Anyone else ever experience this?

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*This is a little hard to explain, so I do apologize if it doesn't make much sense*

Every so often, it happens where I feel like I'm detached from my body......almost like I'm seeing and experiencing things through someone else's viewpoint. (I'll feel like I am not in the body I am supposed to be in)

My sister has insisted that this is an autism-related symptom, but I am NOT convinced of that.

Actually that would be far from the opposite. If we had the ability to see through someone else's viewpoints our aspie lives would be alot easier.

However if you do a lot of research, consider all the reasons why people think the way they do, then ask yourself "how can I relate to that?" you would be very surprised with the results. I find myself relating to a lot of people and ideas that I myself would've never thought I would understand anything about. It's about thinking and seeing through all perspectives, not just one or a select few.

Sounds like "dissociation" or "depersonalization." I tend to get that after a long day of pushing to do stressful stuff it's almost like an out-of-body experience. For me, though, it more often feels like sitting inside my head as if I'm a bug, and looking out through my eye holes.

As to whether it's ASD related, it can happen to non-ASD people, too. I don't know if ASD people are more prone to it or not. Donna Williams has some writing on the subject, but I find it kind of confusing.

Second this. I do it all the time; it's a coping mechanism. From what I've read, it's more commonly connected to past trauma than to Asperger's, though. Although I would guess that on-going bullying would count as "past trauma" here.

Third this. I did it quite a lot as a child - while I was growing up, even some in the military during basic training. I come from an extremely abusive background. It helps me enduring unpleasant things.

Third!

And though the OP is right, it's not really a "symptom of Autism" it can definitely be a "side-affect."

We may have a hard time identifying with others (ToM), but we can also get so stressed out from daily coping we can almost, in a way, "lose ourselves" in the sense of pulling away from all that stress psychologically so far that we don't even identify with our own selves for some time.

Kind of like suddenly becoming...

"Nobody."

I do, a lot. Dissociation or detachment from reality. Like looking through someone else's eyes, peepholes or from a third person view? It's REALLY weird. This is not limited to AS, by the way. People with social and general anxiety, PTSD and probably other disorders experience this as well.

I get that feeling quite a bit. In fact, it's probably one of my most consistent "symptoms" and I was gonna make a thread about it. It's a bit disquieting, since it makes it especially hard for me to relate to people and keep up with the world. I feel like I'm watching a movie some days and I feel far away. My body is there physically, but I feel like a disembodied viewer. It's not that I live in a fantasy world or that I have magical thinking... it's just that reality, some days, doesn't seem very real.

While frustrating, I think it's also given me more motivation to try to connect with the world. It doesn't always work, but I never give up trying.

Have you ever had respiridone

-I'm off it now but every so often it comes back to haunt me - lasts for ages any where from a small flush to days and weeks.... Its very hard to live with, I'm actually going through it now as we speak, hence why I am on wrongplanet to take my mind somewhat away from it - but its still hard, just typing is very difficult when you haven't got control over your own faculties.

You get wierd "bugs" over your limbs, your hands are week and don't really respond and make twitches, your head is light, and your somewhat wammer but can also be cold. Breathing is accentuated, my neck has difficulty holding my head- it's as if I need to go to sleep but I'm actually not tired infact the opposite the efect awakens you you and makes it impossible to stop thinking... the problem is that you don;t feel as though your are thinking for yourself.

I generally feel like I am detached from my body. But when I am overwhelmed I feel like I am the "whole world". Like I am viewing and hearing everything around me as though I am in the center of a pulled sink plug. I have no body or "location" at all at these times. I am everywhere and nowhere.

What kind of situation does it happen in? an you see a common link?

Haha. I've posted on this so much in other posts. I feel like what is ME is pressed up against the top of my skull, and I'm just going through the motions. I've always called it my automatic-mode. It's a way I cope with stresses, or I pull on a 'role' 'facade' to appear more normal and deal with social actions.

Sometimes when I find myself doing this, if I can get into a place on my own and work on my breathing and take hold of myself, or just go to bed, it helps me get back what I would say would be "Back to myself".

Perhaps we're not talking about the same thing, but for me it can't be a way of coping (at least I don't see it that way) because I find this very annoying. I'm dysfunctional when that happens. It often happens before or during sensory overload episode or when my anxiety is high. I actually have to cope with "it" since I can't do much when that happens. It's also usually accompanied by weird auditory symptoms too, I start hearing the sounds around in me ins a strange way.

Dissociation. Yes, I get it. I have periods where I have the occasional moment of feeling like things are real and have some connection to me.
Stress and sensory overload make it worse, and I have a tendency to be "in my head" anyway...

As MrXXX said, definitely a "side effect" of autism.

Another form of dissociation from the body is when you are walking down a street in a kind of stimmy, dreamy state and after a while the mind seems to become like a light balloon and the real world becomes kind of muffled and uniform because one's own internal stimmy, autistic world is taking all one's attention. Or perhaps I'm just nuts.