Being in your own world

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One possible trait of autistics is being in your own world and thinking by yourself even though right beside you, there is a conversation going on between a few people and you pay no attention.

To what extent have you been in your own world? When I was small I found myself doing it all the time. I would never follow along with other people's conversations. Things have improved but I still find myself being in my own world.

Yes, I'm like that. I guess I just get bored and enjoy my own head more.

+1. always have had my own little world. keeps me entertained at work, i think.

The conversations of others around me rarely interest me. My own mind is a haven where I don't have to pretend to care. I enjoy my little world, others may join in on occasion if the topic is right!

"Only in their dreams can men be truely free, twas always thus, and always thus will be" (line from Dead Poets Society that I felt fit, I take dreams to be waking dreams as well (as in our own minds).

I find i am in my own world and don't care what is going on around me, and yet i'm constantly keeping track of it and at times get distracted by it? Does that make sense to anyone?

If i hear my name mentioned i can come out of what i'm doing, check who's speaking and already know what they've been talking about and why my name was mentioned.

From another point of view, i can be fully aware of people around me and their conversations yet completely jump out of my skin when someone stands next to me and asks me something.

It doesn't seem to make sence. The closest i get to explaining is it that becuase i don't actually *care* about the things going on, my hard drive is recording it but my processor (which is very single core, i don't multi task at all well) isn't using any resource on it, then when a code word is recognised (my name for example), it's shocked into quickly switching it's workload, checking the hard disk for relevent info and processing an appropriate reaction.

And i have a feeling that was a horribly aspie explaination, and possibly not really the desired direction of the thread.

I'm in my own little world all the time. I shut the world out and do my own thing and won't know what is going on around me.

1965 London seems a lot safer to me, than 2010 Vancouver does.

It is the story of my life. I sometimes wish I knew how to connect, but other than that I'm fine, okay with it. I sorta have to be. Everything else feels like a foreign language to me and exactly why I am, stuck that way in my own little world. I can get miserable about it sometimes but mostly I make do and make peace with it, most days anyway. It's easier than trying to speak martian.

I was in my own world a lot more as a kid. Now I have things to do though so I have to listen to conversations (because the things that I do involve me) but every so often I'll start drifting off into the depths of my mind, usually when I'm stressed about something that someone is saying. I don't do it on purpose though, it's a "stress response". I still do it a lot when I'm by myself because it's fascinating.

I do it now the problem is most of the time Im on the freeway when that happens

I basically live in my own world & I always have. It's one of the only ways I can deal with being around people. I stay in my own make believe world, & block everyone else out.

Most of the problem for me arises from the pressure from others around me, who need and want more of me than I can give.
I'm perfectl ycontent in myown world. I also like to come out of it and engage at times - but when I can and not at the dicates of others. the normal to and fro and give and take of relating is not easy for me. I can communicate for short bursts, but it tires me.

This morning I went to the beach with a friend who drove out there. I had a really good time with sunglasses and earplugs and an almost non-existent wind. very wonderful.
I enjoyed the talk i had, one on one. we were there for maybe 50 minutes or so. But by the time I got home I was utterly exhausted.
When i got home, others who live in this house were angry with me because I had used up all my communicating energy and couldn't absorb any more words.
I have a quota i suppose...a kind of saturation point and when i reach that, my frontal lobes just plainly hurt and fuzz out and i get headaches because i cannot cope with the to and fro of reciprocity any longer.

I much prefer the peace of my own world and my own thing. I really enjoy thinking and researching and doing my special interests.

Sometimes having to engage with the world and leave my realm is like ripping a limpet from a rock. It's an aggressive kind of shift into a material reality of communal activity and talking that is not what I am best at.

I can definitely relate to this.

I do this a lot and I need it badly. When I have been prevented from it in the past, I have become so weary and overwhelmed and I feel near catatonic. I need it - it's a way of relaxing and be myself.
My extreme need for being alone is among other things a result of needing to be in my own mindscape, which I can't be around people, they only disturb it.
Sometimes it works better if I walk around or rock while doing this. And sometimes I need to walk while I do it.


I have done it for as far as I can remember (ca age 2-3). In my early years my mother would often say to me: "Have you fallen into a reverie?" As I became older (teen) it changed to an annoyed: "Get back to planet Earth" or "get your feet back on the ground".


I really wish they (NTs) could understand how important this is for us and accept it as part of who we are.

I wonder if this need say anything about how autistic a person is? Can that (among other things) define us as moderate or severe AS?