Why does stimming take so long to "get old"?

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One of my favorite stims is listening to the same song, or same part of a song, over and over. I can do this for 30 minutes or longer. When talking to NT people, though, they say that after the 2nd or 3rd repetition the song "gets old" and they can't stand listening to it anymore at the time (though give them a day and they may like it again). But that is strange: Why does the song not get old for me? Every time I repeat it (or a part of it), it's like it sounds fresh. I want to repeat the particular experience the song produced in me again and again. It's almost addictive, as sometimes I will not stop doing it in order to do something else.

How is it when stimming to music does the same song keep sounding fresh and takes a very long time for it to "get old"?

I find some songs get old fast while there are other songs I have been listening to since the 1960's and 1970's that have never gotten old. The ones that get old for me tend have little more then a very catchy beat.

I was referring more to a single session of listening. Like I have been listening to Hare Hare Yukai over and over again for more than 2 hours. It still hasn't gotten "old" and I am quite content to continue repeating it.

Lots of NT people tell me they would not be able to do as I have been doing. They would have gotten tired of the song after the 2nd or 3rd repetition, and would usually need a fair amount of time not listening to it to be ready to listen to it again.

I've found that some songs can get old quickly, bu those that are specific to stimming for me do not. Ever.

That said, I cannot end a song early if I'm listening to it to try and settle me down or calm myself. It makes the whole thing worthless and I need to start again. This makes it hard when the songs and muic I tend to use are ten minutes or longer.....

I do this all the time with my music, so you're not alone, though I never really considered it a stim.

The National Autistic Society here in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, have valuable information dedicated to your query, here's a -Link- to the Webpage in question. I hope you find the information therein enlightening.

I think it's a matter of how much you like the thing itself vs how much you enjoy novelty.

NTs are strongly predisposed to like novelty. Autistics less so. So even something that they wouldn't otherwise like can be tolerable to an NT simply because it's novel.

As you listen to the same thing over and over, the novelty aspect wears off. So if you have a strong need for novelty, it will get more and more unpleasant to listen to it. In contrast, if you don't care about novelty and like it for some other reason, repetition will have no effect on your liking for it. If you actually dislike novelty - as some autistic people do - then the more you listen to the same thing, the more enjoyable it will get.

The same type of song will get old or not get old in a single session that will in repeated listining over a period of years. I leave a repeated listening session not because the song gets old but because another special interest wants my autistic brains attention.

I thought this comment in this study was interesting:

http://file.scirp.org/Html/5-1420033_16564.htm

What I described in the OP is a ritual that I've had since at least the age of 5. I remember when I was a teenager and my dad was trying to "normalize" me, when he saw me doing this, listening to the same song over and over (or watching the same thing over and over) and being up and moving around, he would tell me "You're self-stimulating" in a stigmatizing manner. That embarrassed me, but I was unwilling to give this ritual up and so went underground with it. It provides me with an experience that absolutely nothing else can match.

It seems that this stim is largely auditory in nature, as it is auditory stimulation that I mainly seek when I do this. I also often fidget or move around when I do this, so that may have something to do with it, as well.

I know the feeling... At least in my case that behavior can be probably derived from the same root as my other repetitive behaviors. And what that root in autism then is? Hard to say.

I'd guess that it is partly a result of a very detail oriented perception. Therefore things might have depth and novelty for us a lot longer. On the other hand this detail orientedness can lead to overstimulation and anxiety, which then is fled to familiar stimuli. I also think that the so called typical people mentally form a sort of a gestalt of the song very soon, which is what they then hear from then on and thus get bored.

When I am really into a song, I might think at work like "Oh soon I get home and can merge into that song. Can't wait!"

I also like to play over and over again the same 30 second to minute-long part of like a TV show. I'm currently doing it for a scene from Haruhi Suzumiya (audio-only), the episode where they engage the Computer Club in a challenge by playing a computer game. It's a very active scene with a lot going on, fun music, and lots of intense talking. It's where Haruhi makes a Gundam reference and right when Yuki turns on the bun-kantai that lets them see most of the map. When driving, I can repeat the scene for a long time, like the 45 minute drive to my grandma's house. I often like to imitate the character Mikuru Asahina's whiny voice while listening, such as: みなさん、どこに行っちゃったんですかああ！ "Where did everybody go?" While listening, I will often silently move my mouth with the characters' speech, in an intense manner, while at times grinding my teeth. My body also seems to tense up in a manner that joins with the rhythm of what I'm listening to.

I also find that while listening, I seem to not really care about the meaning of what the characters say or the context of the scene, but seem to focus on the particularities of all the different sounds, from the background music to the characters' speech to Yuki's furious typing. I like those particularities and want to keep hearing them.