wavefreak58 wrote:
willem wrote:
I think this is half of what's going on, the other half being that the world human beings are currently born into really is more intense than the environment that existed during the longest time of human evolution.
I'm not so sure this is the case. I've been in the mountains where there is no visual or auditory evidence of humans. There is a HUGE amount of sensory input there. Many people seem to be oblivious to it but I can get fully absorbed and even overwhelmed by it. Perhaps the difference is that human environments feel chaotic so I prefer the overload of the mountains to that of the city.
I think our autistic troubles aren't caused by amount of sensory input but by number of different inputs which we can't integrate into a single whole.
Trees, birds, one bird that produces a somewhat annoying monotonous screech, sunlit snowy mountain tops, wind, subtle sounds of leaves stirred up, sore feet, needing sunglasses, distant sound of water hitting rock, the shape of an odd branch, wanting to make pictures -- I don't have serious trouble experiencing these things more or less simultaneously without getting overwhelmed. Fully absorbed, sure, but that's a good thing.
On the other hand: such people-free locations being hard to find, strangers talking to me and/or crossing my boundaries, car breaking down, a plethora of mechanical noise, when to pay which bills, parents projecting their social ambitions onto their kids, frequently not being able to find back one of the way too many things I own and am supposed to keep track of, smoking myself to death due to anxiety, a myriad of reported unrelated little news events, lies, gossip and superficial appearances, immense amounts of unpredictable aggression between human individuals and collectives, no one really having a clue what humanity as a whole is doing and where it is heading because the human world is fragmented into countless bits and pieces. Why aren't more people overwhelmed by this? Because they lock themselves up into a little bubble, blocking out everything that doesn't fit into their bubble. Autistics can't do that permanently, only temporarily by focusing on a particular subject of interest.
This is how I have tried to explain it to others in my life on many occasion.
There is so much going on, and my focus is on all of it. But not all of it in the sense of a whole, but on each constituant piece. And the sheer magnitude of everything can be overwhelming. It's all too potent. Even the good/nice/beautiful is overwhelming and causes me to be lost in awe/transfixed.
I stay indoors sequestered whenever possible, I'm nocturnal to avoid the intensity of daylight. Sounds drown out one another in a cacophonic roar that multiplies and crests to intolerable levels. The more contributors to these senses the more chaotic and overwhelming it becomes. It certainly doesn't help that I feel and/or see many types of sounds on top of hearing them.
I've been told that this explaination makes no sense though. That I like to listen to (bad) music at a loud volume. But, I don't think that is contradictory at all. The sheer force of the music obliterates the sense of everything else altogether so that all there is is the music. It's the closest to inner tranquility I've found. To get lost in the sight, feel and sound of music.
this is exactly how I experience world, you even put this into words in familiar way
btw. here is the whole
19 May 2011, 12:23 pm
