Hyper-awareness?

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It reminds me of the episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye had claustrophobia (which had never been mentioned before and was never mentioned again). He was describing how he felt and said to somebody, "you don't feel it, do you?"

Sometimes I look at the people around me and marvel how they seem quite oblivious to the things that are driving me mad.

Hyper-vigilance and hyper-sensitivity/awareness, for me, are very closely linked and the lines often blur.

I, like many others, have always been at the mercy of loud noise and light which has at times been very difficult; and on a number of occasions quite scary. This has led me to be really conscious of my environment and aware of 'threats' to my peace of mind and balance. At those times, it is hard to tell the different and they feed into each other! the more I worry about how loud it may be, knowing it will be painful and unpleasant, then the more loud it seems to be when I get there... self-fulfilling prophecy I suppose?

I am also sensitive to something that is very hard to describe or quantify, and that is what I call the 'vibe' of a place. Some environments just seem to be uncomfortable somehow, they feel oppressive or weird - I know this makes me sound a bit flaky, but I do get these feelings/sensations as a palpable, physical thing. Like some people who are 'psychic vampires' and suck the energy out of you if you let them, well I get the same sort of sensitivity to spaces or environments too.

But to the OP, Nyxjord, no, sadly you are not alone but maybe that can bring some cold comfort?

Thanks for the responses, everyone! I really appreciate all your insights. I've been thinking about what you all said and it seems to me that I am aware of everything that happens in my surroundings but I am not surveying my surroundings for threats.. and the only time I am on the defense or scared is when I hear a loud noise (like a motorcycle or something that startles me).. so yeah, I am just constantly aware of every single thing in my immediate area. So I would say it's sensory issues in my case, rather than hyper-vigilance

Yes its apart of the spectrum as i am in the middle of the spectrum i have my brain upgraded about 30-40% upgraded in each sector of my brain my senses have increased about 30% so my sight is faster my hearings stronger, there are numerous things different about people on the spectrum each level is different as ASD is different for anybody who has it because the spectrums different in each level.

from what i've learned about ASD and a normal human we use about 30% of our brain capacity
but for a standard human they use around 20% of there brains capacity

I experience this as well. Its the same sense used for psychometry. I've had some fascinating experiences holding objects that were personal or meaningful to other individuals and describing the visual images that come to mind. The descriptions have invariably been immediately recognizable to the other individual as places, people or events connected to their past.

I haven't really found a practical use for it, but its an interesting phenomenon (I know there have been instances in which some people have assisted in crime solving with it, but its not usable as evidence in court).

OTOH, there are places I have gone that were so deeply infused with negative emotion that I couldn't stay there without having an anxiety attack. One of them was an old jail, where prisoners were held while awaiting hanging. Another was a very old hotel that used to be a hospital. Beautiful decor, horrible atmosphere. Like staying in the Overlook, from The Shining.

I get this too.

Plus also the regular kind of sensory overload where it feels like I hear and see everything and sometimes wish I didn't notice things so much.

What do you mean "i have my brain upgraded about 30-40% upgraded"????

How?
How was this measured?

Who taught you this?

I learned this my self my cerebral cortex is slightly upgraded a boost if you will which helps improve things that others may or may not be able to do

I feel like I'm less aware but that's because I'm too much in my own world by zoning out & daydreaming.

thats the imagination created by ASD the beautifullest place you can ever be i can tap into my imagination but i have actually only ever been there once at school they teached me away to meditate i lost my self i literally left my body left the school and beyond but i discovered that it was my imagination it allowed me in away from school and all the bullying i was finally say for the 10 mins i was in there haha my tutor was worried id would be unable to return i was so week coming out of it my nose was even bleeding like as if i damaged a blood vessel in my head.

hello...nice to meet you..

I'm newbie here..

just want to give reccomendation.

hereby I want to give you some advice. I hope this can help you.
this is about "language". you can change that role and "language".
I know habit, characters, its something that hard to change, even impossible.
control your mind, and feeling. be Relax. Believe your heart, and stay calm and relax. maybe you think about what people think about you, about anything bad event that will be happen, worry about the future. Hereby I want to say, that is Choice. maybe something happen in our childhood that was made our brains to be dominant. How to be live out from our mind that deceit us? just BELIEVE, believe anything bad situation, I'm ready. we don't need to think a lot about that. because worry make our brain be dominant.
yes, this therapy is not as easy when we do that. I understand that.


I wish you understand what I wrote. I wish this can help you.

If you need more talk, feel free to inbox me.

thank you

I'm very much that way with physical irritation and sound. I'm sure there's an autism textbook somewhere that says we're uncomfortable in our own bodies. They got that right.

I also have the hypervigilance problem going on, I can get very preoccupied with perceived dangers, but like somebody else said already, that's a different thing.

I don't have it all the time, but quite often. I hear sounds louder than other people and I see light brighter. The street lights at night hurt my eyes, and I'd be quite happy to wear shades to walk to the shop at 10pm.

I think that part of being NT is that you don't feel the full barrage of your senses most of the time. I notice the way that people who do watch tv, nearly always have it at a level volume wise, as if they were deaf, and they're not.

One thing that really annoys me, is when I watch an audio tutorial on youtube or wherever, and they are teaching you how to EQ a guitar or a vocal or something, and the idiots have ******** background music going on! Like 'coca cola - we are the new young generation stepford wives' type music.Whilst they are doing critical tonal adjustments. Now, if that doesn't spell out 'not quite right in the head', then I don't know what does. And they call us 'mentalists'...

Anyone with a half functioning brain would be able to see the problem with that scenario, whether they are a pro record producer or not. That's just one example, albeit a trivial one.

I did notice, however, the other day in the Doctor's surgery, when I happened to gate crash a maternity clinic or something, I don't know, lot's of babies and mothers, anyway, they were screaming and screaming and screaming. Somehow, I found that I could adjust and cope with it better than the other NT people. They were squirming, fidgeting, pulling faces and moving around in their seats, very uncomfortable. I did find it a bit annoying, but I was probably the calmest person in there. I just thought to myself 'suck it up NTs - this is what I have to cope with a large amount of the time'. That sounds a bit mean, but maybe you know what I mean. I didn't mind the little buggers crying to be honest, but it was funny to see some of the other people (mothers included) with blatant discomfort that they just could not hide. Then again, that is probably how I look to NT people some of the time and they think 'what's up with him?'.

I'm not deep along the spectrum, quite mild really I suppose, but it's good to know that your coping mechanisms do work and they can come into play at crucial times like that. Then again, I was just about to find out whether I had cancer or not from a recent test, so maybe my mind was on the higher things in life.

Being a music producer, I actually like to give the music a good blast now and again, but my ears are super critical to any rogue frequencies, which is what makes me such a good audio engineer as well. I couldn't cope with having it blasted at high volume for any great length of time though, no matter how pristine the recording.

I won't even start going off on one how most sites use bright backgrounds that actually harm your vision if you spend any serious amount of time looking at them. Being a student of gui design myself, I'm perfectly aware of how differently any two random people perceive the world, be it light, sound, taking offense...

I too have a very critical ear for pitch, but it's a double-edged sword. My results are always "good," but I spend hours smoothing out "faults" that nobody else gives a damn about. I used to know a piano tuner whose work was excellent - all he needed was a tuning fork - but he couldn't enjoy the music of fixed-pitch instruments, because those instruments pretty much have to be tuned to the equally-tempered scale, and you need the scale of just intonation for perfect results. Hyper-awareness has its problems.