"Intense gaze"

Post Reply New Topic

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to get your thoughts/views/opinions on this phenomenon amongst some aspies - an intense, almost passionate gaze. It's something people who know me have pointed out about my expression and it's something that I've noticed on photo's of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Albert Einstein (obviously am aware that it's not "set in stone" that they had AS).

There is a mention of Hans Asperger himself having "an earnest face with an intense gaze" on the Wiki article about AS (there is a source cited, unlike many statements on Wiki!).

Anyone else able to relate? Or aware of material written on the topic, if only a sentance or two? What are your thoughts about why it is that some aspies have such an expression?

Thanks .

Regarding the idea of an intense gaze, I do know that a term like staring (involuntary staring) comes up with subtle seizures such as petit mal/absence (and so on). Staring can even come up in some discussions about ADHD Inattentive-ADHD. Also am aware that some persons can have subtle vision difficulties and may display a gaze as a way for time to elapse and the object of the gaze to enter working memory/short-term memory, etc. I do feel that some persons, often with keen intellects, can display something like a (momentary) intense gaze as they go into a temporary state of heightened concentration. In terms of still photographs which capture a reality in literally a moment of time (like 1/100 second/whatever), I really do not lean toward such a photograph as being the best evidence. A motion picture over 30 seconds would be better and even a full length movie of 1.5 hours which might show nine 10 minute mini-movies on the topic. A passionate gaze can be defined in many, many ways including the passionate gaze artist Vincent van Gogh would display in painting a new picture on canvass. That's my two cents on the topic.

Last edited by pgd on 29 Jul 2010, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One of the guys in my AS support group has the most intense gaze I've ever seen. I not big fan of eye contact; it's harder with him though. It feels like he's looking at some pint in space that's 100 yards behind me, but in a direct line with my head (looking through me I guess).

I've heard of this, but so far I've never had it applied to myself . I think a lot of that is dependent on your eye shape and staring patterns.

I have very large eyes that other people appareantly find 'intense'. Appareantly it makes me appear somewhat dangerous which is why people always used to sortof wary of me when i went out in public. Once in a supermarket someone panicked because they thought i was going to attack them, ever since then i have weared Sunglasses most of the time.

My daughter had an EEG because it really worried her neurologist that an autistic person could make such intense and sustained eye contact. Her neurologist feared that it was actually a small seizure every time she did that (because she's autistic...and making intense eye contact). The EEG was normal. No seizures. It turns out that she's an autistic person who makes intense eye contact.

She does staredowns with cats. It's hilarious to watch. She always wins. Inevitably, the cats give up staring first and walk away. I tried staring down the very same cats (neighborhood cats) and I broke away before they did. So I tried a staring contest with her. (No. This is not child abuse when the child actually likes eye contact.) She won. I can't keep up that level of eye contact. But the worried neurologist did verify by EEG that it's not a seizure.

She also was examined by an opthamologist to make sure it wasn't a harbinger of vision difficulties (was she staring as she tried to focus?). She had a vision exam which went far beyond the usual "look at the chart and tell me what you see" exam. The goal was to see if she was staring as a means of trying to bring something into focus. But no. She just stares and makes really intense eye contact.

When you grow up getting told 'look me in the eye when I'm talking to you' often enough, of course you'll develop an 'intense gaze'.

It's probably a result of making eye contact reflexively through 'practice' rather than reflexively through instinct.

---

Janissy - Thanks for sharing that. Yes, some of these eye patterns/whatever can take weeks, months, even years sometimes to sort out. - pgd

I do the intense staring thing at people when they're talking to a group that I'm a part of (like in a classroom, for instance). I only become aware of it when the teacher looks at me funny, like they're disconcerted.
One of my high school teachers said I had the tendency to stare right through her. She told this to my NT sister, who apparently had the same tendency.

Actually, this is how I look at people when they are talking to me. I never look away. I just wait for THEM to.

On the other hand, when I am talking, I constantly look off to the side.

I stare a lot. Staring at cats is just for fun, because they stare back.
(Occasionally people like to do that too.)

I don't much look at people when I'm talking to them, and I prefer side-by-side conversations, but as long as people are far enough away (3ft or more) I'll stare when I'm listening. It's for focus, not to focus the eyes, but to focus the mind so it can absorb everything. I tend to be a verbal recorder and can be very still when I'm listening.
Something else to do as well makes listening and talking easier.

I'll still stare if people are close, because I don't like it, it's too in-my-face, so focusing on people's eyes is a way of tuning them out visually if it would be too rude to turn away.

Trying to do brief glances or look at other parts of faces is too distracting, it's like turning your mind on / off / on / off with a switch. Eyes don't move around as much as the rest of the face (especially when they are caught by the mesmerising stare ).

It's uncomfortable to know that what works so well for me has probably been freaking people out for years. I hardly know where to look anymore, but as soon as I forget to be self-conscious about it, I revert to old habits.

Less than a year ago I saw an article in the paper about someone who succeded in life despite having Asperger's Syndrome. Out of curiosity about Aspergers I looked it up. I was floored ! So at the ripe old age of 83 I at last found out what has wrong with me. I had all of the major symptoms and a handful of the minor ones.
My parents back then in the "dirty thirties" were exasprated and bewildered and so was I. One of the things that I had to endure was ridicule from people who mentioned "the look" and perhaps that I was crazy. I had no idea what they were talking about. I was completely unaware of my staring episodes then and I still am today. I am only aware of the reaction that I get from my unintended victims. After what to me at least, is a brief glance, women cringe and men react by saying "Jesus Christ" and appearing as if they are face to face with Satan himself. I try to remember to keep my eyes moving and when I fail it is a heart-breaking experience for me.

I don't like prolonged eye contact outside of a few contexts. But I did once know someone who wanted to stare at my eyes, supposedly so I would be able to "see the pain in her eyes". I still don't know what I was supposed to be seeing in her eyes. But she reacted to my eyes at first by saying "oh my god I don't see ANYTHING in your eyes, they're just empty". Then she referred to them as "hypnotizing". To this day I have no clue what all that was about.

I've always been told you can tell I am autistic in my childhood photographs because I just have "this look" in my eyes.

This is interesting. There was a period in my life where I would look AT people, almost like I was drilling a hole in their eyes. I was having a hard time reconciling this with my more general unease with eye contact. I firstly decided it was an affectation, that having somehow discovered that eye contact was a requirement for social interaction, I made it a point to make that contact. It turns out that it was just a different form of inappropriate eye contact - forced and discomforting. I guess poor eye contact is better than overly intense eye contact in the rule book of social contact.

But more interesting to me, if the person I am talking to is actually the focus of the conversation, I don't find it nearly as onerous to maintain eye contact. I suspect it gets into the realm inappropriately intense, but I will actually look directly into a persons eyes in this context, almost like I am trying to maximize the amount of data I am collecting. But even this is not the conversational type of eye contact that I am apparently expected to intuitively understand and use.

My mother said I was born with an intense gaze. When I was in my late twenties, I saw the first videotape of me talking to the person with the video camera. Funny, I never saw myself that way in the mirror. The intensity of the gaze was a little unnerving to me. When I become intensely focused on something I completely lose awareness of myself. I think hyperfocus is part of the cause of the intensity of the gaze.