I understand that they get them but what happens exactly to them?
In: Biology
I see you’ve gotten a bunch of good answers already, but I want to provide one that is based on some currently popular theories in brain science.
You can think of the brain as a sort of scientist. When our sensory system is stimulated, we have to figure what is most likely to have caused it. So the incoming sensory stream is data, while the brain generates hypotheses based on what it already knows. When there’s a mismatch between hypothesis and data, we get error signals–surprisal. Surprisal is very important. We improve our understanding of the world one surprise at the time.
Now, it’s often better to have “fuzzy” hypotheses than rock-solid ones. Not all dogs look exactly alike, so it would be a pain to be constantly surprised by every new dog. We can call this fuzziness precision, because that’s what it is. You can compare it to throwing darts. It’s going to be really frustrating if you only count bulls eye’s as hits. If you demand that of yourself, things are going to be tough. It’s better to have a fuzzier precision (at least in the beginning), like hitting the board.
In autism, the precision of hypotheses is generally really high. Meaning that they’re constantly getting bombarded with error signals. What’s worse is that neurotypical people use ambiguous (imprecise) language very often. This will be very confusing to someone with a high precision.
Professions requiring high precision, like science, programming, mathematics, and engineering, are often very attractive to people on the spectrum.
Sensory overload can be interpreted as an overabundance of error signals. Stimming (self-stimulation) is a coping strategy that is probably effective because it sends a bunch of self-generated precise signals into the incoming sensory streaming, drowning out the noise.
This also explains why people with autism tend to have problems coping with changes in habits and plans. The ambiguity doesn’t feel good.
Have you ever been driving somewhere unfamiliar and as you get to a place where you really need to concentrate on which lane you’re meant to be in, when and where to turn and so on, you turn down the radio? If you can understand that turning down the radio makes it easier to concentrate then you can understand why autistic people struggle with sensory overload. We’re basically stuck in a world where the radio is stuck on full volume (and someone is wearing the most pungent cologne, and your passengers are loudly arguing, and the sun is shining in your eyes, and the tag on your clothes is itchy) and interacting with that world requires concentration and constant conscious effort. Too much input makes it difficult to think and process. Prolonged sensory overload is like torture and eventually you crack and have a meltdown. And a meltdown is not some “weird” autistic behaviour, it’s how ANY human would react if they were tortured for a prolonged period.
Imagine what it might feel like to set your brain on fire, and then think about how well you’d function if your brain was actually on fire. When too much becomes too much, it’s exactly like that.
For my daughter, it feels like wearing clothes made out of sandpaper or eating a banana that smells as strongly as surstromming.
As an auti myself, this is such a weird concept that neurotypicals don’t receive everything like this. Picture your brain has a giant filter that can order the stimuli you receive in the correct order of importance and relevance. Most people with autism don’t have such a filter or its pretty damaged. So every sound, noise, taste, what you see comes in all at the same time and your brain decides that everything is equally important. Now imagine working at register in a walk trough buffet, there’s like 50people, at least 2 kids screaming, cookingtimers beeping, the oven alarming, the sound of bean grinding coffeemachines and the register making a noise, people comversating loudly. and me at that register trying to greet costumers while i have to re and refilter what happens every second and sometimes my filter freezes and it causes panic attacks and just …. it’s not fun. Hope this gives a good image.
It feels like physical discomfort in relation to nonphysical sensation. Sound actually has a feel to me. Touching me can cause actual pain.
It’s like…. everything got hypersaturated and deafening and is slightly off key too (I have perfect pitch)
I have an autistic son. He is very high func but has a hard time explaining it to me in exact words. But I know it has to do with your brain takes in SO much information at once. But most normal brains filter out a lot of that info. However, an autistic brain does not filter it out very much or at all.
So he hears every little sound from the buzz in the lights, to the hum of the AC, to your breathing, to his own breathing, etc. then he also feels everything very strongly from his clothing on his skin, to the breeze on his skin, to his hair touching his skin. So on and so forth. All senses are very heightened all the time.
Its why they sometimes get irritable very easily because its a lot to deal with. Its also why wearing headphones to damp out the noise helps. Its also why say playing a game on your phone is good because they can heavily focus on that one game and try to block out the other things as best they can.
Hurricane.
The autistic brain simply gets overwhelmed by external and internal stimuli and it feels like a hurricane or tornado with way too much sound and light and noise and visual movement and people all saying and doing things which all hurts and makes it super hard to function.
It feels chaotic and anxious and demanding and suffocating and confusing and painful and you just need to find someplace dark and quiet but as an adult you’re supposed to not run away with your hands over your ears or start screaming because that’s all you can do (I can’t imagine how much more effed up it is for non-verbal autists) or spin in a circle because it grounds you.
The best I can explain it is imagine something significant happened to you, you start to tell someone you love and then the phone rings, you ignore it to finish your conversation, as it is important, but then the oven goes off. You ignore, slightly irritated but quickly find place back in your conversation. As you start, your children race through the room, start a scuffle, knocking things about, clattering and clunking, your partner walks into the kitchen and starts preparing themselves a meal and digging into the cutlery drawer.
Your door bell goes off, the phone starts ringing again and someone has left the tap running full blast.
You don’t want to talk or hear. You don’t care about finishing your story, you just want to get back to a state and environment where having a quiet conversation is even possible.
It feels like that and it can happen for almost no reason unlike the examples I’ve given.
I’m not on the spectrum, but my grandson is, and he once explained to me that it sometimes seemed to him that what he was experiencing was like watching and listening to a TV that is continuously scrolling up and down, through all the dozens of channels — and his remote is broken.
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