Do you sense people's vibes/energy

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Not sure if this is the same thing, but when someone's near me I can 'feel' them like a sensation on my skin. If someone's sitting in the same room I can feel the space they occupy. Is this weird?

You are on to something here.
But, the question is how do you objectively determine the percentage of correctness of these intuitions? The NT requirement to not only deceive and manipulate in their communications, but to also over-emote, makes it extremely difficult to assess situations correctly.
I have had people directly lie to me and basically tell me that my intuitive ability is faulty, even after I had followed up by an extremely thorough conscious logical analysis, to include checks/tests for validity.
Was it my ability and/or logic that was faulty, or simply the fact that the truth was something that HAD to be concealed at all cost?

Could it be this that has caused us all to be described as those who cannot correctly "read" people, as well as us being a threat?

I actually rarely trust my intuition in cases that involve other people or social interaction. Could I have been conditioned this way by NTs?

I DO trust my intuition involving things that have nothing to do with people, which includes other animals and life forms, objects, physics physical processes, mathematics, memory, dimensions, and many other things. Could it be that the difference is that these other things do not lie, and have no reason to lie to protect an identity?

I do. I feel energy that a person gives. It must compensate for my poor ability to read facial expressions. I've never used the word "vibes" to describe it though. I don't like that word for some unknown reason.

I thought I was the only one who had this. I get extremely anxious when someone is upset or angry. It usually causes my sudden outbursts to erupt as well. Like when my parents start yelling, I usually get angry about it as well because it overwhelms me. It's like... I can feel their anger, so it upsets me or something. I get this way during negative situations as well.

One time we were at walmart and this guy was getting arrested, possibly for shoplifting. He was trying to run from the cops, but they were holding him down and what not. Anyway, I stood there without moving and being screaming like a banshee. My parents ended up taking me to a different walmart because I refused to move from where I standing or go inside like everyone else was doing.

I just get very upset with negative situations. However, it depends on what's going on. Sometimes, I just get bad anxiety if I know someone I'm close to is upset. I feel helpless if I can't try to cheer them up or make them happy again, you know?

I get vibes. Trouble is they are either conflicting or confusing or just plain incorrect a lot of the of the time. It takes me a long time to figure out people. The first impression thing that is so crucial to NT's I am usually wrong about

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 07 Sep 2014, 1:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

Connected to the same/similar thing.

And YES, this happens to me too. Looking back, I think this was a large part of why I felt ill almost every day of grade school--I could sense the hostility from the other students (and some of the teachers) and it translated into feeling physically nauseous.

At work, I get exhausted easily due to all of the customers and associates around me--just TOO MUCH happening at once, emotionally speaking.

One of you mentioned that you can always feel what's happening with some of your friends--ditto. Another one of my friends (not Aspie) is also empathic--I asked her to describe how it felt to her once, and here is what she said:

"Mostly emotions, it's hard for me to sort out what is my emotions and what is someone else's......Sometimes because of the physical aspects of others' emotions will cause me to react the same way, a.k.a being mad, grumpy, depressed. Sometimes I try to shut it off but I start to feel completely empty. It is hard to realize how I AM feeling versus what those around me are feeling. Sometime I can sense others' emotions without even being near them or around them and I can sense when someone I meet is not a good person."

It can be confusing at times. I wonder if I'm just in a bad mood or if someone close by is, then I start second-guessing my own sensing/intuition. One of you mentioned that not following your intuition was/is always a VERY BAD IDEA. I have found the same thing, many times. I am finally learning to trust myself more (still a work in progress).

I really think that "Intense World Theory" makes the most sense of all of the theories that have been put forth to explain autism. We feel far too much, and we feel the TRUTH. That probably does make other people uncomfortable.

Yes, you have already found the answer by yourself.

Just look at this from a NT perspective. Imagine you are the type of person who cheats on their spouse, or steals money from your employer. No super-serious offences but things that would make you look real bad if your community found out about them. You would likely get ostracized and your chances to find a new mate and job prospects would be seriosly diminished.

If you were this person would like to have a guy/girl around who could read you like an open book? Wouldn't you do anything in your power to convince this person and everyone around you that he/she is delusional or even psychotic?

It's the most scariest thing in the world when someone can read your mind and sense your intentions. The only people who wouldn't be threatened by this kind of ability are other people who share the same skill.

So what happens is that aspies are told from early on that they are wrong. It doesn't even have to be done in a purposefully malicious manner since NTs are fooled by manipulative tactics as well. Basically we should start to trust our intuition much more, and once enough time has passed we have accumulated facts surrounding our intuitive decisions, and then we can judge is this ability accurate or not.

This goes on a tangent but what if this mind-reading ability/vibe detector evolved in neanderthals (because they lived in small groups and thus deceptive and manipulative behaviour would not have aided the group's survival. Since the group size was so small, everyone had to pull in the same direction otherwise everyone would die). And what we are seeing today in asperger's is simply neanderthal gene expression.

I'm surprised and relieved to see so many replies of aspies saying they do pick up on vibes, because I do very strongly and I thought this was the biggest factor to put doubt onto my being on the spectrum! Even someone I was speaking to who knows about autism thought that my ability to read people and situations was "too good" for me to be on the autism spectrum.

But I've had this more and more in my life. I don't think I did have this ability so much when I was a child. But I began to notice it more as an adult. I started to be able to read body language and facial expressions enough to pick up atmospheres, moods and feelings.

My only problem is that I don't know what to do with that information, or how to respond to it. And most of all, I don't know WHY the vibe changed if it changed.

I can tell that someone is feeling okay, but then if they alter in the middle of a conversation, I can just KNOW that suddenly they're pissed off, the mood has gone dark if it wasn't before, but I don't know WHY.

So, I pick up vibes very acutely, I can see angry or happy body language, but I can't figure out what the causes might be from the physical or psychological environment or circumstances.

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Have you considered doing nothing when you sense these changes? It's often hardly your fault that someone is feeling down or whatever. Basically learning to let these feelings pass. Might sound cruel or unempathetic but ultimately you are the only one responsible for your own emotional well-being and being an emotional sponge and trying to over-empathise with others is going to burn you out. I would call this healthy level of selfishness, something which many aspies struggle with and consequently burn-out/isolate themselves so that they don't have to empathise with anyone.

So how does one not care anymore? First, a conscious decision has to be made that you are not responsible for solving everyone's problems or giving them emotional support. Doesn't mean you can't do good stuff to people, but perhaps reserve your empathy for the people who are truly at the brink of destruction (like homeless people) and to the people who are close to you and support you in return.

Secondly, practising meditation teaches to simply let your emotions and feeling pass without judging them or allowing them to form endless thought-loops and internal monologing in your head.

Thirdly, mindfullness i.e. focusing on observing other people gets you out of your head when you are around people, and you can more correctly assess every situation. Sooner or later you start to realize that just because someone is feeling something, it doesn't require any action from you and you start to become more detached about their feelings.

After all most people's problems are pretty menial socially related hurt (like f*****g kids in the playground, they are just hurt about their social status). They are not in real danger, In contrast, an aspie is usually the real outsider with a very thin support network. Therefore, an aspie should worry about solivng his/her own problems which undoubtedly are manifold, and to which he/she is receiving very little understanding or empathy from neurotypicals.

That's good advice and thanks, GhostNeanderthal. Although, I guess what I mean is, if I sense this vibe change during a conversation I'm having with that person, knowing that I have the aspie tendency to "put my foot in my mouth" and say something that has just offended the person, I'm usually finding myself wondering if it was something I said or did.

Even then, your advice would apply to that too, of course. I can't be responsible for another person's response and change of mood. But still I want to figure out if it was me who caused it just to learn if I can correct the situation, tell them I didn't mean what they possibly thought I meant, or learn for the future.

Also, sometimes one wants to "figure out why" there is a vibe or a change of vibe in order to better assess perhaps a real danger in the environment, whether it be a fight about to break out in a bar, or some other situation that your radar is telling you to get away from.

It's not always a bad thing to want to figure out "why" the vibe is happening or altering, or to have a response to it that may in fact save one's own life in that moment, figuratively or literally. I don't actually go around 24/7 worrying about others' vibes and what I need to do about them, it's just literally "did I say something wrong" -- which nine times out of ten I'm actually correct....

.

Yes it's good to figure out why something happened, after all that's how I and many others have deductively learned social skills and many unspoken rules that govern social interaction in general. Also very often what an aspie does or says offends other people, I guess only through experience can one learn when it is appropriate to correct one's own behaviour and when it's someone else's problem.

Aspies are known for differences in neural sensing and processing. If one considered "vibes" as similar to another data collection process such as early election results, one might see where incomplete sensing data could be interpreted as sub-conscious impressions or even mystical revelation.

I knew a guy many years ago that was a manager of a fried chicken restaurant. A man came in one night with a gun to rob the place. My friend took the gun away from him and the robber fled. As my friend was relating this story to a group of people many said that they agreed and would have done the same thing. I talked with him privately and said that it struck me that his decision to make a play for the gun was not a thought out plan or a result of what philosophies he held about crime, but there was no time for thought at all. It might have been a sub-conscious assessment of how close the gun was or how it was held, but the decision to go for the gun was what might be called instinctive.

It would seem that as we sense our environment we receive data in multiple stages and process it in stages. Preliminary data can be so significant that it is detected as a "vibe" because we have no other word for it.

Aspies are supposed to be insensitive to others. It may be that Aspies receive so much information and that processing it takes so long that it often produces inconclusive or even contradictory results such that responses are slow and often interpreted as disinterest. In addition an ability to focus on one thing often results in a lack of focus on something else.

I would say that vibes, like early election results, can be useful but also subject to change.

This is a very good description. If "Intense World Theory" does make sense, then it means that Aspies are "super-sensors." Unfortunately, analyzing what we sense can happen too slowly. This translates into sensory overload and can make it necessary to withdraw in order to deal with it.



See above.



Exactly! I think this explains what autism really "is" far better than any other explanations I've read.

YES.

What is this sensing of vibes from people?
What does it feel like?
I don't think I sense the vibes that people are describing here.

I sense ego like a thick, blinding fog