Like most people on the spectrum, I do have SPD to a certain degree, and I thought this was all just part of it, but upon researching, it's apparently not. Here's what happens to me:
Not filtering sensory input:
It's as if there's a toll booth basket on my head, but no coin sorter beneath it. All external sensory input blends together, and rather than being able to distinguish the differences between multiple stimuli, it often just blends into a big cacophony, even when I'm not overly stressed. It's like not being able to distinguish parts of a conversation when two people are talking at once, only on a grander scale and involving all the senses, not just auditory.
Delayed cognitive recognition of external stimuli:
This one is causing problems for me. It will take at least seconds and sometimes more for me to register the existence of auditory or visual stimuli. A prime example is that my lover spoke to me yesterday, and I didn't even realize there was sound coming out of his mouth until he was finished. Of course, I had to ask him to repeat himself. That was actually a minor incident. I've been told by others that they said X to me, and I have *no* recollection of anything remotely near what they claim to have told me. The same happens to me visually, as in, I simply don't see something I'm looking at directly, but it's presented less of a problem than the speech recognition issue. The only thing I've noticed is that oftentimes my own thought processes are louder (literally) than the other input, but this isn't always the case.
Both of the above cases happen intermittently (although the filtering issue is very common). The filtering isn't synesthesia, and the cognitive recognition isn't SPD, and it seems to me like they are related somehow. Any idea what might cause it, and is this common or uncommon?
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Previously Certified Curmudgeon. License expired May 04, 2011
Now downgraded to merely difficult.
11 Oct 2011, 1:12 pm
