Everything feels stark, like looking directly into the sun?

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I wonder if this is an aspie thing, though it may be more of a depressed thing, but when I try to become highly engaged with the world, where I'm talking with people with people constantly, or work a job which requires constant attention and coordinating physical and mental work quickly (like working as a cook at McDonald's), things begin to feel stark. It's synesthesic with looking directly into the sun--the two feelings seem to match for some reason. I mean, literally, I don't see bright light, but it's like eyes inside me are, if that makes any sense. It sounds weird, but there aren't actually eyes, it's just that I experience things as being too "bright" and too "clear" in those situations, so much so that it is painful. And what "things" I experience as being like that, I don't know: it's just "things." It makes me want to disengage, like retreating from that sun, to look back into the shade; basically, to disengage. I want to find a "dark" cave to go hide in.

Is this something other aspies experience or is this depression or a schizotypal trait? Is it bipolar? Maybe I should ask the bipolar people.

another type of overstimulation?

I don't know whether it is what you are talking about, but when I was younger, in my teens to early twenties, I saw the world really starkly, like I was really seeing it and it nearly drove me mad. I felt if I thought about it too much that I would actually go insane. When I look at Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers', and see the flowers as eyes, then it seems to capture what I was experiencing. I always believed Vincent had this problem and it is what drove his painting.
I also feel I could do my version of that artwork, but I am psychologically bound and gagged so feel the need but can't create the art. My life's obstacles make it worse, but the real problem is in my head. I am DYING to make art but can't seem to free myself to do it.

Off topic a bit, I suspect, sorry.

Perhaps you are experiencing some traits of mild depersonalization with a tiny mixture of sensory issues? We are autistic after all. No, wait, what am I saying? Autism can not be used to lable such actions which could/can also occure in others. I guess the only reason why I could happen to give those two problems is because of own experience. Yes, I too have had the out-of-reality world smudge..and trust me, it's not good. Have you been using the computer in any way that is considered excessive? You could need glasses.

This happens to me pretty often when I'm in a stressful/busy environment. I have an internal "radio" that helps, because I have to focus on something internal vs my environment. Being tired will increase it, too.

I get that feeling too. I think it's overstimulation.

Oh yeah. I keep slipping into my thoughts, which helps the situation. It's when it becomes excessive, where I'm constantly having to attend from one thing to the next, and I'm like, "There's more?!" It also occurred when I got involved in religion; it's like I can't stand the light of making myself act so perfectly all the time, of having to care about all these things I don't normally care about. Because of this, I feel like I'm "afraid of the light," like I am a child of hell, or something, because I want to retreat to the shade.

In each of the 2 cases in the paragraph above, I feel a burning sensation in my mind, like I am being scrubbed clean, being sterilized like you would sterilize a hospital room, being forcibly made into a whole new person. My aversion to this feeling contributes even more to the feelings of being hellbound, adding to my sense of guilt.

Does anyone else here experience that feeling? Something about it seems autistic; it's like the autistic impulse of wanting to attend to our repetitive behaviors and restricted interests and not wanting our routine we've got set up to be disrupted. Maybe we autistic people are all hellbound.

Perfectionist and rule abiders....yes. Hellbound...don't think so.