Why are autistics drawn to bodies of water?

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I love the water (my Australian father made sure to take the family to the beach a lot when my brother and I were kids), but I have two autistic friends who are absolutely petrified of large bodies of water, and a third who likes swimming but has a stronger hatred of sand than Anakin Skywalker.

Hmmm.... water. The only chemical that doesn't have an MSDS, yet over the course of history, has proven to be both the deadliest and most destructive.

As for myself and water: I like being on it (think sailboats, canoes, kayaks, etc), but don't particularly care for being in it (think swimming). My aversion to being in water is simply this: I get cold very fast due to having lots of muscle, but very little fat.

More specifically, if, on a hot summer's day, I come to a lake or the ocean, this is usually how it goes:
*gets feet wet* Mmm, lovely. Let's go in a bit farther.
*goes up to his knees* So refreshing. I could stay in this water forever. Wonder if I should go for a swim?
*wades deeper so water's halfway between knees and stomach* Okay, little chilly, but quite tolerable...
*water reaches stomach* Brrr! How is this water around 20C?! Feels like it comes straight from the arctic.
*actually goes swimming* Why, oh why did I think swimming would be a good idea? I didn't sign up for a polar bear dip!

I did nearly drown in a public pool twice when younger, I was under the water for a long time and had no idea what was going on. People had to rescue me.

But I do and since then have enjoyed water and the sea, but when there is no one around as I developed self body image issues and was self conscious.

I enjoy(ed) the sensation of the pure coldness or warmness, when it was sunny, travelling through my body and found it therapeutic, especially the sensation of the waves and the sun light shining. I guess, sensory heaven.

I remember I also dedicated a lot of time in childhood to walk to a nearby puddle that gets deep to jump in it alone and I enjoy the sensation of rain touching my face.

Where I live there is a river near by that is enjoyable to go into as it is quite, peaceful and it is rare that people go there and occasionally there is a seal that pops there head out of the water, similar to the picture below.

I don't know how to say it in English, but a certain distance from the shore there are those floaters that designate the line you can't cross and, as a little kid, I always wanted to cross them and my parents weren't letting me. I also wanted to get to them to see how deep it is which my parents weren't letting me either. And, if there was a lake, I wanted to swim to the opposite shore, which I did a few times, and my parents were upset. More generally I like measuring the depth of water by putting my body vertically and pushing myself down as much as possible to see how far I would go before I fonally touch the bottom. If I see that I went twice or three times my height and still didn't touch the bottom I would give up and go back to the top (going down any further would feel too dangerous) but at least I could say "I tried and I found an answer: I couldn't touch the bottom".

There were parallels to that with the forest. So we lived in Moscow, Russia, and there is a "circular road" that marks the border of Moscow. We lived inside Moscow but close to the northern border. So if we go north, the forest would start, then probably 3 kilometers or do into the forest there would be circular road and then if I cross that road the forest would continue and I have no idea where would it end. Now as a little kid I always wanted to cross the circular road or, better yet, get to the other end of the forest. As far as crossing the circular road my grandma finally agreed to cross it with me -- after I been pleading with her for months. As far as getting to the other end of the forest, this never happened. When I was 14 and I went jogging, I decided to go ahead and try to get on the other side. I crossed that circular road and kept going. But then when it's been a few hours I started to worry my grandma is worried so I changed my mind and decided to come back. But then I ended up coming back to a different part of Moscow. So I sneaked into the metro without a coin (people were supposed to put a coin Inyo machine to use metro but I didn't have it) and cane home. Long story short, I cane home after midnight and my grandma called a police few hours before I came trying to search for me.

In any case, going back to the question about water, there is exact parallel between my fascination with water and my fascination with forest. In case of water I want to go past floaters, in case of forest I want to cross circular road. In case of water I want to go to the other shore, in case of forest I want to go to the other side of the forest. In case of water I want to keep measuring how deep it is and in case of forest I want to see how it looks like.

The commonality between these two interests is that I want to go where most people don't go. You see, swimming where everyone else swims or walking in the parts of the forest where most people walk isn't interesting any more. Yes it is nice, but it is something I can do without. But doing something others don't do is interesting. By the way with food it is similar. For example most people don't drink cream as a beverage. I do, and I like it much better than milk. And with religion it is similar as well. Going to regular Baptist Church feels just plain; but going to Messianic church or Seventh Day Adventist Church is interesting. Although in this case what contributes to this is that I was born Jewish and came to believe in Jesus as an adult so I like churches with Jewish elements such as Saturday Sabbath, dietary laws etc. And in math and physics I am also interested in the areas that are obscure.

Going back to the question posed in this thread, here is the connection between my having Asperger and my liking water. Having Asperger makes me drawn to unconventional things (NTs can't seem to relate to it, they just like following the crowd) and water offers opportunity to do some of these things.

I was drawn to water as a child and had to be prevented from basically killing myself a few times, as I couldn't swim and would want to play in any source of water I found. lmao

I don't really know why I liked water so much. I do know that taking showers and swimming are one of the few things that actually relax me, and that I can partake in without any anxiety or anything.

https://www.cdhfinechemical.com/images/ ... 5-MSDS.pdf
Some of those precautionary measures are interesting - e.g. wash hands after using it, and if you get it in your eye, irrigate with water.

Personally I don't think I'm unusually drawn to bodies of water. I used to love the sea and swimming, like most kids. There's a theory that humans evolved from some aquatic species - I once read that the hairs on our skin point the right way for efficient swimming, unlike other land species. If so, that's enough to explain my feelings about water, without any need to invoke autism theory. I can't speak for others of course.

These days I don't go near the stuff very often, although I don't find the idea unattractive. I don't much like the thought of communal swimming these days, much like I don't like crowds. If I were very rich I'd probably get my own private pool and take a dip every day. I'm sure it's good exercise. I quite like boats. My son likes diving.