Sensory Underload?

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With social things, obviously I have a limit, and I will shut down when I've had enough. But with sensory things, oftentimes I find myself stimming, not because I'm upset, but because I just need to be stimulated. In fact, I've never once had a meltdown because of physical things, only emotional ones.

Interesting, please tell me more.

One of the reasons I'm confused about my position on the spectrum is that I have no obvious sensory issues. However, I do routinely continue working through hunger, tiredness and chills so I'm wondering if I'm more universally hyposensitive if anything at all.

The reason your post interests me is that although I wouldn't say that I ever stim per say, I do have dancing feet. The less I'm doing, the more my feet/toes dance. It can be conscious or unconscious, but I do enjoy it somehow. Similarly, I tend always to want to have something to watch, something to eat and something to do all at the same time. I'd love to hear more about what it is you're describing.

Sensory seeking rather than sensory avoiding. Being sensory seeking can cause problems too.

Being sensory seeking can occur with being hypersensitive, hyposensitive or just on its own with normal intensity.

But yeah, if you want to read more "sensory seeking" is what to search.

(Sensory seeking being what it sounds like, seeking out more input - http://spdlife.org/symptoms/sensory-seeking.html has symptoms, does this sound like you?)

https://www.facebook.com/autismdiscussi ... tos_stream

Read the Arousal Levels album

Also this album:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

And the posts on the page around Oct 23

I don't think it's that I'm seeking it, necessarily. But I often feel lonely and have a great need to be hugged. But I'm terrible at expressing it, so most of the time I just get really lonely and withdraw.

Totally possible. Research "sensory deprivation" for the extreme end of what happens when your senses don't get enough input. Stay without sensory input for too long, and your brain actually starts to manufacture data in the form of hallucinations. They're not psychotic hallucinations; they seem to be more like the illusory effects you get with synesthesia, migraine auras, and that kind of thing. I've never experienced it but it's been studied.

Looking for that optimum level of stimulation is something all humans do. For those of us with weird sensory systems, it might be a more prominent activity because the optimum range is located in a different place (more or, usually, less stimulation being desirable), or because it's a very narrow range and you're easily overloaded, or such a wide range that you don't notice things you should. Normal variation is pretty wide, too; extroverts have a higher optimum level of stimulation than introverts, for example, and both groups are considered healthy personality types.

I'm curious now. I spend a lot of time smelling and tasting cold air, and touching cold things, or rubbing rough things cus I like the texture. I also am obsessed (read: eat a box a day) of triscuits just because of how they feel in my mouth. I wonder if that could be because of understimulation like you mentioned?

I get like this with touch, as in people touching me. I love being touched, and I want somebody to touch me more. I even crave for a massage all the time.

Last year I got a head-massager for Christmas, one you just push up and down on your head, and when I tried it on my family, they all cringed and didn't like it. But when people did it on me, it did tingle with me too, but I enjoyed it, and told them to do it more.

In regards to tactile input I am definitely a "seeker" as long as it involves textures I like (no wet wood or paper products). In the realm of proprioception, I tend to be this way as well.

i experience something simular, but only mentally, if there is not enough to think about, i dont think at all; this is why i usually make some logiquiz puzzles while watching the news or a movie, purely to keep my mind active enough to work with the input of the screen, if i put down the puzzle, i lose track of the story on tv...