Sensory Overload/Derealisation

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I'd like to know if anyone else experiences anything similar to this when they become overloaded. This tends to happen to me when I'm in a busy/noisy/loud/bright environment - for example in town on a busy day when people are rushing around and there's lots of noise and light.

The first thing I experience is a sense of derealisation. What I mean by that is a sense of being disconnected, distant. Everything sounds like it's far away from me and I'm not connected to it. Things feel like they're in slow motion, and when I turn my head it's almost as if the frames are jarring, like a low quality .mpg.

When someone talks to me, they seem really far away, and stranger still, I feel disconnected from my reply. It feels like I'm listening to someone else speaking; hearing my own voice but not really connected to it.

Perhaps the strangest part is what happens to my vision. I tend to find it difficult to see 'the big picture' anyway; the way I 'see' seems to be kind of disjointed. But during this state it gets a hundred times worse. Everything seems fragmented. Not literally broken, but like I can only focus on very small parts at a time. I can't see a whole car... only the individual wheels, the door, a window... and I find it VERY hard to read.

Normally I am a VERY fluent reader, digesting words and sentences pretty much instantaneously. However, in this state I struggle to read even simple words (like a 'stop' sign), because I can only see the letters and the word as a whole is meaningless. It feels like I'm looking at a bunch of symbols rather than a word. As if my brain has forgotten how to 'interpret' written language.

In this state, I feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly in a trance, completely disconnected from the world. However, if I find somewhere quiet to sit down, maybe eat or drink something, and just let myself be peaceful for a bit... gradually I rejoin the world and become 'connected' again.

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else? Is it purely a sensory thing or could it be something else? Any input appreciated!

I don't get this but sometimes I feel the teensiest bit like that. Sometimes things kind of seem distant and I get lost inside my brain, if you understand what I mean.

Your "condition" (please tell me if that insulted you) sounds very Aspie and it sounds very hard and very annoying. Might meditating on the spot or something like that help? This could relax you so much, standing or sitting still and just blanking your mind slowly, then when you open your eyes it may be gone.

This is just a wee suggestion, it's just that if you become relaxed with food or drink, meditation on the spot might help in the same way.

For getting rid of this frustrating brain thing altogether, I'm sorry I can't advise you on that. I guess when it happens it happens and I hope the meditation thing helps.

Very familiar with that state, you'll see it referred to often as "tunnel vision." For me, it occurs under extreme psychological and emotional pressure. I liken it to a state of shock, like the dazed state of people who've just been through a horrific accident or disaster. I can only process information in tiny bits, and those not very coherently. The 'big picture' is a distant blur of noise and commotion. People speak, but I can't focus on their meaning, or determine (or care) whether they're speaking to me. They are like a wall of televisions in a department store, too much to focus on. My mind goes numb, almost as though I've taken a couple shots of strong alcohol.

This is similar (though much stronger), to the state of mind I voluntarily assume anytime I have to enter a mall or other high-human-traffic area. A self-contained bubble that insulates me from the strangers milling about all around me. This is why I become annoyed and disoriented if someone I know approaches me in a crowded shopping center and strikes up a conversation. In that state of mind, I may (or may not) mentally identify who they are right away, but finding words is extremely difficult, as I was not prepared for interactive mode and really wish they would just go away.

Yes...and you explained it very well. I always have a hard time explaining this to psychologist. I always say it is like I am a spider living inside my head and looking out the eye holes ...so they just assume I'm insane I was never sure if this was part of a panic attack because that is what happens if I don't/can't leave such situations. I can still remember the worst time and place for me with this was the hallways in High School. I use to run my hand along the walls as a rudder and read while I walked between classes just to cut down on the sensory stuff. I didn't think about it at the time but in retrospect..I must have looked a bit "odd".

I don't "do" malls. My idea of hell and I live about 20 min. from The Mall Of America On the upside, I was never a kid that screamed or had a fit in such situations, so at least I didn't make my mom hate me more then she already did,(silver lining).

Everything in the OP fits me very well except for the loss of reading ability. People I know call them my "eyes-glazed-over moments."

Yes, this happens to me often.
I get the normal kind of derealisation caused by sensory overload.. But it also happens randomly a lot of the time; I'll just be sitting there and suddenly there's just this bizarre shift. It's impossible to explain exactly what it feels like.. Everything still looks mostly the same but there's a strange unreal quality, like you don't recognize it.. It's like you no longer have an identity (or you're completely alone) and you're suspended in a void . Things and people look two-dimensional and cartoonish and very separate. Very unsettling, again, very hard to explain. It usually doesn't last very long, unless I'm having a panic attack. But generally the longer it goes on the more warped everything appears, and the paranoia sets in. For me at least. Due to things having that automaton quality. And again, my surroundings never LOOK drastically different.. they just FEEL different in a very profound and disturbing way, like something is horribly wrong.

Anyway, if it happens to you a lot you could have Depersonalization disorder -- "Depersonalization Disorder (DPD) is a dissociative disorder in which sufferers are affected by persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalization and/or derealization. The symptoms include a sense of automation, feeling a disconnection from one's body, and difficulty relating oneself to reality."

It's tough for me to separate dissociative reaction/symptom from more familiar notion of fight/flight response pattern (triggered by amygdalae plus adrenal coricosteroids=adrenaline panic). Suppose that being able to escape threatening situation soon enough precludes the severe "depersonalizaton"/"derealization" response-but some instances in which I must endure, then that urgent/emergency mode kicks in.
Hard also to distinguish the multiple components of a fearful situation-such as social, being away from home, variety of sensory disturbances, etc.-factors that combine to create the knotted mess I become (tense state & hypervigilant mode).

I get this way in public, am scared the whole time until I get back home & then feel super tired out. Also, when going to the dentist, even before I get the horrific shots of novacaine (which chemically induce this state on their own) I'm in panic mode. Everything seems very strange & otherworldly, like a bad drug trip, an unpleasant intoxication (I know the difference between fun altered state & the opposite). Have had several shots for pain control & once felt like I was losing consciousness, disappearing/receding/shrinking back inside brain, away from rest of me. Was afraid I was dying (have never been "knocked out" medically or otherwise, nor fainted) and it was so scary, I had to have dentist stop so I could regain/inhabit/find myself.

I experience this too, but not as much as before. I avoid large warehouse stores like Costco because I get dizzy and nauseous. It helps when I look down mostly while pushing the cart, and wear dark glasses. Busy airports are tough for me to handle. If someone comes up to me when I'm in a crowded, over-stimulating environment, I often don't recognize the person. Or if I do, I have trouble talking with all the background sensory bombardment. I'm shutting down sensory input. The more emotionally charged I am, the more tunnel visioned I get.

People with cellphones! It's so hard to get away from cellphone calls. The minute the plane lands, for example, all these people have got to get on their cellphones to tell so and so the plane has just landed.

Does anyone know of ear plugs that really work, stay comfortably in the ear, and don't cost a forture? I have yet to find ear plugs that work for me.

Belfast, I ask the dentist to give me anesthetic without epinephrine. It makes a big difference. Epinephrine (adrenaline) brings on a mild panic attack, I have trouble sleeping later on, and I get irritable. The downside is that the anaesthetic doesn't last as long so the dentist sometimes has to give me more during the procedure, but that's no big deal.

Birdgirl....I have described the very same sensations to several DRs over the years and yet they have always told me it was just my depression pr anxiety, have never DXed me with anything else until the AS DX. I always thought I must not be describing it well or every body must feel this way because the DRs never seemed to think it was a big deal or realize how many problems these "states of unreality" were for me. You would think after feeling this way all these years that I would just be used to it...it would be like a natural state of being and not bother me but they still do freak me out.

I wish I could recall the book, but I recall reading some existential writer...maybe Camus ? describing walking on a beach and picking up a rock and looking at it and not recognizing it as a "rock"...I thought it was so cool because he was describing something I often felt that I had difficulty explaining. I was pretty obssessed with existential writers after reading that...maybe he was an aspie?

Yep. I often transform into more of an observer than a participant when I get overwhelmed and stressed by load noise or many people talking at once.

Minor overload of a single sense will generally result in my taking direct action to lessen the effect. I'll block bright lights with my hands, block loud noises by covering my ears... etc.

But multisensory overload can have different effects depending on the severity.
I'm not aware of ever quite getting that tunnel vision effect described..... but the greater the extent of the overload, the more hostile I become. I will tend to strain my eyes, bare my teeth, hook my fingers like claws and become far more likely to lash out at anyone coming near me. My shoulders go up in the rather learned "hackle reflex".
All of this can cause some awkward situations, since I have reprogrammed myself to be more active than passive around strangers... so I'm less likely to curl into a ball these days and more likely to actually attack someone.

Overloading beyond that level tends to cause me lag and FPS issues. Like my experience of existence is cutting itself down to one second out of every two, then one out of three, and so on.... causing everything to stutter somewhat and my reactions to be slowed (which also tends to make me more paranoid and hostile).

My response to that kind of overload is generally to try and switch myself onto automatic: to just get to wherever I was going and get done whatever I was doing... without having to apply any thought to it. If I trusted my ability to walk with my eyes shut, I would probably do that too.