Listening to every conversation around at once

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This happens to me all the time. Listening to music on your headphones can help.......depending on the headphones.

thats why i wear ear defenders all the time, howard leight l1/l2 , silencio.

I don't mind restaurants when I'm eating alone, it's when I'm eating with someone else and expected to make conversation it's a bit of a problem . I am OK alone, I tend to read something to keep myself occupied or distracted. Menus, news papers, nutritional information charts etc. Or count diners, estimate covers per hour, turnover etc.

Jason

Yes, what I experience is my focus jumping from one place to the next at high speed and I end up with snippets from each in trying to keep up. Seems to be a mix of sensory overload/executive function deficiency, adderall helps a lot with maintaining focus.

Yes, I have this problem too.
The last time was three days ago, there were three people at the table, they were family, talking, discussing and I get into a shutdown, because my brains cannot process noise from different sources, it gets very hurtful and I get totally confused and lost and anxious, because my body reacts with stress and anxiety on it.

My hearing has become stereoscopic.
When I am talking to someone and the radio is playing and the television is blaring - my mind wants to listen to all three at the same time and I end up not hearing what the person who was talking to me was saying.

I end up having to turn off the radio, turn down the television and ask them to choose if they want to talk to me or not because I can't do several things at the same time.

Most people are so used to working in noise that they don't pay any attention to the sounds around them when they are talking, or they just talk to be heard and they do not care to hear what your reply is and so they just have all these things going at the same time.

Living in my own home, by myself - I don't have to worry about it so much because I can do as I please.
But even just trying to type while listening to the radio, while the television is on gets frustrating because I loose my train of thought and I cannot compose what I want to say.

This happens to me quite often. I prefer to talk to people in quiet places because I can't focus. A month or so ago it was really bad... I was in my Photography class, but class hadn't started yet and EVERYONE was talking. I felt like I had to listen to everything all at once and I was already really anxious, so I got even more anxious and started to feel sick and get really warm. Thankfully the teacher got there and everyone stopped talking and we shut the lights off to look at photos.

check.

Yes... I despise it. I really, really do. Especially when I'm trying my absolute best to listen to one person in particular. I feel like I have a thousand voices speaking to me at once; I can't even hear the person over everyone else, even if all of the background noise is far off. *Siiiigh* This happened today and I just nodded and said "uh-huh," since I had NO idea what they said. I also use "Oh, that's cool" when I can't hear the person.

Haha - "Oh that's cooL" - I do the same thing but slightly differently. I just nod. If I respond with words, then that might confuse things.

All this time I thought I was the only one experiencing over-stimulation of sound.

I'm kinda amazed by hearing thousands of conversations but, I'm also scared of it to. I don't experience it. I have excessise NT dis.

I think I could hear three to four conversations but I couldn't keep up with them for very long. Beyond, 5-10 feet, people's words become background noise but within that radius of five feet, the words come crisply as words although some words take a second to recognize (i.e. sound first then word).

If I want to have a conservation and I'm in a noise (especially conversational noise) laden environement, I can get confused and must concentrate myself really hard in order to understand only one conversation properly. My mind can't decide where to focus itself straight away, it takes time. It reminds me a little bit of focus adjustment with camera lenses....and it reminds me of this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkxkGuGSoXw[/youtube]

Once upon a time I took Gabapentin for something unrelated (I think at least). And while on this medication found that my ability to tune in to the right frequency of a conversation was easy. Much like turning the dial on a tuner. It somehow seemed to temporarily grant me a few weeks of experience that I could only describe as NT like in this regard. It didn't much help with any other sensory issues whatsoever, nor was I taking it for this specifically either.

Side note... Anyone who experiences this conversational difficulty also experience higher than typical difficulty discerning the words to lyrics in music? I generally have some trouble with that as well.

Interesting to read the experience of someone without this problem
Just figured out you didnt mean thousands in the literal sense...

Sorry cogs, yea I didn't mean thousands in the literal sense. I was sitting in a circle with friends in the computer area. There's a lot of students and LOTS of noise, conversation and socialization in the area. I'd estimate 30 conversations in a 100 foot radius, but I'm not 100% sure of the number. My mind jumped to about 3-4 conversations in a five to ten foot radius. I asked my buddy sitting next to me if he does that too. He said 'yea. Of course.' We discussed this. I'm fairly certain that he's NT as well as I am because of his effortless socialization and from a probability standpoint.

Yes I can definitely relate to what you are saying and when two or more groups of people are having conversations it can become distracting to focus on one conversation.