What is sensory overload and overstimulation?

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katzefrau
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24 Apr 2011, 12:59 am

foxman wrote:
I've heard that sensory overload is like an acid trip...


for me it is, or that's the closest thing to describe it. i've not seen anyone else on the board describe it as such that i recall, but i do recall anbuend writing (maybe on her blog) that an autistic friend said something like "as long as there are shopping malls, i'll never need LSD"

a well placed ceiling fan will do it.

sound overload just makes me angry, but i'm learning to better sort it out so i don't yell at people around me.

i've written more explicitly earlier in this thread.

funny how understanding it now doesn't make it go away.


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pensieve
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24 Apr 2011, 7:05 am

When I stay in a noisy environment for too long my sense of hearing gets jumbled and can't make out individual sounds then everything gets muffled. I feel like I'm under water and can barely move and at times, speak. My mind just feels so slow and it takes removing myself from the environment to recover.

katzefrau wrote:
foxman wrote:
I've heard that sensory overload is like an acid trip...


for me it is, or that's the closest thing to describe it. i've not seen anyone else on the board describe it as such that i recall, but i do recall anbuend writing (maybe on her blog) that an autistic friend said something like "as long as there are shopping malls, i'll never need LSD"

a well placed ceiling fan will do it.

sound overload just makes me angry, but i'm learning to better sort it out so i don't yell at people around me.

i've written more explicitly earlier in this thread.

funny how understanding it now doesn't make it go away.

I've never been on acid but I think I may experience something similar. Sometimes if I just go with it (exercise will do it sometimes) I can enjoy it. Well that does involve actually hallucinating so I don't know if it's the same thing.


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katzefrau
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24 Apr 2011, 2:04 pm

pensieve wrote:
I've never been on acid but I think I may experience something similar. Sometimes if I just go with it (exercise will do it sometimes) I can enjoy it.


.. if i give in to it sometimes i'm ok, just really confused and inarticulate (but then it can be difficult to remove myself from the situation). i will look at an object over and over again and by the time i have determined what it is, something else is demanding my attention and i'm confused again. but oddly it's a tolerable state for a short time. it's when i have to function that i start getting aggressive or panicky.

for the record i don't recommend LSD use to people on the spectrum. it induces overload, and can send you into a panic if you lose track of anything going on in your immediate environment. as this scenario may be familiar to some of us even while sober, it should be approached with intense caution.


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Alphabetania
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01 Sep 2016, 3:55 pm

I did an informal survey on sensory overstimulation here at WrongPlanet.net several years ago, and the responses (about 40 of them) were collected and categorised, and included in their cut-sliced-and-diced form in a research proposal which an autistic friend of mine put together for an interdisciplinary study on sensory overload, once she had begun to uncover the pathologenesis of the condition.

The basic (simplified) physiology of sensory overload is explained in a video based on her work, and this also explains the background to the treatment which eventually took away my sensory overload completely. (I haven't had it for years now.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw1dEj6A4ro

Since that video was made, though, she has studied a lot more, and other factors not mentioned in the video have also emerged (e.g. overexpression of iNOS/eNOS). She is writing a book about it now, to be given to doctors who need to treat autistic patients who suffer from sensory overstimulation.


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