Video on autistic perception walking down the street

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Actually, this video made me laugh out loud. I mean seriously, our lives are f****d but I know that's not how it is for me, or probably anyone else.

My son does what you are describing. He looks to objects and touches walls. He likely feels that way.
Thank you for posting this video.

How did you deduce this?

Last edited by Verdandi on 18 Nov 2011, 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Do you know every autistic on Earth to make such a statement?

This is what I go through every time I leave my house.
There are different severities in autistic symptoms. Just because you don't experience it doesn't mean it doesn't happen to anyone else with the disorder.
What you lack in sensory sensitivities you make up for in theory of mind deficits. This forum is very diverse and you need to think over what you post, whether it could be taken the wrong way by other posters. And never assume you know how it is for others. Make sure you clearly say that's how it is for you but not for others.

I actually like having a lot of light, my vision is all kinds of f'ed up, and if I can't see the details it bothers me. When I'm touching or smelling or just stressed out, my vision darkens like someone is turning down a fader switch. Sunglasses just exacerbate the effect.

I think this is why I like rust belt towns so much, like St Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland. Lots of green growing things taking back the urban space, buildings that haven't been painted in 50 years, dull brickwork stained with rust. And not too many big bright advertisments or fancy new cars with their obnoxious paint jobs.

But places like Miami, Vegas or L.A. just plain hurt to be in.

Anyone else do that thing where you pick leaves then rip them up or run your fingers across the wall, get so lost in thought you start half acting things out with your hands and muttering under your breath, or if you are on an empty street in your own world and see a person It like freaks you out, like this horrible thing has come into your safe dreamy world

I don't get distracted by every little tiny thing. The noise may be about right for me, but how do you know that NTs don't hear all that noise like that too?

Most NTs aren't hypersensitive to sensory stimuli like that, and my understanding is that most can filter out unimportant stimuli to pay attention to what they consider to be important stimuli. My problem, for example, is that I can't prioritize what I'm hearing at all - everything has my attention all at once, so I use a fan to generate white noise in my bedroom, use headphones to listen to TV shows and movies and videogames, etc.

And even at that, I know someone - not NT- who has a harder time with filtering noise than I do.

I thinks it's well done, but agree that they left out stopping and investigating things, especially the different textures of the wall, plants, pipes, etc. But overall, a good comparison of AS to NT experience.

I don't have sensitive eyes, but I have sensitive ears, so the noises around seems louder to me I suppose. But today I was in a massive rush because I thought I was going to miss my bus, and now when I think about it I actually was able to filter out the noise of the traffic, and I even heard a car horn bib at somebody but it didn't make me jump. So I suppose if my mind isn't on it, I can filter it out, but because I know I hate loud noises, I am subconsciously alert of them most of the time and so listen out for them.

Now that I think about it, I think that I look my most "autistic" to others when I am walking around by myself. Hand-flapping/finger-flicking (I call these mini-stimming now) + talking to myself + stopping to touch and smell things + breaking out into a sporadic skip or spin + standing in place staring at nothing => very un-NT-appearing.

The NT brain can choose on what to focus on and focus less on all the background noise. Someone who experiences every sense at once gets overwhelmed by it and usually force focusing on one thing can calm them down. People with ADHD process everything at once but they don't usually have an attention to detail like autistic do.

Just remember: saying 'don't NT's do that too?' is like saying..."but that's not such a big deal, it's probably not as bad as you are making it seem.'

I medicate. I wear ear phones and listen to music. I stim. I focus intensely on objects just to block it all out so I don't have a meltdown/ shutdown. I have to dissociate from the world because it's so chaotic to every sense.

I wear sunglasses almost all the time outside because the world is so bright but not quite to the extreme as in the video. I notice lots of little things as depicted but I don't stop for them all. I don't get overwhelmed much by noise in the moment but instead I get brain fatigue from extended exposure to noise. I think that also has to do with the lack of filtering.

The most distracting thing about the vidoe was that I was sure it looked like Scotland and I thought I knew where it was. I spent the whole time looking for clues to which town it might be and had pinned it down to a few towns just south of where I live. The most annoying thing was that it was too bright to get a good look at the number plates on the cars to confirm it was Scotland. I searched out the film maker on Youtube and sure enough, he lives quite near here and it looks like he filmed it in his local town. That's just made my day.

I get distracted by various things as I walk along, like a plastic bag floating in the wind, an interesting looking rock or something like that; but my vision isn't intensely bright, and my hearing only goes super hyper sensitive like that when I'm having a meltdown or I focus on it. Another thing I have are racing thoughts that go around my head. Even though things aren't that bright for me, I see colours alot more intensely and vividly than other people, it seems. Hence why I love colourful things and trippy stuff.

This is good. I've done a video simelar to this about seeing a shop through an autistic persons eyes. This defanitly grasps what the wolds like for some people with autism. If you want any critisism for future vids like this, just make the showings a bit shorter, for it will likely loose the audiances atentian. Your ajustments though are defanitly better than mine.