Associations

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Do you have any kind of "weird" associations that are completely out of context? Do you have "too many" associations? (See what I mean below.)

I'm totally overloaded with associations. When I try to concentrate on something, like reading, I start to "day dream" and have thoughts that are incoherent and out of context. It results in an infinite chain of associations. Example:
When reading the title of a book, like "The greek tragedies" I think of Greece then associate it with beards -> statues -> bookshelf -> bags -> literature -> post-impressionism -> van Gogh -> houses -> paper towels -> hotel -> and so on. This goes on forever until I finally stop "day dreaming".

It affects my concentration greatly and I get very incoherent.


Is this normal in AS standards?

Sounds like theta brain waves typical of ADHD. Your very creative but you find it hard to
finish most projects?

I get this!

I have a reputation at work for "covering every angle" but that's only because when someone comes up with an idea my brain just goes into random overdrive and careers off all over the bloody place.

Is it possible to get rid of these associations and incoherent thoughts? Is there any medication that people with ADHD take?

OCD is known for randomly associating things with another too - but I wonder if some of this is just a connectiveness that other people do not notice. Occassionally I have mentioned things that I have noticed and other people will say they have not thought of that before but that they agree. Some of these associations can be intrusive and unwanted though so I don't know how that fits into your description of daydreaming.

The trick is to set boundries, to learn to catch yourself when you get far enough out in associations that they become irrelevant to the original subject.

Return to the starting point and pick a new direction.

Just watch out for circles

As others have stated ADHD is common among those with AS but at least that part can be treated with medication and/or meditation.

I was diagnosed as a teenager with ADHD (and, being female, it was kinda rare...). And that "associative" thought pattern was one of the reasons, apparently. But it doesn't seem to fit since aven as a child I used to read the encyclopedia / dictionary / thesaurus for hours without becoming bored... A child who reads both french and English and memorizes poems at the age of four CAN'T have ADHD...

I have the same pattern; and it really does distract me from my schoolwork, and from conversations with other people, which often get boring (and speech is such a slow way of communicating anyway).

But it even happens when I'm doing things I enjoy that just happen to have mildly boring parts--for example, leveling on "safe" monsters while playing an RPG. I don't know how many times I've died because my mind was off in la-la land, and I let my HP get so low that I get killed by a sickly rat or something else equally humiliating.

It's even happening right now, while I'm typing this post.

Lately I've been experimenting with caffeine pills (200 mg every 4 hours), and these seem to give me a little more focus.

I really do suspect ADHD at this point... or at the very least, ADHD-like symptoms caused by depression. The only thing is that my depression is fading, controlled by medication and counseling; but the ADHD-like symptoms are still there.