Wandering

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I sometimes do something similar with walking. I was in a new town, about 40,000 people, no bad area to the best of my knowledge, late morning.

I walked down a road I was curious about. It hit another road. Gee, how could I hit another major road I was unfamilar with?

And about eight minutes later, I realized this second road was a road I was already familiar with. It was kind of neat!

Depressive episodes and alcohol make me especially prone to wander off. On almost all occasions it was at nighttime as well. I'm not sure why, but it's a dangerous habit. Thankfully, I haven't done this in a while.

My whole childhood was spent wandering or exploring as I liked to think of it. I had plenty of woodland and a creek to explore. Luckily, I didn't drown. In public if I saw something that interested me I took it upon myself to go examine it closer. My mother was often angry when she finally found me.

I still seem to wander in my head and in my physical surroundings.

I never wandered. Wandering implies aimlessness. I went exploring. I had a purpose to my movement, which was to discover new places. Also I never forgot how to get back to where I started from, which is kind of important when you're a kid. My parents knew I had a great sense of direction (but lousy memory for street names) and my city's always been pretty safe for kids, so they were mostly glad I was outside and doing something other than reading the encyclopedia in my room.

"Wandering in your head" is interesting. I hadn't thought about it that way, but my daydreaming has a lot of it.

Oh man... I wandered off all the time. My Mother called the police to find me more than once. She said I was the most independent little cus.... Huh.

My Aspie daughter did the same thing. I actually put that one on a leash. My NT daughter not at all. Now it all makese sense....

I only had the police called on me once, thankfully.



Interesting! I wonder what it is that prompts us to wander, and why NTs don't do it so much.

It might be lack of fear for external dangers combined with a natural curiosity and lower inhibitions about doing what we want to. Most NT children get that fear of wandering too far from their parents/home instilled in them at such an early age, even NT toddlers crawling on the floor exploring won't go too far from their parents.

I don't know... I remember my Aspie kid always just seemed to be in a different world. She never seemed to be with anyone. I imagine I was exactly like her. "Spacey" was what we called her. In fact I KNOW I was like her. I used to just sit and watch ants or spiders for hours and hours.

I still like to wander. I can spend a whole weekend hiking or a day driving aimlessly... just exploring and experiencing.

I remember after one of my expeditions hearing this story about a child that wandered too far, met a stranger who invited him inside and then cut off his leg and ate it, and then he managed to somehow get home and never wandered again. I am sure this was supposed to discourage me, but I didn't find random cannibals to be all that plausible.



I used to watch ants too, and caterpillars. I once had like a dozen caterpillars in a big jar in my room because I loved them so much. Unfortunately, no one explained to me that when they came out of their cocoons they'd be moths and thus needed to be released... and then I developed a phobia because I opened the jar and got a face full of them.

I really like to wander, although I have fewer opportunities nowadays. Walking somewhere alone used to be a daily or near-daily habit, and I usually used the time to clear my brain of random thoughts, although there would also be a lot of daydreaming as well.

Ooh yes, ants. Endlessly fascinating, and I knew exactly where the best nests were for miles around.
And spiders - especially when one was busy making a new web.

You know what's fascinating?

Seeing a web with hatched baby spiders. That is amazing. I've only ever seen one, but I had never seen anything like it before.

I recall wandering all the time when i was a kid. one time I was taken to the store as a kid, my wandering got me a trip to the hospital for stitches once :p I also love water, but have the sense to... you know, not drown.

I would say the cognitive ability to perceive the danger of drowning. I'm not sure that "sense" accurately describes what's going on and what differentiates you from an autistic person who does drown (link) while wandering.

Yeah, seen that and it is amazing. I remember sitting in a garden once watching a spider ambling along with its back completely coated in a whole mass of baby spiders. They were all moving around too, and not just passive passengers.

I've just remembered what my parents did when we moved to our first 'real' house (it was an apartment until then), when I was around 4 years old.
My father refitted all the door handles so instead of pushing down on the handle to open the door, they had to be pulled up. I wasn't quite tall enough to manage that, but pulling down on them was easy enough.
Guess I must have wandered more than I remember now.