Do you remember obsessive interests as a child?

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Oh yeah. I've been a serial obsessionist, but I can see them back to age 5.

God

When I was very young (e.g. starting around 3 or 4), I was interested in trains (quite normal for the spectrum, and it continues that to this day, as my avatar shows), and tunnels (even better when we went on a train and it went through a tunnel), and for a little while, the workings of the human body (I used to get lots of books about it at the library)

As a little kid, it was anything Science, kind of broad, but yeah, I got so enthusiastic about it. Also when I was really little instead of playing with the other kids, I would look for pretty rocks. Then when I got home, it was looking for the white rocks in the gravel driveway and putting them in a pile next to the house.

Then in junior high, it was BIRDS and I still have that interest strongly. I was the kid that carried around a bird field guide, drew birds on everything and the chalkboards, tried to make assignments about birds (or nature, I do remember doing a project on cranberries). Stuff like that.

I was obsessed about: Peral harbor, Titanic, and other things like that. I don't remember much of them. Now I am obseesed about Who would win in a fight vs who battles.

Many - watches, clocks, old radios, steam engines, palaeontology etc.
One of the more intense was maps - I'd draw detailed maps of imaginary small towns and "live" in them. No people: just me and perfect street alignments.

Yup. Still have them three/four decades later...

Mythology/ world religions - began with Ray Harryhausen movies...
Science fiction/ mythic iconography - began with War of the Worlds, Star Trek, Doctor Who (<3 u Tom Baker!), Them, Star Wars, Alien, Star Blazers, Astro Boy
Horror/ psychology of fear - Dr. Shock, Night of the Living Dead, several Vincent Price movies, Toby Hooper, Evil Dead

(Not diagnosed.) Animals and insects, as far back as I can remember. I can only remember some of my more specific ones showing up when I was around 7 or 8. I had some really repetetive behaviors around my interest in pirates when I was 8. I would draw and redraw the same treasure map, sometimes on a daily basis. Sometimes it would go away, sometimes it would come back again. This went on until I was about 11 or 12. Girls my age were arleady dating and into adult things, and I was still drawing pirate maps. Also I liked making up lists of things. Still do. Apparently that's a common one for autistics.

At the time these things seem normal to you, as of the some posters mentioned.
Funnily, the ones in the links were O.K. to me at the time and it didn't trigger any unusual suspicions until I read about Aspergers.
I casually passed it off as being eccentric. I don't think so though. They are unusual and don't fit anything.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2988288.html#2988288
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2248736.html#2248736

At first I thought, "Heck, no! That's not me...maybe I'm not really an aspie, because I never had obsessive interests!"

But now that I think of it, I drew...ALL the time. Always the same stuff: ladies in intricate, beaded dresses that I did in great detail.

And then came snakes. We had studied them in G/T class in 2nd or 3rd grade, and I became an enthusiast/encyclopedia of sorts. I even acquired a large collection of stuffed snakes and always requested a new one for Christmas, my birthday, etc. In the 5th grade, we had made a large wall decoration with our names and what we wanted to be when we grew up. I had written "herpetologist"

I don't recall too many more interests that I really delved into; the most recent ones are cat breeds and genetics. I say this after having spent a good amount of time learning about apple varieties this morning...haha

I had kind of a weird childhood timeline of special interests. As a toddler/preschooler, I had clear-cut obsessive interests. But from middle to late childhood (ages 6-11), I didn't have any stereotypical special interests. But at age 12, I developed my first "rambling/monologue-giving" special interest, and that is the type that I have developed ever since.

My first special interests started around 18 months of age, with Garfield, Full House, and road signs. Pink Panther replaced Garfield when I was about 3, and that obsession lasted until age 5 or so. Science has always been fascinating to me, and I was interested in the human body and organs from as early as age 3. Obstetrics/pregnancy was an unusual special interest that lasted from ages 4-5.

But from ages 6-11, my special interests are harder to define. The only one that stands out is Archie comic books. I collected them during that time, and I had over 700 at one point. I used to read them all the time and line them up and count them periodically. I was also very into Barbie dolls, and I had probably 100 or so. I used to line them up, too. Science continued to be with me, and anatomy/physiology continued to be my favorite area of science. But that's about it.

Then, at age 12, I became "Aspie obsessed" with Cedar Point and roller coaster statistics, and nobody could question my AS diagnosis at that point.

I remember spending hours just about every day sorting sports cards. I was given a large collection of junk cards by my cousins and I didn't care about sports at all. I did like sorting them by team and then alphabetically by name, then when that was finished I would sort them by set and card number. Then I would put them in the plastic sheets to put them in binders only to take them out in a day or two and resort them some other way.

I didn't care about any teams or players or even any specific sports. Player statistics meant nothing to me, but the feel of the cards and the organization of them was all I cared about. Later that interest scooted me into a bit of computer programming as I decided I needed to catalog what cards I had and information about them including price. So I learned to use some of the early database programs and spent hours in the evening typing card info into the computer.

All this lasted a couple of yearss. Yeah definitely a obsessive interest there.

Oh God, yes, of course I remember them!

From age 9-11 or so I was obsessed with the movie "Willow." This is the first real special interest I can remember. Before that...I don't know.

Anyway, in my school pencil box I wrote all of the characters' names. On days off I had to watch the movie and I kept a tally in my head of how many times I saw it (it got up to 40). I somehow acquired these LucasFilm Fan Club magazines and special "Willow"-related issues of sci-fi magazines. I had "Willow" stickers and an Industrial Light and Magic T-shirt, which I ordered out of the back of one of the LucasFilm Fan Club magazines. I even attempted making my own Sorsha Halloween costume, which didn't get finished on time. I can remember the jagged edge of that cardboard sword I made and covered in aluminum foil.

This special interest branched out to include Joanne Whalley, who played Sorsha. I was in love with her and had to see every movie of hers I could (which was not very many in the US). I can still remember going to Blockbuster at 11 and looking at the cover of "Scandal" and thinking "WOOOOOOOOOWWWW." I don't know how I talked my mom into letting me rent it. After that I became interested in the Profumo scandal, which "Scandal" was based on and I bought a bunch of books about Christine Keeler.

Yeah, I can remember all of this in great detail! Oh, and I am a girl