Hyper vs Hypo-reactivity to sensory input...

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I'm very hypersensitive to touch and sound. Touch is probably the most hypersensitive sense - I can't tolerate hugs, or any touches, unless they have a good amount of pressure to them - it doesn't matter who is doing the touching. I also cannot tolerate many textures, or things like clothes tags, rough feeling stuff, certain types of clothing, etc.

With sound, I'm hypersensitive to both the loudness and what I'm hearing. Certain sounds drive me absolutely crazy, like people eating, the sound of breathing, dishes clattering (which also is extremely loud to me). Things that are too loud will also hurt me. If the loudness is coming from music I'm helping make, then I have a much easier time dealing with it, but it can still be pretty uncomfortable at times, like if someone's amp is pointing at my head or just too loud. During most band practices, I use isolation headphones and have the mix go from the mixer to a headphone amp to everyone's headphones, so I don't have to deal with loud noise. At home I also use headphones or an amplifier on a lower setting.

With vision, I'm also hypersensitive to brightness, but not as much as I am with sound and touch. Still, I always wear sunglasses outdoors, and sometimes wear them indoors if the lights are too bright.

Taste and smell are also hypersensitive, but it's only with certain tastes and smells that I am bothered. The texture of many foods is what irritates me more than the tastes and smells.

However, I have a high threshold for pain. Since pain is a sense, I voted mixed.

I'm seeing some patterns (hypo in bold and hyper in italics & underlined). Anyone know of any studies or anything where they have looked into the specifics of hypo- and hypersensitivities, rather than just saying that we have them?

I read a study in which people with AS were found to have tactile hypersensitivity for high frequency stimulation, which feels like tickling on the skin.

Cool, a new word for me, but now moderately well researched with lots more still to do.

So far I've been considering myself completely free of any significant sensory abnormalities since I'm not aware that light or sound tend to bother me much more than the next person. So I voted accordingly, but now I'm less sure. Although sound doesn't bother me, I consistently struggle to understand what other people are saying in even a reasonably mildly noisy space even though I can hear them clearly. Their diction just seems to blend into the background and I find it really hard to isolate specific words, especially if I can't see their lips. I always assumed that it was something like poor peripheral hearing. Who knows.

Then I did the interoception test mentioned in a previous post and available here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt200190.html

I got an appallingly low score, I think it was 0.23, which looks like far worse than average. I could hardly sense my heart at all and had to tell my partner to sit absolutely still, but his "aliveness" was still too noisy for me to sense my own inner self. In fact I felt I could hear the blood rushing in my arms better than I could sense any kind of pulse anywhere. I tried again this morning and thought I was doing a bit better, but then I lost it because the sense was so faint so I just gave up. I wonder if this really is poor interoception or if perhaps I have a really feeble heart?

Edit: Double-post deleted

Last edited by Filipendula on 08 Jul 2012, 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

If its really hard to isolate specific words and find it hard to understand what people are saying in an otherwise somewhat noisy space that has nothing to do with a hyper- or hypo- sensitivity, but is a sensory discrimination disorder, which is another type of abnormal sensory processing.

Oh yeah, this is mostly me too. Hyper- to touch, sound and light and hypo- to smell and pain.I have no idea if there's research on it. I'll let you know if I find any.

I'm a fair mixture of both. I am hypersensitive to some sounds (usually the things nobody notices like the squishing sound of pasta being stirred, eating noises, clapping, whistling and children crying/yelling), but hyposensitive to loud sounds others find unbearable. I am hypersensitive to light and taste: I can taste every single ingredient in the food I eat (including unintentional ones like the cologne the person preparing the food wore or the plastic container it was stored in). Though it may seem contradictory, I am also hyposensitive to pain, yet hypersensitive to the pain caused by being touched. My tactile sense is also hyperacute. When my skin comes into contact with something, the texture feels as if it's magnified thousandfold, a fact one of my high school friends likened to his experiences while using LSD.

True, some sort of auditory processing issue is pretty much what I've always assumed, but could it not also be that I perceive general environmental noise as relatively too loud? I often struggle to hear the person sitting near me in my office if she faces her computer whilst talking, but that's because I feel she isn't competing in volume enough with the people talking behind me or the server box in the corner etc. I don't think I hear other sounds too loudly, but how is it possible to know?

I've also heard aspies comment on sounds seeming to be all on one track rather than on separate tracks as part of their sound hypersensitivity experience.

I'm hypersensitive to smell, taste, sound, food textures and the cold. I also hate wearing winter clothing because it makes me feel cramped and uncomfortable. Some smells such as rubbish, meat, and the smell of cooked food gone cold makes me gag even from 4 or 5 metres away on average. I hold my breath when I have to go near the sources of these smells. Especially cooked food gone cold. *shudder* A little sensitive to light too, although that is not so much of an issue for me. I prefer plain food with not many different flavours.

On the other hand, I'm hyposensitive to heat, pain and hunger. I often don't know when I'm too hot. A few years ago my mum noticed that I put my shower on too hot and I remove hot dishes from the microwave with my bare hands. Not too hot though... I do feel that. This might be unrelated but I'm sometimes unaware of things touching me when my mind is on something else, including objects that I might be holding. It usually results in me dropping them.

I have the same problem as Filipendula, so you're not alone. =) I too have trouble homing in on sounds. If people keep talking when I'm trying to watch a movie I find it extremely difficult to focus on either. It's hard. I tried to do the interoception test too but after 1 minute I still couldn't feel my heart. Oh well. I think I'll vote mixed.

For all five of my "regular" senses (taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing), I am extremely hypersensitive. I struggle the most with tactile hypersensitivity. I am very hyposensitive for my vestibular sense. This is why I crave roller coasters and other amusement park rides. As for propioception, I'm not really sure. There doesn't seem to be nearly as clear-cut of a description for propioception, and from what I've read, I seem to have both hyper- and hyposensitive aspects depending on the situation. Probably more hyposensitive, though, since my clumsiness is undoubtedly related most to how I can't judge where my body is in space. Since pain and temperature are sort of separate, I'll add those here. I am extremely hypersensitive to pain, I'm hypersensitive to cold, and I can be hyper- or hyposensitive to hot. I love hot weather and can usually stand more heat than most, but sometimes, I'm really bothered by being overheated. And for internal regulation, I'm usually hyposensitive. Except for thirst. I'm always hypersensitive to thirst.