correlation between autism and ectotonia

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Read this:

http://www.innerexplorations.com/catpsy/t1c4.htm

Anyone else thinks that ectotonia seems to correlate with autism?

Especially read this and compare to characteristics, physical and mental, of the endotonic and mesotonic:

quote

The outstanding characteristic of the ectotonic is his finely-tuned receptive system. His spread-out body acts like a giant antenna picking up all sorts of inputs. Sheldon calls the ectotonic a biologically extraverted organism, which is compensated for by psychological introversion. Since the whole organism is sensitive to stimulation, the ectotonic develops a series of characteristic strategies by which he tries to cut down on it. He is like a sonar operator who must constantly be wary of a sudden loud noise breaking in on the delicate sounds he is trying to trace. He likes to cross his legs and curl up as if he is trying to minimize his exposure to the exterior world. He tries to avoid making noise and being subjected to it. He shrinks from crowds and large groups of people and likes small, protected places.

The ectotonic suffers from a quick onset of hunger and a quick satiation of it. He is drawn to a high protein, high calorie diet, with frequent snacking to match his small digestive system. He has a nervous stomach and bowels. He is a quiet sleeper, but a light one, and he is often plagued by insomnia. He tends to sleep on one side with his legs drawn up, and his sleep, though slow in coming, can be hard to shake off. His energy level is low, while his reactions are fast he suffers from a quasi-chronic fatigue and must protect himself from the temptation to exercise heavily. His blood pressure is usually low and his respiration shallow and rapid with a fast and weak pulse. His temperature is elevated slightly above normal and it rises rapidly at the onset of illness. The ectotonic is resistant to many major diseases, but suffers excessively from insect bites and skin rashes. Unfortunately he can succumb to acute streptococcal infections of the throat which cause swelling and strangulation. His hypersensitivity leads not only to quick physical reactions but to excessively fast social reactions as well. It is difficult for this type to keep pace with slow-moving social chit-chat. He races ahead and trips over his own social feet.

Just as the endotonic loves to eat and the mesotonic loves action, the ectotonic loves privacy, and intellectual or mental stimulation. He needs shelter from excessive stimulation and time to sort out the inputs he has received, and connect them up with his own inner subjective experience, which he values highly. Self-awareness is a principle trait of ectotonia. The feelings of the ectotonic are not on display, even though they can be very strong, and so he is sometimes accused of not having any. When they are in a situation of dealing with someone who has authority over them or with someone of the opposite sex whom they are interested in, they often make a poor first impression. They are uncomfortable in coping with social situations where overt expressions of sympathy are called for or where general idle conversation is the norm, for example in parties and dinners where they have no intimate acquaintances.

The ectotonics are hypersensitive to pain because they anticipate it and have a lower pain threshold as well. They do not project their voices like the mesotonics, but focus it to reach only the person they are addressing. They appear younger than their age and often wear an alert, intent expression. They have a late adolescence, consider the latter part of life the best, and are future-oriented. The more extreme ectotonics have a distaste for alcohol and their accentuated consciousness fights alcohol, drugs, anaesthesia and is resistant to hypnosis. They can readily with their dream life and often rich fantasy life. When they become troubled they seek privacy and solitude in order to try to work out the difficulty.

end quote

And look at the face of that man above the text I quoted. Looks familiar? lol

OP: Good post, thanks for posting something so interesting.

I want to concentrate on this part in particular.

I find this very interesting as I have extremely high self awareness - this in particular is what makes me stand out as being different from other people. (I also relate to most other of the listed descriptions associated with ectotonia)

It has long confused me that, contrary to the hypothesis posted, ASD is often associated with low self awareness. For example, if you look at the Wikipedia page on "self awareness", autism is mentioned as being possibly exacerbated/caused by low self awareness.

I am very suspicious that there are in fact two distinct types of Asperger syndrome. One which very exactly mirrors the description of ectotonia that you posted, and one that is something else entirely. I think that possibly - judging by the experience I have had with A.S. type people - the latter type is in fact more common.

fascinating

Thanks. I find that thing with the self awareness very interesting too. That relates to various subjects I have been researching lately. For example I have been reading about Kabbalah and it says that the ego grows and grows as a person evolves spiritually. I talked about that on this forum and people didn't think it was right. I think this about self awareness might be related. The psychiatrist and others don't necessarily view things from our frame of reference/perspective/dimension. That is similar to how a Muslim views a Jew and how a Jew views himself, or how a Jew views a Muslim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bCJOscgCc0

http://laitman.com/2008/09/the-conseque ... ms-growth/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0drT_L4G8w8

I think this is related to how Satan is Lucifer, the light bearer, i.e. evil is enlightenment. And how there is a fine line between madness and genius. When you clash with your outer world you see it in a different light than when you are in harmony with it. The system around you will judge you in one way, for example the psychiatrist might say you have low self awareness, or are not in close contact with your emotions. But anything he sees of you is what has passed through his filters. And before it passed through those it passed through your filters where consciousness translates into outgoing information. He's not seeing your consciousness. So he can't really know who you are, he can only judge according to his own frame of reference. And I think this is key to what autism is all about. It is to fall deep into that darkness of the ego where you are detached from the outer world. But this makes it possible to see things from a very different viewpoint. You become detached from the groupthink, the hypnosis, and actually think as opposed to just copy and paste. So yeah, I'm not sure at all that the feedback we get from the outer world in diagnoses and all other kinds of judgement is actually objectively true in any way. It's just one subjective view. And we have the ability to see that. That is our greatest strength I believe. Seeing this in psychiatry is the only positive thing I got out of psychiatry.

@foxfield

I've been thinking a bit more about it. It's actually funny that you say that you think there might be two kinds of Asperger's. Because I have also speculated that there might be two kinds, or rather I have speculated that aspies can be divided into two groups. I illustrate this as before and after the "the matrix has you" message. Which means to wake up to the lies, to wake up to who you are and what your condition is. After my spiritual awakening I view myself and my condition in a very different light. But the thing that's a bit special with me perhaps is that I found out that I might have Asperger's only a few months before my spiritual awakening. Anyway I'm not sure if this is the same thing that you think about at all. I said I only got one positive thing out of psychiatry. Actually, I have been thinking about that a lot, and it seems like I might have gotten a lot out of psychiatry indirectly. I'm not sure at all if those things I got out of it indirectly were intended by them. Psychiatry for me seems to have worked as a kind of resistance that built up and eventually was the straw that broke the camel's back. I didn't see anything but BS in psychiatry, but if it hadn't been for that I might not have become a truth seeker and begun to question everything, including the nature of reality. I have speculated that psychiatry might work as a kind of separator (perhaps not the only one) of the two groups of aspies that I thought about. I also think that it seems that the group that has not woken up to who they are is the biggest group by far, which seems to be similar to the idea you proposed. In the text about ectotonia I was, beside the self awareness, very interested in this part:

"The more extreme ectotonics have a distaste for alcohol and their accentuated consciousness fights alcohol, drugs, anaesthesia and is resistant to hypnosis"

Because I feel that being restistant to hypnosis is at the heart of what Asperger's is all about. And perhaps especially the group that has woken up to who they are, the smallest group. The notion here that they are "the more extreme" is interesting.

I have written about Winston in 1984, Bernard in Brave New World and Neo in The Matrix. I asked if they are aspies. Resistance to hypnosis or groupthink seems to be what those characters are all about. Truman in The Truman Show is similar. The "the matrix has you" message might there be illustrated as the piece of equipment that falls down from the ceiling that appears to be the sky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NTPpFNdca0

It is interesting that Winston, Bernard and Neo all have the physiological traits of the ectomorph that you can read about in the article in the OP. Ectomorph is the name for the physiological type that has a strong correlation with the temperament type ectotonic.

I have speculated that aspies might be Jews. It is interesting that in this video Michael Laitman says that Jews at first think they are like everyone else and then they receive "a call" that reminds them who they are. That seems to be what I have been feeling that I had, and that I speculate is what separates the two groups of aspies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Od3LF_o ... e&t=13m13s (until 14:43)

I have been researching the relationship between Jews and autism and have found several connections. Asperger's has the highest prevalence among Jews. Autism is defined as, among other things, abnormal egocentricity. Michael Laitman says in one of his books that Jews have a bigger ego than other people. Abnormal egocentricity and bigger ego sound similar. I have read that the ten lost tribes of Israel will be rediscovered close to the end of the world. Maybe we are close to the end of the world now. It seems like it to me. I have read that there is an increase in autism globally. Maybe autistic people are the ten lost tribes, or part of them.

I do not have a diagnosis and I haven't done a proper autism assessment, which I regret now. I talked to a psychiatrist for several months and at the end he said he thought I have Asperger's and that I could see a psychologist and have it assessed. But I quit instead.

Yes.
This one line in particular hit me like a rock:
"The more extreme ectotonics have a distaste for alcohol and their accentuated consciousness fights alcohol, drugs, anaesthesia and is resistant to hypnosis."

I'm surprised that the writer didn't also include anything about extreme inhibitions, though I'm sure it fits perfectly and was just overlooked.
Perhaps it is said in this line, but in other words:
"The feelings of the ectotonic are not on display, even though they can be very strong, and so he is sometimes accused of not having any."

Or maybe this:



Also, isn't introversion and inhibition more or less synonymous? I am very inhibited. But I had a friend a long time ago for a while who said he had aspergers. That was long before a psychiatrist told me I might have it. That guy didn't seem inhibited at all, quite fearless and extrovert. I don't know why I was drawn to him in the first place though, maybe we did have something in common. He seemed quite clumsy socially a lot of times even though he had friends, and he seemed to misunderstand things when I talked to him, which might have been because of me, I don't know. But I remember that I got annoyed by him one time and I reacted rather impatiently and then he seemed to think I was wacko. I stopped meeting him. I never had many friends, most of the time none. I had a period where I managed to turn pretty much anyone and everyone into an enemy. Today I'm a loner, which I have been to a certain degree much of my life though, even though I had some friend here and there, just short periods and never really close friends.

Actually this part I'm not sure at all that it is a description of me. I am slow in almost everything. I also think I have a rather neurotic mind, and I think this is probably connected to the slowness. As I said in another thread, I seem to have a lot of friction in my mind. I can imagine that something that is very smooth in other people's minds is a process including several tedious steps in my mind sometimes. Like for example just using the internet. I can hover the arrow over a thing I'm going to click on, then think for a second if I'm really going to click, that kind of thing but in almost everything. I think this is also why I'm so stiff where others are relaxed, and perhaps also why I had a more or less depressive personality pretty much all my life. I think it has benefits though. I think it might be a form of enlightenment.

It seems most with aspergers are introverts, but a few are extroverts.
I don't know if the big bias is due to the neurology, or due to how the aspies are treated as children.
Much of it may be learned. I think the inhibitions (filters) can accumulate over time due to the environment.

I don't know either which it is. Perhaps a combination. Interesting subject.

I read a paper about ADHD claiming that around 75% of people with a diagnosis of Aspergers qualify for a diagnosis of ADHD (true in my case). People with ADHD are usually not introverted.

I'd agree there are a significant number of Aspies that are introverted enough to be called introverts, but I'd guess it's not most.

Actually many people with ADHD are introverts, they just get called ADD instead.