Noel Fielding and Bob Ross and Brain Bliss and ASMR Fail

{Psst. Skip to The Bottom for the good stuff if you already know what ASMR is.}

As soon as I discovered the ASMR chapter of the Internet, I immediately watched as many videos as I could find for eleven consecutive hours.

I couldn’t resist. Everyone on the Internet promised me that if I watched the videos, hypnotic BRAIN TINGLES would happen.

But alas, it was not so. Eleven hours were wasted and I was left utterly tingleless, not quite ready to accept the fact that ASMR videos don’t work for me.

Fastfoward a few months: one glorious night, I accidentally discovered a recipe for something almost as good as brain tingles—brain bliss.

I’m going to show you how to accomplish this, but first let’s have a pretend conversation where you ask me questions and stuff and I answer and sound super smart while I do it.

Do I have to?

^the large text is you. And no.

Wait. What? What is ASMR?

I can’t believe you waited until now to ask!

Here’s the Wikipedia definition: “Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a neologism [a new word] for a perceptual phenomenon characterized as a distinct, pleasurable tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in response to visual, auditory, olfactory, and/or cognitive stimuli.”

Basically, some sounds, when presented in high definition and played over headphones, give listeners very pleasant chills down their scalp or spine. Often, this sensation is accompanied by a state of extreme relaxation. Some people, myself included, like to call the feeling “brain tingles.”

Uhhh. That sounds… sexual.

It does sound that way, but it’s not like that. It’s supposed to be akin to getting your hair shampooed and your scalp massaged at the hairdresser. It’s a much more innocent version of pleasure, one that many people claim to have experienced in childhood.

The videos usually contain things like matches striking against a matchbox, a young woman whispering into your ears, pretending to give you a haircut, or a fountain pen scratching against paper to form calligraphy.

Some of the most common vehicles for ASMR are clips from the show The Joy of Painting, starring Bob Ross.

If you want to find more videos, the ASMR subreddit has tons of them. You can also search for and discuss various “triggers” that may work for you.

Unfortunately for me, none of the dozens of videos I watched gave me brain tingles. And I really, really wanted them to.

Okay. Let’s do this. Show me how, please please please.

You’re so impatient! You’ve got to read this next part first. It has backstory.

So my gamer friends and I have this tradition on group members’ birthdays where we dedicate an entire thread to linking really weird birthday videos from YouTube.

Like this one:

One time, one of these birthday threads led me to a show called Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy. You probably know Noel Fielding as Old Gregg.

I knew him as Richmond from The IT Crowd.

The Bottom

One thing led to another, and I discovered that if I watch Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy on one monitor, and put Bob Ross videos on the other, and play them simultaneously, my brain becomes 100% stimulated and I reach a state that is essentially the opposite of boredom. It’s like I live most of my life just slightly bored, a little wanting, but watching these two videos fixes that.

In the way that ASMR feels like a pleasant trickle of chills or tingles, “Brain Bliss” is like taking the moment that happens right before you laugh, when you are on the verge of ha-ha-ha, and expanding it indefinitely. It feels like inhaling deeply and never needing to exhale again. And then time passes, and you realize you’ve been doing this for four hours straight.

Okay, young squire. The time has come. Relax, get comfortable, and play these two videos at the same time. I recommend turning down the volume on Bob Ross so that you can hear his speech patterns, but can barely make out what he is saying. Use headphones if you can.