Prolonged focus?

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Hi,

Sometimes when do things for a few hours (reading news, working online (surveys), or chess etc) it becomes really difficult to stop. It's like my mind just locks into the pattern and it just keeps going. Some things I've done for about 18 hours in a single day before and at the end of the day it feels like my mind is on a track and it's very difficult to stop. Do others with autism share this?

It sounds a little similar to OCD but it's probably caused by something else (not caused by autism for OCD people).

Last edited by Shlomo on 31 Jul 2012, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

http://archive.autistics.org/library/inertia.html

Sounds like normal autistic behaviour to me...?

That is fairly common for both people with autism and ADHD, and in each it is usually called perseveration and hyperfocus.

A similar thing happens to me a lot. If I'm really into something, I'll lose track of time and hours will pass by. I don't think I've ever done anything for 18 hours straight, but that's because after awhile I get tired of doing the same thing and need to shift my focus to something else. There are so many projects that I've started with a passion, and then never finished because I became fascinated by something else.

When I was a teen, people would often tell me that when I worked on art, I looked like I was in a totally different mental zone than everyone else, and sometimes they were afraid to disrupt me.

Also, if anyone tries to interrupt me when I'm concentrating on something, I get REALLY irritated! It does not feel ok to stop what I'm doing.

Don't knock it, comes in handy

It's not autistic. If you like doing something, it's common you get indulged in it.

You did see the part in the original post about doing the same thing for 18 hours in a single day? That's a little more than normal.
And besides, getting stuck on one thing and finding it difficult to move from one task to another are well-known autistic issues.

Yes, I have this as well. I know a lot of people with AS has this, especially if it turns into one of their special interests.

I don't think people who are not autistic, autistic-related or with a mental specificity of some kind (OK, it can just be for example a "high IQ", so to say - I don't like very much the concept of IQ), can really have the same experience.
In my case, I don't really have the "mind locked" aspect of the thing, except when it's late and I must go to sleep while I've been reading or searching an interest extensively for long hours ; for then it can become hard to stop. But else, yes, it seems I can focus for a much longer time than others, provided I'm in the right conditions (for example, reading in a library is not the best situation for that to happen, because I'm in a social setting). But it works above all for ephemeral interests I think, which become quite an obsession, or my long-lasting strange interests (maps, Google Earth, music, playing again and again episodes of the TV series I like).
Nonetheless, I think I've managed to tame that in what regards specific tasks. I'm a procrastinator, surely because I'm a perfectionist, so I usually do my work at the last moment. Two months ago, I had an essay to write about the thematic of l'ennui (which in French seems a more multi-faceted word than the English boredom) in French literature. I had the whole semester to think about it, but I had a dissertation of 100 pages or more to do too, so I delayed, and I found myself without having done much for the essay while a few days remained before the deadline... I had chosen an author, but then I told me it would not work and decided to change a few days before the deadline. I took a writer I knew more, even though I had never done research on this particular thematic about him, and I wrote more than 24 pages pretty much overnight. I wrote it while reading several hundred pages of the author (a poet, so it was easier). I emailed the essay at the beginning of the afternoon the next day, after just a small proofreading. And I got, hum, a nearly perfect result.
I know other people who have a proclivity to do their university work near or very near the deadline. For some, it's not a rewarding experience, of course. For the good or the best students, it can give them a 15 or a 16 if they're lucky, but I've yet to meet someone who had such mark when doing it nearly overnight. With me, it's different, and I'm shameful about it sometimes, because, of course, it didn't happen once, even though this is an extreme example (my parents were like "it's impossible" when they learnt I'd had such a good mark, given the situation). But when I did this, working all night to do this paper, it didn't feel hard, I was focused, and I didn't even have to "think" a lot, it did itself...
I'm not writing so extensively about myself (sorry if it's too much information, and if it appears to be vain, but I'd like to know if you've lived the same experiences) without thinking on the general level. It seems to me that there is, indeed, a specific "focus mode" in what regards people that are different from the usual NT. It's in my opinion one of the many proofs of the qualitative difference in "intelligence" or rather in the organization and processing of thought and data (the qualitative aspect is more important that the maybe not-so-appropriately-called "quantitative" aspect of "intelligence", I think). Some professors have told me several times, in oral tests for example (where the train of thoughts appears as it is), that I don't approach problems or subjects in the same way of others (which in many cases is a good thing - not every time, though, and of course I speak here only of knowledge). That can be a problem, because it makes me feel further remote from other people, in an area I should be more alike with my colleagues : they don't study or research the way I do (which is, hum, really idiosyncratic). When I was younger I naively thought my differences with others would be less pronounced when I would be at university, where there is no longer this great ravine of interests and functioning between people ; I was wrong.



That's the point.
There are persons who have told me they were impressed when they saw me in my "writing trance" mod ; however, I don't know how I am when I'm in a real highly focused "trance", because it most often happens when I'm alone at home, but I know that for me too time can go by while I process data, and that I could keep doing it longer if there were not constraints, whether they be social or organic (sleep !).

I have hyperfocus and it doesn't even have to be something I'm interested in. When I timestamp something, I have to listen, read, and press a button all at the same time. Most of what I'm reading and listening to is deathly boring, so I play the tape back at double speed so that I can still understand it and the timing is still accurate enough.

This is how I normally work. I've spent 48 hours straight on one activity before, and I once got an A (from a prof known for being tough) on an essay I wrote at 4 am on the day it was due. I can only really work on something when I have momentum, but when I have this momentum it's nearly impossible to change direction. As I've gotten older I've learned ways of manipulating this tendency, trying to trick myself into locking onto a particular task that needs to be done, or being a bit more tolerant of interruptions when I am focused on another task, but it's still the norm for me to work this way and I just have to explain it to the people around me.

Sometimes I often get carried away with writing stories while listening to music, and it's getting on for 11 o'clock at night and I should be getting to bed. But that's because I have my music on, and I just get absorbed into it, but I think that can be common in a lot of people. Otherwise, I have quite a short attention span. I can just focus better on writing stories because I really enjoy it.

Ironically I'm actually the only one in my family who isn't into reading books. My mum and my brother love reading books.

Thanks! That's a really interesting article.

I have high functioning autism, ADHD and OCD - I tend to spend a lot of time focused on one thing, particularly special interest related things. I spend a large portion of my time on special interest stuff - when I was into World of Warcraft, I spent a -minimum- of 8 hours per day playing it, easily going up to 12 to 18 hours per day on it. Now I do the same thing with playing music. Even when I'm the computer I usually have a guitar or a bass in my lap.

I think it's an autistic trait to spend so much time concentrated on one thing - I don't think my OCD has anything to do with it because the things I do because of my OCD are entirely different - with those I feel like I need to do something, or think something, etc., or something bad will happen (as illogical as that is; I know nothing bad will happen, it just feels like something bad will). When I'm focusing on things, like playing music, it's different - there is no feeling that I -must- do it - I'm just doing it and don't switch tasks.

I got told "How can you keep so focused for so long? I haven't seen anybody else focused like this." a lot when drawing something. And I really wondered if it really was that uncommon. I get lost easily, especially in things that interest me.

Yes this is true.....it's also an issue with transitions, not being able to stop one activity and move on to another. I do this quite often...especially with reading.