"Invisible dots"? Stimming/Ticks?

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Yeah I've got a question.

Okay, so I've had this thing going on in my life for as long as I can remember...
It's something that I call "invisible dots". It normally only happens when I think about it, like right now (AAARRGGGGHHHH!), where it feels like there is a 3D grid around me, and where the lines intercept are where there are "invisible dots", on those points. And they're all around me and they "itch". I "feel" them on the corners of things. Like right now in between typing words I'm touching all over the corners of the keyboard, monitor, desk, the keys themselves.

It got so bad, one night when I was younger, I kept on getting it on each corner of my bed, so I was moving around on my bed the entire night and got no sleep.

Is this... normal? I have never heard of this happening to anyone else before.

Last edited by Koi on 17 Mar 2012, 8:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Probably not normal; but around here, it's not too unusual. Normal is highly overrated anyway. I wouldn't worry about it unless it actually gets in your way.

I tend to instinctively bisect all the angles around me, so that there's a mental lattice of lines and planes crossing the room. But they don't itch, or anything like that. It's just a game I play when I look at walls and floor patterns and anything with straight lines in it, really.

Earlier this evening I happened to research some of the other disorders that can be comorbid with Asperger's. One of them was a schizoid type of disorder, but not full schizophrenia. What you describe seems to be something of that nature. The article on the schizoid disorder did mention hallucinations, and delusions, but generally not to the extent that they are found in full blown schizophrenia. In other words, someone with this disorder can be basically rational, as you appear to be, but still have some kind of chronic delusion or hallucination, often to do with the persons own body, and this fits what you described. I don't know if there are any online tests for this, but I think you should really talk to your psych doc about this. If it disturbs your sleeping or other wise interferes with your life, you need to see if you can get some help for it.

I'm a lot like Callista, I play these games a lot with lines, angles and shadows. I do sometimes have minor urges to touch or put things into alignment, this could be what you mean by an itch.

I do more of this when I'm stressed, is it possible that in your bed description you were stressed and used this to calm you? You might be confusing cause and effect. You are stressed and can't sleep, so you stim.. Rather than your interpretation of this stim making you unable to sleep?

If you know it's not real, it's probably not schizophrenia or similar. You said it was imaginary and invisible, so it's not really a hallucination.

Jason

I do something similar. It is not schizophrenia related. I think it is a form of OCD and is relatively common in Aspergers. I create 3D geometrical objects in my mind (visual imagination) such as cubes and draw the lines between the "dots" of the corners. Typically I count the number of sides as I build the objects. This counting or drawing of objects occurs most of the time I'm awake (hence my name on WP TallyMan). If my mind isn't busy with other things it does more advanced manipulations like rotating the wire-frame cube or creating more complex structures such as a hypercube (the three dimensional "shadow" of a four dimensional object).

How interesting. I don't see dots or lines or anything, but I also kind of draw lines in my mind between points in front of me. I use any kind of point that sticks out, like the push pins in my wall, or even lamps if there are several above me. I usually pair them up in twos (I have this affinity for even numbers), sometimes drawing lines between ones next to each other, then across from each other, then diagonally, and on and on. If I have an odd number of points, it really, really bugs me. If it's even, I just keep glancing back and connecting the dots (I can't even help it. I really want to stop sometimes.) I was once under a roof that had three rows of lights, with an odd number of lights in each row, but one lamp was burnt out. I had such an odd satisfaction knowing that even though it was expected to be an odd number, it turned out being even. Weird.

I also tend to re-read letters and numbers (either the first or last letter/number in a series) in my mind. Sometimes I bounce back and forth between two that are in my line of vision. It also drives me nuts.

Oh god this actually fits me scarily. I've been having disturbing thoughts in my head of self mutilation and I just wand them OUT. I have a diverse range of phobias dealing with harm to the body so it's really bothersome. I can't even explain myself fully (like I would normally be able to do, going on for hours...) because it's too painful to think about.

And I don't ever trust online tests... I only trust what a trusted doctor tells us.


I don't see them either. I feel them, and that's the only way to really describe it...

I've seen some people before when I was much younger who would twitch and flail their arms around strangely, and I thought they were crazy. Now, when I'm alone and this happens, I find my arms waving everywhere, trying to get rid of those invisible dots.

Also, fun fact, it always happens while walking on the sidewalk. I make my arms swing in a way that I always see my hand cross over the corner of each sidewalk panel (are they called panels? I have no clue.)

I thought of what TallyMan said.

Depending on what it feels like it could be a compulsion.

An "urge" to touch certain points or touch certain points or angles in a symmetrical fashion happens as part of some people's OCD.

There are (or were) people on here with OCD who described similar "feelings" of needing to touch corners and angles, feeling they have to (for some reason) figure out and touch symmetrical angles and I think about sometimes feeling comfortable only after having replicating sensations symmetrically. Is no one like that around right now?

If it's not just something you do to keep you entertained or calm you down and distract you when you're annoyed or stressed about something else but if you feel as if you have to do it or else it keeps bugging you or irritates you badly, it might be a compulsion.

Intruding thoughts about harming yourself that you think are disturbing and that you don't want to have would fit in with the OCD too.

Interesting... questor, are you talking about schizotypal personality disorder? That does have some minor perceptual aberrations, superstitious beliefs, that kind of thing--but like you said, not like full-blown schizophrenia; doesn't go into full-on delusions and hallucinations. Since the OP has had this thing happening for such a long time, I wouldn't call that an emergency, but if it got annoying enough, it might be a reason to ask a doctor about it. Unfortunately I don't know whether there's a medical treatment for this kind of thing; it could be that the side effects would be worse than the actual problem; or it could just be a matter of teaching coping skills so you can learn to ignore it better. Dunno. But not an emergency--not if you've been living with it just fine for so long.

I wonder if it could be a form of synesthesia? It would be rather an odd one, but synesthesia is not uncommon on the Spectrum.

Synesthesia is not uncommon in general. Like color-blindness or myopia, people often have it and don't realize it's unusual until somebody tells them so. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case for some people.

I know mine isn't synesthesia, though. It's not linked to any of my senses in the way synesthetic things might be. I'm also pretty sure that synesthesia can't be controlled. I can stop myself from connecting the points if I really, really try to. It's very difficult, but it is a conscious thing. If it were related to synesthesia, it would be built into the way I perceive it, wouldn't it? I wouldn't be able to stop it, anymore than a person with synesthesia can stop seeing the letter "B" colored blue, or see pink when they hear the note F#.

Koi, it is a perception of the stagnated energy "sparks"
low vibrations, all dark energy ,bad thoughts from you and every one near by you.

it also happens with light white or bright energy, at least with me i sense(see,feel,etc)...
i got perception over those dark (itchy spots of darkness, feels like ticks), gets worst if u have unhealthy habits , as i do...

and i glance really bright white, tiny specks of light, when i meditate fully, or if i am Present.

right freaking now, they are attacking me, like a hungry hive , and just because im reading about it, and writing about it...

its not a mental disorder , its a perception of another "layer" of the many that compose our very existence.

I suppose I have something similar - although at the same time it's very different.

My whole life, there are some times (like when I think about it), where I've felt like I've had 'phantom appendages' even though all of my limbs are intact. They're things like a thumb sticking out of my foot on the side (the inside side) - when I feel it I have a huge urge to move it but cannot, obviously since it doesn't exist. It's a very uncomfortable feeling - it's like having your arm folded and bound to itself in a very uncomfortable position, so it's stuck there and you can't move it or do anything about it. It's never kept me up all night or anything like that, though, but it can be pretty annoying, like right now since I've been talking about it and thinking about it.

I have a friend who had that; he was diagnosed with OCD and was able to take medications that made it go away. I think his intrusive thoughts were about suicide, not self mutilation, but like you, they were thoughts that he did not wish to have and found very disturbing.

People, the Planet is under several "dimensional changes", and those symptoms are like "side effects" to our living body.

Those changes, that often end up laying as an unexplainable medical conditions, or, as if it was a psychological disorder...

no earth medics will ever realize it, simply because all our technology and science is trapped within LOGIC. (( left brain side ))
And all trusted professionals, are trained to read all information that our civilization could gather until now, and then apply the designed solution/treatment, based on what the books tell them to do...

a good doctor, physical or psychological one, will only use his(hers) intuition(right brain) when, looking upon a patient symptoms , and find a cure, intuitively searching his mental database of known cures...

i DO NOT, by any means, am saying that modern medicine is null,
or that psychoanalysis is flaw, just plain and simple not ready to deal with the changes that undergo towards the very
new state of human consciousness.


"It's never kept me up all night or anything like that, though, but it can be pretty annoying, like right now since I've been talking about it and thinking about it."

its mental perception of dark energy.

Koi
"Also, fun fact, it always happens while walking on the sidewalk. I make my arms swing in a way that I always see my hand cross over the corner of each sidewalk panel (are they called panels? I have no clue.)"

Koi, have you suffered enough?! or are you still entertained by this?!
if you already made it part of you( false self, ego, personality ), and often enjoy it, then i have no words left.

if you see this, as a thing, that you could do something about it, let me know. ur not crazy, or any psycho terms...