Is It My Imagination?

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We have a lamp thing on our stove that is activated by heat. It uses the heat and turns it into electricity to power some L.E.D.'s to give light.
The problem is that it has seen better days and now it flickers. It flickered before but not as much as this.

Now I went in to the room the stove is and saw the lamp flickering and started to get a partial shutdown. Is it a co-incidence? Am I imagining it that light can do this? It could be something else that caused it as I am trying to think of two things at once. I do not know. It is strange.

It could be a coincidence, but there might be something to it. It's not uncommon for people to have issues with flickery lights. There have been studies done where people replaced those fluorescent lights in offices and people experienced less workplace stress. I'd imagine those employees are largely neurotypical people too, those of us on the spectrum can often be more sensitive to things like the micro breaks/flickers in things like fluorescent lights than your average person. I know for myself, flickering lights set me off. If I'm around one long enough it will start to push me to a shutdown or meltdown. I can't tolerate those things for long, even less time if I'm already stressed.

Flickering lights can affect people.

I can absolutely see flickering lights being bothersome enough in the right manner to cause a shutdown, I would say it could have been the cause. It just annoys me, but I’m (surprisingly, given all my other sensory issues) not particularly sensitive to light.

Flickering lights bother me and they make me dizzy.

Ooh. You get that too?

The thing is that I don't get light sensitivity like some do when they say that bright sunlight gives them pain. Ok, I can get a headache effect if I stay out in the sun too long after going outside from being in a shady place.

But what seemed to effect me about this flickering light was the frequency that it was flickering at? And the dizzying effect (And my strength leaving me etc) is for me the first sign that I am feeling a partial shutdown coming on, and if I can't remove myself from the trigger I get a full shutdown which most of the time I can avoid by simply removing myself from whatever it is that was causing me the trigger.

I have 25th percentile visual processing, I get sick from flickering lights, motion pictures, videos, movies, and lots more, due to the fact that my poor brain can not figure it out fast enough. In some people filckering lights can even trigger seizures. I absolutely hate the flashy things many forums use for pop ups, allow as comments on apps, etc etc. So many places I can't go, so many things I have to avoid to keep from feeling stressed, distressed, upset, frustrated, etc. I never understood why until I knew about my autism (very late in life) and had neurological testing that showed my disability in visual and hearing parts of my life. Now that I control that input, I don't get sick or dizzy or upset as much. Now I know why this happens I can make adjustments to avoid those things. In your case, you might need to get a new light setup. If you have visual processing limitations, it would be pretty normal (for you or anybody else with such neurology) to have this sort of response. I think flickering lights are very hard on many autistic folks.

Changing scenes quickly on the TV can throw me off. My Mum gets this as well.

Certain frequencies of flickering can trigger an epileptic seizure. There are a few videos with strong warnings about the danger.

Flickering lights bother me and stress me out. They are very distracting and sensory intensive.

I also get that "flicker vertigo", where I feel lightheaded and dizzy from being around them. Some people don't have seizures but still get negative effects from it.

I don't get epileptic seizures, not that I have noticed. Haha.

Flickery lights are no friend to me , even if the TV shows use a lot of flickering lights or the commercials change a flicker all white very bright screens . Makes my head feel wonky .... I try just closing my eyes inbetween programs and adverts . It only helps alittle . I have tried turning the brightness way down , but the all white flickering on and off , closing my eyes barely help.

That's how seeing flickering lights feels to me. I don't have seizures, but I can just tell that my brain is reacting weird. It gives me this overall feeling that my brain isn't taking it well and has done that since I was a kid. I used to be terrified I'd have a seizure but I haven't developed any, thankfully. lol

I don't get seizures either, but I won't watch rapid scene changes, a lot of head-mount cam output, or many of the in-car cameras. Even driving past an evenly-spaced line of trees shading a sunlit road can be problematic.

Flickering lights, including fluorescent tube lighting, some LED TVs / Monitors
are well known to cause people with ASD who are hypersensitive to visual sensory information major problems.
such as migraines / sensory overload meltdowns etc.

I read some time ago a study by a well known UK neuroscientist who has chosen to specialize in ASD fMRI scans,
his evidence taken from his study that concluded the reason why people with ASD have problems when they encounter high sensory environments or objects, is because in the areas of the brain that are designed to process sensory information, people with ASD have extra brain cells in, which means that when we experience sensory information, we actually take in more detail and more information. A bit like the difference between SD and HD.

This would be awesome, if we had the other parts of the brain equally enhanced, such as the part of the brain that is used to process emotion and the part of the brain that deals with the amount of stress that our bodies get exposed due to this increase in sensory information, but alas, we do not and in fact, our brains are also well known to be less capable of processing and regulating emotion, and less able to cope with stress.

Thus, when we encounter high sensory objects / environments, we end up becoming overwhelmed and overloaded with too much information and too much stress, with problems in processing the stress and emotion.

Which results in us having sensory overload meltdowns, migraines and in some cases shutdowns.

Perhaps good idea to get different type of light/cooker etc.

If we have extra input from fast action, why can't I follow the ball when watching sports?