Aspie Stare

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I was wondering if the aspie stare or 1000 yard stare in autism is the result of paying more attention to peripheral vision rather than focal vision.

I think it's from being preoccupied with what's going on inside your head and not really focusing on what you're eyes are looking at.

i have no idea what ur talking about


i like toast

[img][800:1822]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Toast-2.jpg[/img]

I agree with Willard, I think it's the result of focusing on the internal rather than anything external.

I have tunnel vision and am rather well known for that stare - I don't have a great deal of peripheral vision to be distracted by!

Downstream - That was a really interesting article. Thanks.

Willard and ChameleonKeys - I had not thought of that but it makes sense.

Codyrules37 - I like toast, too.

Half the time my eyes are not focused on anything at all. It takes conscious effort to bring things into focus--you know those tiny muscles in your eyes that change the shape of the lens so that things are clear? If I'm not reading or looking at something specific, it's very likely that I'll just have my eyes relaxed, almost like I don't worry about focusing my eyes when I'm not using them. But that's not all the time. I often stim by following patterns in my environment, visually. It's a nearly undetectable stim except that I'm not making eye contact. I learned a lot of those as a kid, when people made fun of me or told me to stop fidgeting. When you can stim by looking at things, that's about as undetectable as it gets short of mentally playing with sounds or images or whatever.

the stare was another moment for me when I read about Asperger's.

My mrs has forever told me off for staring at people!

When I was a kid I would stim by moving my eyes to make patterns out of light trails.
Sometimes just random stuff, sometimes numbers and letters.

I still do it occassionally if I find myself in a situation where I don't have anything to distract me like something to read and I need to stay relatively still for a period of time.

I would go into what can probably be called a vacant stare. I am not focusing on anything in particular and I am "caught inside," so to speak. Interestingly, I don't really remember my thoughts from when I do this. When I think hard, I don't usually go into this, so this seems to be more of a rest state than anything.

I remember a friend of me sister's from when she was 13 (and I was 15) staring like this. This friend (who was probably 13 herself) was visiting our house, and she sat at the table in the dining room and had the same vacant stare I recognized that I had. She stared like that for at least a few minutes, as when I went back and forth I kept seeing her in that same state. If she was my sister's friend, I wouldn't expect her to have Asperger's (or to at least have been identified as having Asperger's), but it kinda tickled me. It seemed that one of my sister's friends herself might have had mental issues like I had had. I wonder where she is, now.

My wife calls it 'Back in Five'. She was the first one who ever mentioned it to me, but told me that several of our friends had taken offense, thinking I was being rude, until she explained to them that I was just lost in thought when it happened.

My son does the same thing. I never realized how odd it appeared...

Totally soulless. Its looks like I've died and my body is animated like a zombie's. I stare into space to stim, calm myself, or think about something. I don't do anything. I just focus on this one though intensely.

I do have a tendency to stare; sometimes I'll be in a group discussion and my mom will ask me, "where did you go?" because she knows that I'm focused on my own internal perception, as has been mentioned before. For people who don't know me, it can obviously be weird or unsettling; the problem I think people have is that they think the staring is a result of something they've done, when really--much of the time I'm not really paying attention to the external world.