Trance/Shutdown in Conversations

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I notice something strange that happens to me sometimes, so I was just curious if anyone else has experienced this.

Occasionally, when someone is talking to me, I notice myself going "deeper into" myself, almost as if I were about to lose consciousness; similar to falling asleep. Except, I´m not really asleep, because I can still hear their voice talking, although their voice starts to sound a little bit far away. But the odd part is, when this happens, I have the feeling that I´m responding to them; I´ll hear my voice making comments, or answering questions, only to realize suddenly that I´m not making sound at all, I´m only thinking the words in my head. (I often realize this when I hear the person asking "did you hear me?") Sometimes I figure it out myself that I´m not really speaking, even though it seems to me like I am. And when that happens, speaking takes great effort, like I have to concentrate on "coming out of myself", coming up to the surface to connect with my voice and physically talk. I don´t think I can explain it any better than that....

This doesn´t happen so often, like I said, but just often enough lately that I´m kind of wondering about it.

I sort of do this. I think it is more from sensory overload for me. I cannot process what they are saying, sometimes even when I really try, due to the surrounding stimulation. I can hear their voice, but cannot make sense of it. I, however, do respond to them. I have learned to place in generic responses that make it appear as if I am listening when I really have no clue what they just said. These responses are usually just something like "oh yeah" or "really?" or "that's great" (although sometimes I have used that one when the thing wasn't all that great, which I found out later....)

I do that quite a bit as well. It just depends on how interesting the conversation. I work around a bunch of women at work so.......I do this quite a lot All they want to talk about is their boyfriends/husbands, kids, drama, and losing weight.

This used to happen to me all the time...it was a combination of sensory overload and focus/attentional issues. Plus, wen I did say something in roup conversation, all eyes went on me and I used to draw a blank...get so scared that I lose the ability to talk. I often faded my attention in and out of te conversation too, and still do sometimes. Often because of my processing issues I can only concentrate on the interjections (the mmm hmms, and reallys? of the conversation) instead of the content of the conversation. It took a lot of work to learn ow to correctly focus, Even then, it's still a struggle for me.

This is what happens to me a lot.

It's a type of sensory overload for me. I also begin to imagine things in vivid detail too. Not just seeing them but hearing them clearly and feeling them. Yeah, I get really bored when people are talking around me. Or maybe it is a type of shutdown for me too. It does feel like a trance.

This is not really what I meant in my original post. Although, what you describe here is something I also do a lot- (quite a bit more than the other thing). I do that most often when I´ve been talking together with someone about a special interest, but then the person changes the topic of conversation suddenly. I often have trouble making that switch, so to be "polite", I go into zombie mode and just say "mmmhhh", "yeah", stuff like that.

But the difference is, what I was explaining in my original post, is that I can still hear the person speak, can even process the words they´re saying, and I even know what I want to say back, just that I think the words rather than actually say them....it´s as if "I" go somewhere else....deeper into myself....so I can´t make connection with my physical body to speak the words. And I hear the speaker´s voice as if from far away. I was just wondering if that could be a possible AS trait, possibly due to shutdown, and I thought possibly due to just needing a break from being sociable. For instance, many times after doing this, I´ll eventually "wake up" again and join the conversation in a normal fashion.

If not that, then maybe I really am going into a trance and I´m on my to becoming a medium.