience. Then again perhaps it will not. Feel free to let me know if you are not really appreciating the direction of travel.

This week’s is

[ASMR] Vintage Reverie | Traditional Scalp Healing Ritual

straight away I realise that the video is not going to be merely based upon speaking. There are occasional taps, hisses and noises of items being moved.

It is twenty two minutes long and so positively whistling past in comparison with some we’ve heard. There are notes and refreshingly these are kept very short: “21,293 views 10 Sept 2025

Back to 1920s again~

==============================

Hello Guys!!! I’m Miranda, if u like my videos, u could click “LIKE”. More videos of mine, “SUBSCRIBE” and watch more~!!! LOVING U~

我是MT，喜欢我的影片的话，希望大家按下【喜欢】，想收看更多我的影片请【订阅】哦~~感谢大家的支持~

微博：MTkoala

bilibili：https://space.bilibili.com/6881318

网易云音乐：http://music.163.com/#/djradio?id=662…

荔枝fm：http://www.lizhi.fm/1256826/”

The clue is right there; the video is not in English. However, I do rather like the voice and, although the presenter could be swearing for all I know, I’ll blithely assume it is all relevant material. Just not in a language I can understand.

The site is Mandarin Whispers 官方频道 with 69.6K subscribers there are three hundred and forty eight videos and three playlists so this site also seems to be punching above its weight in terms of subscribers. There are comments but a number of these have responded in Chinese characters so I have no idea if they are positive. Given the halo around ASMR professionals I will make a guess that they are.

The voice tends towards the whispery but is a good voice nonetheless. There are ceramic noises, hair brushing noises and a noise of a stone being applied to skin. There are liquid noises and cloth rustling noises. These additional noises seem to me distracting. Others may find them the bread and butter of what they are looking for in an ASMR video. Personally, the video wasn’t the greatest. I would have preferred the same thing but just with the voice. At least some of the more irritating aspects of other videos are missing (such as startup music or air conditioning noises). It’s a bit of faint praise though I fear.

Based on that, let’s move onto the normal Procrastination Pen material, which is all about inadvertent ASMR videos. (Videos designed with a different purpose in mind but which nonetheless turn out to be restful). Habitually, I select these based upon the voice of the participant.

Another week, another video, another chance for rest and relaxation. Perhaps a good alternative to the Friday evening glass of wine for relaxation. Given the usual posting date more likely a Monday evening, but I’ll gloss over that; who knows when you might be reading this.

This time a video that comes from a technique to which I have not given much time on this blog (that might be about to change).

The Alexander Technique

This one is incredibly brief at slightly over three minutes. One would hope it does not have time to do anything too loud or off-putting. It is a professional video and hence it has notes: “54,429 views 30 May 2014

http://www.concordmedia.org.uk/produc…

A demonstration of the Alexander Technique.

A clear demonstration of the Alexander Technique. Dr Barlow uses a young woman previously unfamiliar with this therapy to show how posture has to be learned, and the great benefits it can bring.

Distributed by Concord Media

Website: http://concordmedia.org.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ConcordMedia

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ConcordMedia59”

The comments reveal that this is a snippet of a much longer video available for purchase from here http://www.concordmedia.org.uk/products/the-alexander-technique-by-dr-wilfred-barlow-210/

But I would not be able to share the purchased version with you, so for our purposes, there is not much point in going down that route.

It is (as commentators have noted) a shame that more is not available on YouTube as Dr Barlow has a great voice. It was apparently filmed in 1990 so it has been around for quite a while.

There are no extraneous noises – material like this is the reason that I keep looking each week on YouTube. Sadly, it is all over so quickly.

The channel is Concord Media. It has 1.4K videos and 13.8K subscribers – wow.

There are a number of playlists but none at all seem to be concerned with The Alexander Technique. Therefore, sadly this one is it. More next time.

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 DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Someone recently bemoaned the decline in evening classes. That back in the 1970s, people would come home from work, head off to a local college and learn to throw pots or paint by watercolours and this now seemed to be a declining art. I am not certain about the statistics, but the account at least seems believable.

There now seems to be this perception that any personal time needs to be snatched from sleep, from lunchtime, or from that ever so useful time originally given over to thinking.

Perhaps, when the engine is running at 6000 revs, then it is hard to let it slow down again to idle, and maybe there we find the current fascination for sleep.

In any case, the Procrastination Pen exists to try to look at sleep. Mainly from the approach that you distract that busy mind through restful background noise.

For a while now, I have been giving the odd recommendation from Calm. I’m not paid by them and I realise that you have to pay a subscription in order to listen. The advantage for me is that you then do not have to put up with the loud and obtrusive advertising that populates the intervals between YouTube videos.

I have seen that it is now possible to pay for an advertising-free experience on YouTube and I have been considering it. However, this would mean that my recommendations would be in ignorance of the reality for most, which is that just after a nice peaceful video something loud and distracting will kick in. There seems to be no allowance for the fact that it is 3am and no consideration that if the video you just listened to is peaceful, why would you want an advert based upon Monsters of Rock circa 1985 to follow it.

Anyway, here is today’s Calm recommendation:

Daily Calm

Interruptions

NARRATOR

Tamara Levitt

AUTHOR

Tamara Levitt

https://www.calm.com/app/player/8szz-qSorG

I like Tamara’s voice and this one is about interruptions and how to deal with them, which I think is likely to be relevant for everyone. If you have access to a Calm subscription why not take a listen. It is a little over ten minutes in length.

I was listening to a video this week as part of the stuff I have to keep up with. It is not medical and so I won’t be listing it in any playlist, but I contend that the voice is just excellent.

Three Decades in Kernelland – Jonathan Corbet, LWN.net

If this is of any interest you might want to give it a review. It is also squarely an “inadvertent” video as it is plainly not designed to be relaxing…

I have been, recently, evaluating a professional ASMR artist in these articles, rather as a counterfoil to the inadvertent ASMR material that I prefer.

YouTube have now decided that as I took a moment to review a steampunk-related ASMR video, now I am the world’s greatest steampunk fan and my usual set of suggestions based upon medical themes have now all got a definite sci-fi tinge to them.

Hey I can live with that. Hence although this week’s professional ASMR review is definitely medical, it is “not as we know it – captain”.

It comes to us from Dreamscape ASMR who most definitely does not need any promotion. The channel has 406K subscribers with one hundred videos and five playlists. This number of subscribers for that output shows a surprising level of efficiency. I am guessing something must be going very right.

The video is this one:

Taking Care of You When You’re Sick 🤒 SCI-FI SOLARPUNK ASMR ☀️ [Unusual Remedies, Deep Resonance]

It is a shorter than I have reviewed of late given that it is a little over twenty-six and a quarter minutes. There are a mountain of comments in the usual ASMR professional adulation mode. I wish I had whatever ASMR artists have…

the notes have the habitual level of self-promotion, so I’ve chopped them a little, the edited highlights are:

“1,286,378 views 4 May 2024 #cinematicasmr #ASMR #asmrroleplay

NO MUSIC VERSION: • Taking Care of You When You’re Sick 🤒 SCI-…

You find yourself battling a mysterious illness, one that manifests in an array of strange symptoms—like chromatic sweats, haptic hallucinations, and polarized vision. The city hospital dismissed your case as spring allergies…But I know it’s something more serious than that. After exhaustive research and numerous tests, I’ve begun to suspect that your condition might be a rare sensitivity to the recent solar flares. Here, in the quietness of my eco-friendly sanctuary, I will care for you. Using my scientific expertise, I am committed to unravelling the mystery of your illness and developing effective remedies. You are the most important person in my life, and I will keep you close—watching over you with unwavering vigilance—until we uncover the truth behind these unusual symptoms.

…

I hope you enjoy the ambience section at the end! I love when there’s at least 10 minutes of nothing important happening in ASMR videos so I can actually fall asleep. Scratchy pencil sounds are one of my favourites 🙂

–DREAM”

Even edited that is a healthy set of notes I’m sure you agree.

It starts with music – which is not great – and the music continues during the speech – even less great. I wasn’t taken by the voice to start with (obviously the only person, given the in excess of one million views). I did like the setting but I was less keen on some of the attendant noises, beeps, strange sci-fi related echoes. I did like the running water noises but, for me, it is always about the voice and I wasn’t as enthralled as all of those one million listeners.

I am not as bothered by paper-folding noises, and definitely not keen on the buzzes and hums that were designed to make the sci-fi atmosphere authentic. Of course there are the noises from objects being moved, objects being opened and closed, but there were also artificial voice sounds (which I wasn’t keen on).

I got the feeling that this was a more visual-orientated experience than the title would indicate. For me ASMR is about the sound. By about half way I was looking to do something else which is not a great sign in itself.

So this one is not for me, but over one and a quarter million viewers disagree so why not give it a try.

Moving on to the part of the blog that started the review process all those months ago, the locating of and the review of inadvertent ASMR videos and, to date, this has mainly consisted of videos on a medical theme.

As the weeding process of videos that do not stand the test of time in the Procrastination Pen playlist of ASMR videos, I am finding that I do not share the taste of some sites that exist to curate ASMR videos.

There seem to be videos which are considered good ASMR but which contain loud noises from equipment, distracting background noises, or strange interruptions from people, equipment or even animals.

I don’t think that such videos really belong in a playlist which is designed to provide the background to a person’s sleep time and so, I have been dispatching such videos to the archive list whether they receive a recommendation or not. At the moment I seem to be weeding the average of one video per week in this fashion.

The implication of which is that I had better keep generating more blog posts or that playlist will become so short it will be barely worthy of the name.

For today’s video we are back to an old favourite. She does not have the world’s best ASMR voice, that could easily be someone like Hollie Berry, it is a little too loud for a start. However, I do like her style of delivery and some of her videos have stood the test of time in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The video is this one:

Eye Examination 2

It has notes which are thankfully brief: “151,236 views 17 Oct 2015

Jessica Nishikawa demonstrates common components of the eye examination. Subscribe at / jessicanishikawa

Follow Twitter @JessNishi”

It has comments and some of those comments are from ASMR fans, so with any luck we should be on solid ground here.

The video is a little under four minutes so hardly there at all really. (Lot’s more space for loud and off-putting YouTube adverts (grrr)).

It starts quietly and completely without any startup music. (Heaven be praised).

There is no concluding music, which is no less miraculous. In fact, this little video is more or less ideal.

For regular readers you will have spotted that this is Jessica Nishikawa and of course that is also the name of the channel.

Whenever I review a video from a channel which has multiple videos (this has twenty-six of them at today’s date). I look to see if there are other videos on that channel that could also be useful in terms of ASMR/sleep promotion.

In this case we have a video which is Eye Examination 2 which pre-supposes the existence of a Eye Examination 1 video to match it (and if we are luck 3, 4,5 and so on).

In this case we are not lucky. There is just one other video in the Eye examination series and it is this one:

Eye Examination

This too has notes: “22,511 views 11 Oct 2015

Jessica Nishikawa demonstrates common components of the eye examination. Subscribe at / jessicanishikawa. Follow on Twitter @JessNishi”

Again, some comments from ASMR fans, so this could be a good thing.

The video is a little over four and a half minutes and there is no introductory music. There is, however, the air conditioning from hell. it is as if the microphone is under the air conditioning outlet. We have encountered this before and it makes for very distracting listening. As if in compensation Jessica is raising her voice here quite a bit more than in the previous video.

Thankfully, there are no equipment noises, and after a brief delay the person recording must have cottoned onto the fact that the background noise is oppressive because the recording volume suddenly decreases. Would that there was an air conditioning sound filter and that it had been applied.

In deference to the fact that this is the only extraneous noise, I am going to trail this one in the procrastination Pen playlist. However, I do not have high hopes that it will persist there for very long.

The Jessica Nishikawa 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 post why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by DeepAI

Sleeping With ASMR

Of late it has seemed to me that a change of approach might be indicated. A weekly approach to inadvertent ASMR videos located only on YouTube might eventually get to be boring for some. Those who happen upon the blog might be asking yes well, but what next.

Of course I can do more. Already I am looking at Calm and at professional ASMR artists but does this really result in any better-quality outcomes? The key, as I’m sure we agree, is a better night’s sleep and a dropping off to sleep that happens reliably and rapidly.

Sadly, I am not sure that I have achieved all that myself. I’ve tried a number of legal pills, some work, some do not. (Frankly, I would not know where to get the illegal variety even should I be so inclined.) I’m using Calm to try to build up some kind of meditation discipline, just in case a surfeit of mental self-control also results in a metaphorical off switch. It seems to me, if that is the route, then it’s going to take a long time in getting there. Of late, the most effective route has been lying on the sofa with some awful early morning TV programme burbling away. Despite what you might be told about the influence of light from the television or the impact of noise on restfulness, more often than not that is an effective action.

YouTube has historically been great (hence this blog), but the increasing intensity of adverts and the lack of filtering for quieter overnight adverts can undo the good work of the playlist in drifting off in the first place.

Admittedly, in the early hours, some TV channels change over from awful programmes to even more awful teleshopping presentations, with presenters of a personality which seems to indicate they do take something of a stimulating variety simply in order to keep it up…

There is nothing that is a perfect solution. Perhaps the Procrastination Pen playlist is one of those things that may prove to be helpful. (I’m always ready to receive feedback regarding improvements).

In the interest of changes (however small), this week’s Calm recommendation has nothing whatever to do with sleep:

Anger Management, Jeff Warren

https://www.calm.com/app/player/HzvkP4OlNV

However, I do find Jeff Warren’s voice to be restful and the material is interesting. It also is gratifyingly short, so is not going to be waking you again once you have drifted off.

This week, the YouTube recommendation from a presenter who set themselves up as a ASMR video professional is this one:

ASMR the BEST Full Body Exam | “Unintentional” Real Person ASMR | Abdomen, Lung & Back Inspection

It has notes: “2,633,344 views 21 Nov 2022

The most precise and professional ASMR on a real person you will see in a while with layered real sounds of lung listening (respiratory auscultation) and abdomen sounds (abdomen ausculation). Well-prepared unintentional ASMR examination with lung inspection, abdomen inspection, skin inspection, eye examination, hearing examination, cranial nerve examination, and hair inspection.

Ways to support the channel: https://swopi.co/kewas_asmr (all links)

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*Disclaimer: We are not professional doctors, security or any other role we play in these videos. This video is for relaxation purposes only. Do not take any medical advice from this content.”

So, the normal level of self-promotion. Comments are permitted and for a change are predominantly positive. As we have come to expect both participants in the video are attractive, I wonder if it is even feasible to make your way as an ASMR artist with a more average appearance. If I find such a video I will feature it.

The video is slightly less than fifty minutes in length so substantial compared to material we have seen recently.

Sadly, it starts with music and, worse, quite loud music which seems to be key to yet more brand promotion, but I would have thought militates against instant restfulness.

There is a strong background noise (air conditioning, I suspect) And initially at least, the voices are not that quiet. However, it settles into the more whispered approach that we are by now familiar with.

The channel is Kewas ASMR and of course it appears on the ASMR index. The channel has three hundred and sixty one videos, four playlists and 333K subscribers. A very busy channel.

The video has equipment noises and there is a kind of bassy sound as if the microphone was slightly being overwhelmed, or it is an echo effect from the room in which it was filmed. Turning the volume down did not appear to remove this on the equipment I was using.

There are parts of the video where internal noises are played quite loudly, for example, heart beats and intestinal gurgles.

Despite these limitations and in common with many of the commentators, I did find the video restful. However, given that this is not an inadvertent ASMR video all these sound factors are within the control of the person filming, and so I do wonder at the choices that include them. I have concluded thus far that it is a drive for authenticity in the material, but I think the video would better promote relaxation if the extraneous noise were to be removed. Again, if I come across such a video (i.e. without these unnecessary noises) I will feature it.

I did find at intervals that I wanted the video to be shorter (which is probably not a great sign). However, I do think it worthy of review if you want to take a look/listen.

Today’s more bread-and-butter offering (at least as far as this blog goes) is the following:

March 28, 2017

Shari Rice is the channel. This has three hundred and seventy-six subscribers, one video, one playlist. The single video is just over fifty minutes in length and this time it is the only video on the site so come-what-may it is going to be the only inadvertent ASMR video I review this week.

There are notes: “148,625 views 30 Mar 2017

Rambo_Head to toe assessment_Nurs 5418”

Comments are permitted and include a number of ASMR-related responses and a number of unhelpful comments – so normal for YouTube comments then. At least it proves that I am not the first person looking for an inadvertent ASMR video who located this one.

The video appears to be one drawn from that rich seam of videos which I often feature, the medical student assessment video. It starts with some aggravating noises, presumably originating with the recording device being manipulated to show the whole room. Straight away we discover that background noise is going to be (a quite intrusive) thing. There is a sound like a motor running constantly in the background (presumably an older air conditioning system). The voices are not classically ASMR-y. There is certainly no whispering here.

We find that the medical practitioner is Sharon Rambo. I notice the channel is Shari Rice so I’m speculating Sharon Rambo got married to a Mr (or Miss) Rice at some stage after the video was filmed. Sharon tells us that this is a “Head to Toe” assessment. A type of assessment which has been featured here many times before. The identity card that appears in the video does not appear to give away where the assessment is taking place. The card is issued in 2016 and the film is dated 28/03/2017 (UK date order, so, March) but there is no obvious clue which course this relates to. However, straight away Sharon introduces herself as a Nurse Practitioner at UT Arlington – hence the “A” symbol on the identity card. A look at the UT Arlington website indicates that the horses head icon (as seen on the identity card) also prominently features.

So that is where we are and when we are.

The ”patient” is introduced as Savannah Martin (which may or may not be misspelled). Who is apparently twenty in this video so nearer twenty-eight now I would guess. Savannah has the look of someone who is not completely entertained by the process and indeed it does seem to go on a bit. Presumably this is so that all the material required by the course is covered.

At intervals Sharon seems to refer to notes which makes the presentation a little staccato. However, it settles down and Sharon’s voice likewise. In fact her voice is much quieter when performing the hands-on parts of the examination and hence these seem to be the best sections.

As we have seen before with student videos, the presentation at intervals is halting, presumably as memory fails… There is of course the occasional equipment noise, including the odd quite loud bang. There is humour – Savannah turns out to be ticklish…

After a while I found myself settling into the listening and it actually was restful (just as many of the commentators had reflected). It’s not the greatest ASMR experience ever, but I certainly think it is good enough for the playlist.

Have a review for yourself and see what you think.

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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Welcome readers to another article of the Procrastination Pen. Just for a change, we will be looking at videos designed to encourage ASMR symptoms (if you want to receive ASMR symptoms, that is).

Yet again, I am temporarily going to review the video from a professional ASMR artist as a slight distraction from the main aim, which is to review inadvertent ASMR material.

In this case, the video under review is this one:

ASMR Cranial Nerve Exam – Roleplay

This is from the channel Starling ASMR a channel having 532K subscribers and three hundred and seventeen videos which is pretty high productivity, I’m sure that you will agree. There are a few playlists dedicated to medical exams which has been bread and butter for this blog for over a year now.

Starling ASMR also features on the ASMR index.

As I have concluded previously about other ASMR artists, Valentina is of attractive appearance and continues to confirm my suspicion that a number of ASMR fans don’t attend these videos because of the way that they sound.

The video is inclined towards the whispery and so I do not think that it is designed to fool anyone. I do not think any medical professional would conduct an exam whispering to this extent.

It contains some noises which I suspect are supposed to be stimulating, but to me rubber glove noises, clicks and crumpling noises are not what I’m interested in. In addition, the somewhat loud vibrations roughly half way through the video are, to me, distracting.

Given how popular the video is however, I think I am in a group of one here.

The voice is, of course, first class and distracting noises aside, I can hear what people are listening for.

I think it is worthy of review and so I have added it into the Sweetie Jar playlist.

Of course, the purpose of this blog has not been to review professional ASMR artists and so we return to the inadvertent ASMR that is its core material.

Today we are back on a channel that I did promise I would revisit after a moderately successful first review of it.

The video features a different “patient” to the last time we were here, and we may have some success sticking with that “patient” in terms of the videos that we review on this occasion.

The channel is Farsight Channel and will be familiar to regular readers.

The video is this one:

Macleod’s examination of the cardiovascular system

As we have previously established Macleod’s appears to be a medical tome of great worthiness in that a number of people seem to be reading it, following these videos, commenting on it and so on. Sadly, with all the medical knowledge of a person with no medical knowledge I have no idea if all that attention is justified. I will take it that it is.

As we saw the last time, all of these videos are professionally produced and a well-established clue to this is the presence of a great many notes. The notes with this video are as follows: “2,047,718 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at http://www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod

More information about the director www.iainhennessey.com”.

Comments are (bravely in my view) permitted, and are the usual rag-tag of rare affirming statements, demands for attention of one variety or another and the occasional off-the-wall comment, which makes you wonder.

The video is a little less than thirteen minutes and almost amazingly has no startup music at all (hurrah). Like before, we have two participants who could easily be computer rendered. The tone is wrong, the pacing is wrong and the voices occasionally don’t seem to fit what is happening. It is as if we have two participants and two other people’s voices have been dubbed over the top. This is less apparent, however if you don’t actually watch the video. Just listen to it. This is what I recommend anyway, after all the purpose of the blog is to help you get to sleep and it is hard to do that with your eyes open.

The video is largely narrated in any case. The narrator is not as restful voice wise as the participants who (artificial or not) have moderately quiet voices. The narrator is a little louder, but not sufficiently so to eliminate the video from the Procrastination Pen playlist, I think.

Given the channel has fifty-nine videos I think we will follow the technique used in the former article and search for videos where the same “patient” features. This gives us the following:

Macleod’s examination of the thoracic and lumbar spine

At a little less than five and a half minutes. It has notes: “9,840 views 6 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

More info about the author www.iainhennessey.com”

Again, it starts silently. The participants seem to be speaking in a strange way, but they are more restful than the narrator. However, this remains consistent with the last one which is something we often find with professionally produced videos i.e. find one good one and the entire channel might well be a source of other good videos.

At least in this one the patient shows some emotion (smiling), so it is decidedly less robotic than the previous one.

Definition:

Dimples of Venus, a picture seemed best for this:

Macleod’s examination of the respiratory system

This is just under thirteen minutes and again it has notes: “2,851,650 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

More information about the director http://www.iainhennessey.com”

We’re used to the format by now. So, we are expecting the participants to be a bit robotic but nonetheless for the video to be a reasonable one for our purposes.

We have Omar and Amy in this one and both we have seen before with Amy featuring in the previous article on this channel.

There is silence to start and that strange impression that the people featured and the voices somehow do not belong together. The actual examination is quiet and measured and the whole video would be approaching ideal sound wise if it were not for the narration over the top of it. However, the narrator never quite gets as far as objectionable such that I could find cause to dismiss the video from the Procrastination Pen playlist altogether.

He has the benefit of good intonation and never straying into excessive volume.

Definition:

Thoracotomy – surgery to open the chest.

Macleod’s examination of the shoulder

Notes: “82,387 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”

This is Ben and Omar, so a change of medical personnel. The video is a little under five minutes so isn’t going to waylay any of us for long. If anything, the narration with this one is slightly more muted which makes it more suitable for us.

Definition: Serratus Anterior

A picture is best for this:

The responses are abrupt as we have seen previously with videos featured from this channel. However, the way the medical professional handles the examination is gentle and considered.

Deltoid

At intervals (whilst the narration is occurring), the medical professional is speaking but nothing can be heard.

At this point I realise that the blog post is likely to be an excessively long one. So As before I’m going to halt the review of videos and carry some onto a future blog post on the same channel.

The Farsight 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.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Given the furore in the media one would imagine that I’ve abandoned writing altogether and that this is now being written by some variant of AI. There is almost a fevered excitement about these engines of productivity, even amongst those who, from an objective viewpoint, will ultimately be replaced by them.

After all, if an AI ever gets to the stage of producing reliable, readable copy, then what would be the need for bloggers, writers, journalists and so on.

Anyway, I write this blog because I want to write. I did not write the blog to ask something else to do the writing for me. So sadly, you are unlikely to see much in the way of AI-derived content here (although I’m told one should never say never).

This far, the blog is not a business and so the mechanisms involved in writing this are part of the process, not an obstacle on the way to deriving higher amounts of income. Should that change (I’m sure there is an ASMR millionaire out there who wants to pay me huge amounts to write for them) then perhaps ChatGPT (alternative AIs exist) will form a major part of the process and I’ll be on a Seychelles beach. In the more prosaic world, I’ll keep on pressing one key, and then another one to see what emerges and post it up onto the blog in the hope someone would like to read it.

Today’s is another diversion from the norm. I contend it is still ASMR, but it isn’t a video. In fact it is a podcast and it isn’t on YouTube, it is on Greater Good Magazine. A site which the sleepless may wish to attend at intervals as there are occasionally features on managing stress and anxiety. Although, quite often, it focuses on how to be reasonable to one another, which cannot hurt.

Therefore, rather than an embedded video we have a URL: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/item/how_to_keep_love_alive

But I think that you may find the voice to be worth it.

Ayesha Mattu has a voice like cotton wool and chocolate in a warm room. A really calming quiet backdrop for relaxation. I hope that they do not take this audio down.

It is just over twenty-one minutes. Sadly I can’t add this into any playlist without uploading to YouTube and I do not own the audio.

However, I hope you agree that it is worth just kicking back and listening for a few minutes to Ayesha who is a proper audio find.

You can catch Ayesha on Amazon (she is an author).

Given how great her voice is and that she is in the public eye I thought it worthwhile to search for material (videos) featuring Ayesha on YouTube.

I found this one:

The voice is not quite so amazing as on the above podcast but still good enough for a playlist, I think. Part of the problem is the consistent background music which detracts from the experience for me. It is way off message for this blog, of course, because it does not feature any kind of medical examination.

I think following up with other blog items on Ayesha will be a definite future for this blog. I hope that you enjoy this one.

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which remains the same as last week) is found here:

I listen to that playlist most nights and I have removed some videos that no longer seem as excellent as when first reviewed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than the occasional loud clang from medical equipment.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

I hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae