Seeing Life as a Movie

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I don't know about you, but is it an autistic thing to see life as a movie?
Like, whenever I'm on a date, things change. I become an entirely different person, like a character from a TV Show or Movie. I see things differently like, I'm seeing myself and the person I'm with like I'm watching a movie, I say things that are intentionally vague like a mysterious anime character. I even hear background music playing in my head.
Its not just dates, sometimes when im with a friend too, or even on the internet on IM.
This one guy I dated seemed to be like this too, he held my arm and said some vague things like I did and also seemed to enjoy long silences while he was holding my arm., he had Aspergers syndrome, so I am wondering if this is a trait that most people have who are on the spectrum.
Like right now, I'm imagining that I am saying this to a group of people as if I was a teacher explaining this to a group of students.

yes. Me and my brother have talked about this. We always felt like we were just meant to watch life take place rather than take an active role in it, like we didn't have the lines for our characters or something.

I don't think it's an 'autistic' thing, but it is a thing. If we watch a lot of tv or movies, we tend to see life in those terms. So if you go on a date, your mind summons it's "How to have a date" file containing scenes from Ross and Rachel's date on 'Friends' or that movie with that guy who's name you can't remember. It's largely unconscious, so you don't think, "OK, now I'll pull out the chair for her to sit down like Ted did in "How I Met Your Mother," but you might remember to do it because from what you've seen (on TV) it's what you're supposed to do.

I tend to repeat lines from shows in my head. Sometimes I imagine myself having conversations with characters and playing an active role in their lives.

Life seems very much like a movie to me sometimes.

If I am tired, for example. It seems fuzzy, not very real.

And if I am socializing, or being "forced" to be someone who I am not, then it feels really like a movie. That's what makes me most disgusted, when I don't feel like I'm a real person anymore, because I'm acting out what others expect me to do.

And, in agreement with Iloveshoujoai, I too feel like I was meant to watch life, not take a part in it. I'm guessing it's because I grew up watching a lot of television instead of actively participating in life.

But then again, did TV cause me to be this way, or did I really like TV because it gave me an outlet for what I already felt inside?

I don't know if it's an actual autistic thing, but I definitely experience it all the time and I have Asperger's Syndrome. I haven't talked to anyone about this so I have no idea if NTs do it.

Yes.

And if I'm really stressed it looks like a video game.

Yes. Only life is more fustrating because the camera doesn't show you what you're supposed to be looking at.

Imagine our hunter and gatherer ancestors sitting in the woods, spending hours in front of a TV watching other hunters and gatherers successfully hunting and successfully gathering berries. Their brain adapts to vicarious input, and they gain the belief that hunting and gathering is fairly structured and predictable.

They go out into the wild and find evidence that it's not as predicatable as what they saw on TV, but keep expecting it to be because that was what they were used to seeing on TV.

Also, if they watch too much TV, it's likely they will starve because there are no grocery stores.

I think this plays a part in everyones life that grows up watching TV; however while TV in the past sugar coated life, TV of the present makes life seem more unpredictable than it is in the reality of our own lives. That can lead to unrealistic expectations and unrealistic fears. Our brains adapt to whatever we expose them to, and the brain expects the future to be based on what it has experienced in the past.

With all the electronic devices that we expose our brain to on a daily basis, there is a lot of "neuroplasticity" or rewiring going on in the brain to adapt. While there is no evidence it causes autism or aspergers it's changing everyone's brain that engage in it. That's not an indictment of the activity, it's just the way science has come to understand the way our brains work. All of it has the potential to desensitize the human empathy response, increase anxiety, and increase unrealistic expectations.

Fifty or sixty years from now, studies may show all this greatly increases the chances of insanity, but from now until then we might as well continue enjoying it, because as far as I know, no one knows the long term effects all of this will have on us, other than our brains are indeed changing as a result of it, within the course of a lifetime.

I see it as more like an RPG of some sort. Except for when I go to see some guy for information on how to complete my quest, I don't have conversation suggestions.

And the only problem is, I'm not sure how to win. Usually there's several story paths for an RPG which all lead up to an epic ending, but in real life the choices and possibilities are infinite. It makes it both more interesting and difficult.

And I have my own background music too. I hear this in my head every time I put the trash out at the end of the road.

Funny u should mention this, because ever since I was little I always though my life was a movie and people were watching me and my life on the big screen LOL!

My mother didn't watch TV until she was in her twenties, and doesn't think like this at all; she is far from Autistic. I wonder how much it impacts the condition from a young age. I didn't learn to talk until age 4 without a TV set. We didn't get one until I was 7 years old. All we did in my family was socially interact before age 7, face to face board games, ping pong, outside play with the neighborhood kids; there just wasn't much to do inside or outside for entertainment that didn't include people.

I'm wondering what kind of difference it might have made, If I participated vicariously with the TV, more than humans during that period of life from age 4 to 7. It seems like it could make a difference, just based on common sense. We don't talk to the TV when we watch it, I guess we can learn quite bit from whatever example it presents, but I'm not sure that children get to practice the skills like they used to in face to face interaction.

The people that we see walking around in their 70's didn't grow up with TV, in fact it wasn't very common for a household to have one until the late 50's. I guess soon there won't be many people in the country that weren't heavily exposed to electronic media in their youth. Different brains lie ahead for many, I think, in the coming decades.

I don't think it's an autistic thing, I know plenty of NTs who act like this (at least I think they do).