Introverted hyperactivity

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I think that there are two kinds of hyperactivity, one introverted and one extroverted. The extroverted kind is what happens when the home team is winning and everyone is cheering. Take away the social context, and the level of excitement drops. The introverted kind is more what I have--the kind where someone does something like have an "aha moment" in science, or discover a new way of thinking about something, and is so stimulated about it that he can't sit still and starts to pace or run around the room. Do the other aspies here relate to having this "introverted hyperactivity"?

I am noticing more and more how most people, sometime around late adolescence, become less excitable and "hyper" in almost all ways. What I mean is, when many kids get to the beach, or see a puppy, or any number of things that make them happy, they will start walking faster or running, talk excitedly, etc. For some reason, this is rare in adults even when something surprising and good happens to them.

I lost much of the tendency to be physically hyper too in early adulthood, but I'm coming to believe that this is mostly because I developed a chronic illness around 15. My mind, to the contrary, has stayed as hyper/excitable as when I was younger. So when I'm tired I'm less likely to move around in a hyper manner, but I will still talk faster and louder when excited. When I'm too tired/lazy to do even that, I will just think faster. So being ill has made me "think too fast for my body", and made me more irritable--when I have moments of feeling well I tend to run around in bursts more like a kid and let off steam.

I think the fact that others' excitement has gotten "toned down" in early adulthood is a big part of the reason I still feel like a kid (along with my active imagination). Unfortunately, even most aspie adults I meet don't have this trait, at least not to the extent that I do. I'd really like to find a place where other people have this "introverted hyperness" too, so that I don't feel like "too much" around them. Does anyone know of a place where this is the general tone??

I relate to this kind of hyper, I often feel the need to run around like a kid and spin across the lawn in circles and jump onto ledges and skip.

Have you ever managed to find a group/activity/subculture where this is the norm? I'm tired of feeling like I'm the only one I ever meet whose "mental energy"/emotions work more like a child's. It amplifies the feeling of alienation when I don't get social cues or have trouble dealing with responsibilities. It's like nobody else has the same overall "feeling" about life that I do, yet because they fit in and don't have problems getting jobs and whatever it gives them an "excuse" to not understand my world, and I feel like I can't get motivated about those other things because I need my world of childlike fantasy and can't get anyone else to participate in that.

I feel as though even among people whose imaginations are very active, because they don't have that "hyperness" they don't have the need to go off on the mental tangents I do. It's as though this one difference amplifies to color everything.

^^^I did find that at my university this is more common than in other places.
Others were willing to participate with me in some of my hyper frolicking activities.
People who don't participate generally don't view my behaviors as wrong.

What type of university did you attend (liberal arts college, large research institution, community college, etc.)?

I attended caltech, a small research university for stem fields.

Hm. Weren't you the one who, in another thread, said that students at prestigious universities tend to be serious/mature and in fact less childlike than in other places? Or was that only the PhD students you were talking about, and you went there for a BS or Master's?

I found students at Harvard and some at MIT to be like that, caltech is completely different, esp. undergrad that I attended.

You think it's an East Coast/West Coast thing then? I do know, however, that when I went to visit Caltech when applying for a PhD program, the PhD students seemed to hate the undergraduates at their own school. I was surprised that they would badmouth students at their own school in this manner, and even more surprised that the people running the program would not have put an end to that.

What did they say about the undergrads?

I have heard some of the more NT grad students tell other grad students to avoid the undergrads, but I'm not sure what problems they have with undergrads. Many other grad students get along well with undergrads. I was undergrad, and now grad student here, and I never had any problems with anyone here. I would say grad students and postdocs are the most NT, but undergrads and professors more BAP. It's easier for me to communicate with latter than former category.

Were you the person who was trying to decide between grad schools, one of the choices being Duke, and wondering how the people were at various schools? I remember a thread about that I posted in. Which school did you choose?

Yes, I had applied to Duke and UC Merced. I ended up only getting into Duke, but I'm not at all confident I'm ready to go.

It's interesting that you say that graduate students and postdocs are more NT than undergraduates and professors. This seems difficult to explain logically--everyone who is a professor was once an undergraduate, and in between they don't get cured of their autism spectrum conditions and then re-develop them. Also, undergraduates consist partly of those who are not really that interested in their studies and are just in college because "it's the thing to do" (not at heavily STEM-focused places like Caltech and MIT, but at most other schools). These are mostly NT.

I do almost exactly the same thing, not always for the same reasons though. Often I'm not aware of it at first and suddenly find that I've walked into another room.

I think it's the weirder, less NT people who go on to become professors, since one has to be really focused on research to become a professor at caltech or mit and probably have to neglect other aspects of life, like social aspects.

But what do these people do in between? Like I said, those "weird" people still have to get between being an undergrad and a professor. There isn't just some magic pool of NTs that don't go to undergrad, then suddenly appear in graduate school and go on to get a postdoc, yet then don't progress any farther in academia.

They go to grad school and postdoc, but they are a minority in the grad student/postdoc population, which is generally more NT than the other populations, but there may be weirder, more BAP individuals too.