Sleeping With ASMR

This one is a confessed cheat. Where to find an ASMR video? Well why not choose a channel dedicated to ASMR? However, if anyone watching this can identify the original source of this video, I would be very grateful – perhaps I’ll follow up with a further article to show the original video unadulterated by editing.

Hand and Wrist Examination (ASMR)

In fact this might be a way forwards for me as I have been trying to stick to the more po-faced approach of avoiding those videos dedicated to ASMR and trying instead to find ASMR videos by choosing a subject area – i.e. accidental ASMR videos. But hey, why not get a leg up from the work other people are doing in this area.

I notice it is entitled “ROM and MMT”. Here ROM is Range of Motion, MMT is Manual Muscle Testing.

This perhaps will give me a new category of ASMR videos to search for in the future.

Trace is the “patient” and Jane the medical professional. Judging by Jane’s T-shirt design she is working in Occupational Therapy. However, the entwined snake emblem (Caduceus it appears to be called) is widely used it seems (from a Google image search), so this does not reliably tell me where she works.

Jane has a pretty good voice in terms of ASMR and Trace does not get a lot to say. The surroundings are not typically medical, I would guess someone’s front room. It was uploaded six years ago, but potentially it is older than that. Presumably this video was once on a medical channel and has been snaffled and probably edited to enhance the ASMR effect.

I would make a guess that the two know each other and that potentially this is a student video used for assessment. (There are a large number of these and I guarantee some will appear in future blog items).

Not unexpectedly, ASMR exams – for that is the channel we are dealing with – has a great range of videos. Because the channel owner has done all the work for me, in general the videos are excellent for ASMR.

Twenty six videos as at today’s date ranging in posting date from nine years ago to five years ago. (Which is sad as it looks like the channel is no longer maintained).

It would not be the first time I choose to blog about an item that is now thoroughly out of date.

There is one playlist on the site:

This features only six of the twenty-six videos for some reason, and all seem to have been posted nine years ago. It does not include my chosen video above. You get that as a bonus-extra on this occasion.

This gives me a nice shortlist of videos to cover in one blog post. However, given the other content is good, I will make a point of following on with the remaining twenty (probably spread over a few blog posts to avoid those articles getting too long).

Apologies for the sequential nature of these articles.

I suspect you’re keen to get to the playlist – in which case scroll to the end and there you will find it.

Physical Examination #2 (ASMR)

Fans of this blog should be familiar with this one. It has had an entire article dedicated to it and it is already in the playlist.

Physical Examination #3 (ASMR)

The title at the start of the video is “Abdominal Examination” there is no indication of the originating channel.

The participants are Dr Thomas and Mr Jones the “patient” apparently. It gives on screen prompts to indicate which stage the examination has entered. Dr Thomas’ voice is good: lovely and quiet. No Vicki Scott but great anyway. Both characters could easily be of Welsh extraction (I’m not great at accents) but there is no other clue as to which institution this is.

The abdominal exam looks positively painful but Mr Jones seems completely unfazed by it. It is all very calm.

Strangely at 5:48 it suddenly changes to “Cardiovascular Examination” and Dr Thomas introduces himself to Mr Jones again. Then at 12:18 it becomes “Respiratory System Examination” and Dr Thomas introduces himself to Mr Jones again.

This is the sort of video I dislike – one that was several distinct videos edited together to make one long one.

This is a shame because Dr Thomas has an excellent voice but it’s right down there with ASMR loop videos for distraction – it will not be in the playlist.

I wish I could find the original, separate, videos as they would be of a quality that I would definitely include in the playlist.

Physical Examination #4 (ASMR)

The video quality is not marvellous. In fact, I think I could describe it as fuzzy.

The intro states it is health assessment 3310. The closest I can find is NSG 3310. This seems to have been offered through an institution called Troy University.

There is a channel for Troy University and it has a great number of videos (read too many to count right now). Checking if there are 3310 assessment videos for Troy University we get a list (for example

and

) but I was unable to find this one.

The “patient” is Luke. Presumably students watching this would know who the medical professional was here. At nearly forty-five minutes this is another lengthy exam video, they must be covering every angle.

The voice here is marginal in ASMR terms (I’ve probably been spoiled by Hollie Berry).

Still it is good enough for inclusion in the playlist. (Perhaps it will be one that falls victim to a future weeding process).

Another term I was not clear about prior to this is “Auscultate” – listening to sounds from the chest.

Associated with this is the term “egophony” this is the use of the E sound. If the E is heard to sound like an A then it is diagnostic.

Stereognosis” the ability to perceive what a solid object is without actually looking at it.

Graphesthesia” recognising writing on the skin by touch only.

Brachioradialis” a muscle of the forearm.

Luke seems about as entertained as a small child being asked to “stay still and stop making a noise”. I’m sure he went on to develop a fantastic medical career but he certainly isn’t keen here. Possibly because this is being recorded on a Sunday and he could be out relaxing and having a good time.

Barack Obama is the president so we know this was recorded between 2009 and 2017.

Physical Examination #5 (ASMR)

Twenty-five and a half minutes so a more usual length. This time we get an introduction which tells us it is the Northeastern Physician Assistant Program 2010.

A search on this reveals this channel: redbreadproductions

Where we get the same video but in three parts – this looks like it is going to be one featured in a future blog post

Out of interest the three videos are:

and

I will cover these properly in a future blog post.

This means that this one must be a compilation

Initially it is entitled “The General Physical Examination”. It is going well until the clunking sounds of the weighing scales which are designed to awaken the dead. After that though it calms down a reasonable amount. The medical professional and the “patient” in this seem to be having a lot of fun making the video. I am guessing it is educational in intent.

At the end the thanks go to Rebecca Scott Ph.D, PA-C and Rebekah Saunders, PA-SI.

I’m guessing Rebecca did the exam and for our purposes she has a very good voice. If the video is a compilation this is invisible so it can go into the playlist.

Physical Examination #6 (ASMR)

This one starts with an intro stating “Stritch School of Medicine IPM Physical Exam Series Head to Toe Examination on a Male”

Stritch School of Medicine redirects to Loyola University Chicago

The only one that references Stritch appears to be this one:

Entertaining I’m sure but zero on the ASMR scale.

So how does our video size up?

Dr Michael Koller – searching for him indicates that he has a page of original videos which will be worthy of a future blog post perhaps.

John is the “patient” here. Dr Koller does not at first seem to have your classic ASMR voice. This improves as the examination commences. Although he isn’t going to be a James Gill. The video at just over forty minutes is getting on the long side. It is also on the fuzzy side so we are to be thankful it is the sound that we are focused on. It’s good enough I think so I’m going to add it to the playlist.

Yes I know that there are only five videos here – for some reason YouTube informs me that one of the six videos in this playlist is hidden. I’m still not clear why this is.

I’ll split up the remaining twenty and post them in the next few blog posts.

The playlist for ASMR Exams is here:

The playlist covering all videos featured in blog posts thus far is here:

It may be possible to identify the source organisations for some of these videos, in which case I may do some follow up articles delving more deeply into them.

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Photo by Jenny Jackson on Unsplash

Sleeping with ASMR

The next item in the ASMR sleep series is a little more complicated. Now that I have been following ASMR-related videos for a while it has become obvious that some ASMR publishing people are trying to game the system.

From the number of follows, comments, views, and so-on I am not the only person who is searching for ASMR content. There appears to be a subset of people who are interested in videos where the person produces ASMR effects by mistake. Examples include speeches made where the person has a gentle voice; a lecture where the lecturer’s tone happens to be the correct one to set off ASMR in some of the listeners; interviews where the participants have very calm voices.

Some professional ASMR artists, (and indeed amateur ASMR artists) are now making videos deliberately but claiming they were produced entirely coincidentally. There is obviously a money angle – the more adherents you have – the more advertising-related revenue you can captivate. So the temptation is there, frankly, to cheat.

Some titles will say something like “by a genuine person” (as if there were non-genuine people wandering around). Sometimes there are “medical examination” videos, with a couple of suspiciously attractive young people in the video who don’t appear to know a great deal about medicine.

In this climate I am a little unsure about this series. They are great videos for ASMR which purport to be part of a medical education series.

Patient Examination Series- Dr Hollie Berry

Given I am suspicious I took a look on DuckDuckGo (other search engines exist) and it turns out there is no Dr Hollie Berry other than as part of this video series (or other people discussing this video series). No LinkedIn account, no medical papers, no references or citations – and no college sites linking to the videos.

So far Aidan Blunt appears to be the only source and he (assuming it is a he) is obviously aware that Dr Berry has this affect in some listeners as he has produced some videos edited in order to enhance the ASMR effect.

Here:

Cranial Nerves Examination ASMR Loop

I have a dislike of ASMR loop videos. There will be (say) a medical exam which is about ten minutes and to make it an hour it will play (or parts of it will play) over and again. It might be that I am just dosing when a part I’ve heard before comes winging back. This is one of those. So I will not be adding it to the playlist.

And here:

Cardiac Examination ASMR Edit

This one edited in order to enhance its ASMR effect. Again I won’t add this one to the playlist, however some people reading may find this kind of thing right up their street perhaps.

And here:

Abdominal Examination ASMR Edit

Also edited for its ASMR effect and therefore, as before, not included in the playlist.

And here:

Upper Limb Neuro Examination ASMR Edit

As before.

However Aidan also produces some more dedicated medical videos so for the purposes of this blog item I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I found this series originally through a posting on Reddit

Which leads to this video:

Cranial Nerve Examination

Which leads me to suspect that the filming was done at Manchester Medical School and the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. However I am currently not able to find any similar video content other than that put out by Aidan.

This video has the smell of the genuine article and is a sensible seven and a half minutes in length which seems to fit with a reasonable length medical examination video found elsewhere.

Aidan Blunt – this is the channel where the Hollie Berry videos are all found. There are thirty four videos here and so too many to feature in any one blog item.

However I started with a Hollie Berry video and so I will concentrate on the videos from this channel that feature Hollie Berry.

Apart from the compilation, ASMR edit and ASMR loop videos (all of which I know to be doctored and therefore will discount) there are these:

Abdominal Examination

This is a sensible length at five minutes thirteen seconds.

Cardiovascular Examination

This one is five minutes six seconds.

I think Hollie may have my favourite ASMR voice of the videos I have covered so far.

Diabetic Foot Examination

Three minutes twenty five seconds in length.

A repeating theme in these is that the “patient” appears either petrified or completely distracted. I’m not sure what they could have said to them to get them in this state. Hollie seems the ideal medical person – professional and relaxing. But for the people in these videos it does not appear to be working.

Lymph Gland Examination

Three minutes fourteen seconds in length. And given the comments I’d say a number of people find Hollie’s voice to be relaxing.

Respiratory Examination

Five minutes thirty four seconds in length. The more I listen the more I think this set of videos is a great find ASMR-wise.

Upper Limb Neuro

This last set seem all to have been posted eleven years ago. I think we can assume that Hollie Berry does (or did) exist and probably made a set of videos for the Manchester Medical Schools a decade or so ago. They’ve moved on and taken down her videos subsequently but Aidan has preserved them for some reason.

Why Hollie should disappear altogether at that point is anybody’s guess but a set of six short videos is all we have of the greatest ASMR voice I have so far discovered. A great shame.

The playlist is here:

The complete playlist of videos covered so far is here:

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

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