Wednesday, June 26, 2013

My X with ASMR: "I Remember" (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, Some People Really Do Find Enlightenment (EDITORIAL)

The girl's not what she seems
LAS VEGAS - EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival) has come and gone. And I remember. One didn't used to have to travel this far into the desert. It was right in the center of L.A. Then one accident later, it's out and the drive is long.

Long ago, I knew a woman with great focus -- attention somewhere along the Aspberger's Spectrum with possibly more than a touch of ASMR (which according to knowyourmeme.com means "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response").

Artist Claire Duguid (Caters News/Yahoo)
I should have realized there was something special going on when we saw "The Last Mimzy."
 
Her head tingled ecstatically when the Mimzy spoke -- more sort of beeped and chortled in tonal whispers as in a consonant-rich devic language of the stars landed on Earth and spoken among soothing faeries (bhumi-devas), somewhat like Sumer, Sanskrit, or Gaelic.

We practiced Buddhist meditation without success in concentration (samadhi). Then she far surpassed me, mastering the eight meditative absorptions (jhanas).
 
"How?" I asked. There was no answer really, nothing that had not been heard countless times before. One intends, lets go, expecting nothing, one sinks in (as the mind coheres, collects, and becomes what it naturally is with the light of wisdom). Thinking (questioning) is anathema.

And from (absorption) jhana, successful vipassana (liberating-insight) is not far if one practices according to the historical Buddha's instructions. I still wonder how it happened, how it could be that the instructions and descriptions are right there in the sutras, and nearly everyone is missing it, choosing instead their speculative "views" (ditthi), philosophies, and preferences.
  • ALERT: There are actual literally "enlightened" people in the world today, and not all of them are sitting in forests or wearing saffron robes. However improbable this may seem, it should not be held as such. Read the texts. For example, look at the case of Queen Samavati and her ennobled maid.
One piece of advice I did get was that this song helped, for she first attained through in-and-out breathing (anapanasati) meditation. How could a song, any song, help? When one sits there are periods of just sitting before anything happens. One inclines to giving up, taking a break, or completely giving up. She told me she remembered this song, and it pulled her through those times, until the meditation "worked," that is, until what was meant to happen actually happened.

"Just Breathe" (Telepopmusik) Deva music for devas among us -- with Mimzy-like beeps and clicks that inspire ASMR for tranquility (shamatha) over thinking and wanting

What is ASMR? Ira Glass, Andrea Siegel, and Bob Ross explain:

Act Two. A Tribe Called Rest.
TheAmericanLife.org
Ira Glass: Act Two, A Tribe Called Rest. You know, sometimes it can be easy to believe that you are in a tribe of one -- alone there by yourself. Andrea Seigel tells this story about finding out that she is undeniably not alone.
 
Andrea Seigel: In the fourth grade, I had this one friend Mindy. She was okay to hang out with and all. But what was really great about her was that she would always want to see whatever stuff I had in my room. If I sat her down in front of my shell collection, she would delicately go through it one shell at a time. She'd murmur to herself what she liked about each shell, and I'd get this tingling throughout my skull.
 
I know how weird that sounds. But it was like starbursts in my head. Starbursts that open on the crown and then sparkle down at the nape like this warm, glittering water rushing under your scalp.
 
I'd seek this feeling out, starting when I was seven. I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room, and listen to pages being turned. There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her, because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe.

"The Last Mimzy" with "Dwight" as Rainn Wilson amidst swirling, spiraling energy that must be Vril
 
Maybe the "energy" is Vril
I was an anxious kid. I worried about getting homework finished, even back when homework didn't count for anything. But while I was getting this tingling in my head, my anxiety just magically fell away. And afterward, I'd actually feel kind of good for a half hour.
 
Then I found this public access lady on TV who used to show you how to stencil flowers on a wall. She gave me the tingling. I'd also get it watching the late, great Bob Ross teach how to paint mountains on PBS.

Bob Ross: So we have black, blue, crimson, little bit of brown. Now then, barely touch the canvas.
 
How must the devas with their foibles live among more "mortal" humans? (WQ)
 
Andrea Seigel: So there's Bob Ross. And I'm eight and sitting on the carpet in the den, watching him delicately mix paint colors in close up. And I am going into a trance. My jaw kind of goes slack. My eyes are probably a little glassy. And my head is a globe.
 
Bob Ross: Take a little blue and white here -- just mix it together. And once again, flap our little tiny roll of paint.

Andrea Seigel: So as I grew up, I never told my parents about this. Never talked to anybody. I assumed the tingling was an almost pervy way I was miswired. I felt ashamed about it, and all I understood was that I didn't want anyone to know.
 
It became even more extreme as an adult. As a kid I was only allowed to watch a certain amount of television. But once I was old enough to own my own TV, I would stay up until 4:00 am watching home shopping network night after night. Soft-spoken women talked about the jewelry in very detailed, intricate, precious ways, and I loved it. People were confused about why I watched so much home shopping, because I never bought anything.
 
But the starbursts worked as well as an adult as they had as a kid. They calm my anxiety. And calming is important, because I'm still an anxious person. In fact, I'm way worse as an adult -- there's a lot more to be anxious about.

She rose above the devas to be an arya-devi
And I still never told anyone about what was going on inside my head, not even my boyfriend Brent. We've been together for years. We have a kid together. We tell each other everything. I've told him some really horrible, embarrassing things about myself, but I didn't tell him this. Like, I would never turn to him during dinner and ask, so when the fork just delicately pinged against the knife, did you get tingles throughout your brain, too?
 
Lesson? Aspberger's and ASMR can help
A few years ago, I started seeking out this stuff on YouTube. I began with makeup tutorials, because I love to hear the tapping of a brush on a Mac pigment bottle, or the clicking up of an eyeliner pencil. That's how I moved on to this woman named Senada, who does something called haul videos, that's H-A-U-L, which are just her talking about what she bought on a shopping trip. These kind of videos are actually really popular -- there are tons of them. More

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