Is Asperger syndrom being "stuck in the zone?"

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The way I found out about my condition was because they had a series of characteristics associated with the condition. Things like not making eye contact. social cues ... you can usually get a list.
They tell us "we think differently" but cannot explain how or why.
That is a definition.

I am going to give another definition - and the question is "If this second idea is the real definition - would it produce all those many and varied characteristics above.

There is a switch in the brain which turns off one set of thought and turns on another.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... ingscience
If this is natural - then anyone should be able to use this.

So I went outside science to try to find other people using this area of the brain.
I think ... that this is what NT's do in a crisis.

Crisis - a non medical person delivering a baby on the phone to the medics. They are just doing what has to be done ... their thinking as "smooth as silk" ... and then the medicos come and knock on the door. The person shows them in - and then goes all chaotic in the head after it is over. They talk about suppressed emotions ... after it is over - but "smooth as silk" in the midst of the crisis.

How about running or other sports when you get "into the zone." You are totally focussed on the running that if the people on the sides of the road dropped dead or stripped naked you would ignore them - the next step, the next breath - the next step ... total focus.

You can hear about this state in top sports people, top chefs, top anything. Total and complete focus.
A natural state. Usually designed for short periods of time.
In this state the "normal awareness" is switched off including the social and the focus comes into play.

What would happen if you were stuck there? What would happen if you had ALWAYS been stuck there and never used the social part of the brain - ever?

Proposition: IF ... we are forever in this state (stuck in the zone) and have never "turned on" the social part of the brain - then we could explain the characteristics of "do not" as things we have never done.
It would explain the difference in thinking in ways we and others can comprehend.

Could we use this ... definition to psychologically predict all the characteristics in the original definition?
I can speak for ONE person - myself. My answer is YES. I spent several MONTHS before I could say so with any great certainty.

Please note it does not change much.
One is a definition of "tick the boxes - do you fit?"
The other is "this is the stuck position. Because it is stuck - then you have these characteristics. Tick the boxes - do you fit?"

Ah - I keep forgetting that other people do not share my unique abilities to do abstract models, just as I do not share their unique abilities to do things like music, arts, maths, etc. etc. ...
We are the most extreme group of individuals set together by one commonality. We have to appreciate our own differences, strengths and weaknesses.
Sorry, this is as natural to me as these other things are to you ...

Consider these points. If someone in your family dies and the family mourns - you feel sorry and are sad - but do not mourn as they do.
Remember the person giving birth? They feel the terror - but it is only "outside the zone" that they express and react in the normal way.
We do feel - but not NT normally. Those in the zone also feel - but not in the normal NT way.
Ergo this explains the way we react to such tragedies. It is on some of the lists of our characteristics.

How about the fact that this zone is a problem solving place (used in a crisis to do what is necessary) - and allows people to walk through flames to get to a place of safety. If that is the only way that is what has to be done.
Because it is a problem solving area - an abstract problem solving area - the world is made up of problems to be solved.
Little things, even going from your house to the doctors becomes a problem to be solved.
We often thing "there is one solution "... and we hold to the one solution.
Ergo what people call obsessive and compulsive.

How about the "zeroing in and ignoring anything not relevant" the intense focus we are renown for? Go and look up people in crisis - they do the same thing. Anything not relevant to the problem is ignored.
What about the fact that we get a special interest and concentrate on it until we have solved it?

It is very hard to ask people to work out how people in the zone work and think. Mainly because little work has been done in expressing it.
It is also hard to ask how we work and think. This is especially true as one of the limits of the thinking is such awareness of others.
It is even harder to compare two such diverse ideas and compare them.

Instinctively I said "this is the answer."
It took me four months to work it out and confirm it.

It is worth the time. I repeat - EVERY characteristic on the list CAN be predicted and explained by this hypothesis.

Including an even stranger one - our attitude to lying. It is not on any lists that I know about.
Part is the lack of the ability to appreciate the way another thinks - ergo to "pull off a lie" (see lack of social abilities) but also because this centre is an abstract problem solving area where truth matters.

It changes who we are.
Before- we were an enigma and outcasts - different and strange - with a list which says we are disabled.
Now we are the ones who respond in the unique state of mind others usually enter in emergencies - and this gives us the way to think outside the circle and to do the strange and the exotic - that others cannot do.
But it also accounts for our seemingly odd behaviour.
It moves who we are away from a psychological opinion - into a person who reacts in a way which the psychologist can classify with his external observations of our behaviour.

It is ... a good think.
We can be obsessive about things. I obsessed on this single idea.
Take your time. Have a think.

That's certainly an interesting way to look at it. I can definitely relate to feeling in the zone due to Asperger's. Obviously there's a lot more to it than that.

I feel, at times, that people with Asperger's might lack flexibility, and are "stuck" on their "special interests." But, as Alex points, out, this is definitely not the "whole story."

It's much more complex than that.

If you stated that this is but one ASPECT of Asperger's, which is found within SOME people with Asperger's, then I would think you're "on to something."

As said above me it doesn't affect all and it isn't equal when it does.

Personally I love the zone, it's fun for the most part.

As a reply to you all ...
IF this can be used to explain ALL the characteristics of Asperger's - then it is the unifying item.

This idea can be used to ask "why do we get locked into using this mind area" and it turns out not to be genetic but "if we do not use one area of the brain - we use another to compensate."
This is a simple "way to compensate" for tens of thousands of diverse problems.
Genetics is the thousands of diverse problems.
Aspies is "the escape and work around BECAUSE we have these thousands of diverse problems."

We latch onto using a normal part of the brain that most people use short time and we use it always.

As for liking being in the zone - sure. Love it.
Why change?
Becoming NT is not the goal - and not exactly all it is cracked up to be.

It cannot be used to explain all the characteristics of AS, let alone some of it.
Some people have it without AS and some people with AS also have it.

The only unifying item is the difficult in bonding with others and to an extent socializing with others.

AS like the other ASDs, varies by person.

I tend to have an A game and a C game, and not too much of a B game (very open to developing B game skills).

And then after an event, an interaction, an activity, whether win, lose, or draw, I often need a lot of decompress time.