I Went to an ASMR Spa

“We always begin with a candle contemplation.”

I’m sitting on a futon in a stranger’s apartment with my friend Ashley. In front of us, Melinda Lauw—a slender, wide-eyed Singaporean woman—is crouched in a squat, holding a small flickering candle, and tapping lightly on its glass container. Behind her, a jury-rigged shower curtain doesn’t quite separate the nook we are in from the rest of the apartment. She directs us to blow lightly on the flame, to notice how it moves; her accented voice is soft and kind.

It is a jarring transition to this moment, from the eager introductions made when we arrived, and the awkward small talk in the hallway while Ashley and I took turns using the apartment’s bathroom. I’m now supposed to shed the trappings of politeness, the armor of peppy extraversion that protects me during interactions with strangers. I’m supposed to be small and quiet and vulnerable now, to exist in subtle shades instead of broad strokes. I am supposed to contemplate the candle.

We are at Whisperlodge, which is not really a place so much as an idea—“an ASMR spa for the senses,” the website proclaims. But it’s not a spa, not really. It doesn’t have a permanent location. It’s more of a spa-themed art project, with occasional pop-up performances, by Melinda and her collaborator Andrew Hoepfner, both artists.

ASMR stands for “autonomous sensory meridian response,” the pseudoscientific name coined by the internet to describe a certain feeling. It’s