ASMR (OR "ENTINGLEMENT")

After several years of service, it was noticed that all of the first generation of the DMRI’s undercover literary agents were experiencers of ASMR or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, the mysterious phenomenon experienced by a small but lucky minority of people who feel a pleasurable tingling sensation in response to a variety of sensory triggers. This apparent coincidence opened up new communication channels which have played an important role in the DMRI’s operations ever since.

Instead of greeting one another with secret handshakes and the like, undercover agents can establish connections and communicate crucial information about their missions via actions that seem completely innocuous to other people. No amount of linguistic analysis can shed light on the hidden meaning contained in a sentence when it is used as a carrier for a secret message between DMRI/ASMR agents. This is because a softly spoken voice or the smacking of lips during speech, or the sound of fingers running over a crumpled piece of paper on which a red-herring memo is written, can ensure that the medium is the message (and, as the euphoric tingles begin seeping down the head and neck, that the medium is also the massage). Even if someone suspects that something important is being passed on via an ASMR “secret handshake”, the only way to intercept it is to experience it, which is impossible unless an altruistic bond is established with the agents.

The ability of ASMR to provide a form of communication that is completely separate from language is seen as hugely significant by all dark meaning researchers. The substance of the inexplicable experience is pure euphoria, pure meaning and pure Gorgeousness. As it seeps down from the brain and fills the body with bright colour, the sensation is nothing but the meaning of itself, the previously dark substance between living beings seen and felt for the first time instead of being read or thought.

As well as using ASMR as a tool, the DMRI is working on the assumption that the phenomenon points the way out of language, to a bright, warm and fuzzy future for all human beings, and is therefore attempting to study it in more detail. The tingles currently being experienced by people all over the planet are the first few drops of Gorgeousness entering our lives, and the DMRI intends to increase the flow as much as possible.