Auditory over-stimulation, reactions, etc.

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What is your auditory experience like as an Aspie/ASD individual? I am currently crafting a Multimedia Project that is an informative experience of the autistic condition through audio gesture technology. I have my own perspective, but in order to accurately shape the simulations I am programing, I would love to hear the perspectives of others as it is a spectrum with varied characteristics.

My own experience has been sudden reaction to sounds, being overwhelmed in crowded places and parties, as well as heightened hearing in other situations.

Irritation when multiple TV's are on in a public place. Hard to concentrate with a TV on in the background.
I don't like shopping in most places that have music on all the time.
I can't stand most smoke smells from cigarettes, pipe, some cigars, and other ( like MJ). I don't like 2nd hand smoke smells. Some are worse than others. Or even 3rd hand smoke smells. It can make me wish I'd puke, or I feel panicked from it like I am literally being hurt by breathing it.
Oops... I didn't realize it was just an auditory thread.

I can't process sound coming from multiple sources at the same time--parties, tv+someone talking on the phone+dog barking, street with construction+cars. It stresses me out and I shut down and get tired. Totally in nature is okay and I even enjoy the heightened sense of hearing to take in bird conversations and follow the rhythm of waves crashing. Nature makes me energized.

When listening to music, I love to take in all the harmonies and polyrhythms of the instruments and voices at once. I get agitated listening to a background beat that repeats with autotuned vocals.

I can only follow verbal directions if they are concrete and paint a picture in my mind. Like auditory dyslexia. If someone strings together a bunch of abstract directions, I can't follow and definitely won't remember because I just have no idea what they're talking about to begin with.

Advance directly to the 1:20 mark of the song below for a great example of what a multi-sound environment sounds like to my brain since I can't filter noises to the background. As such, I do not find the song pleasant.
Sounds are equal to me and my brain wants to focus on properly analyzing (perhaps in reality it's over-analyzing) each and every sound simultaneously which it can't do. Picture being in a noisy environment like in that part of the song and being a person standing next to me trying to talk to me. I can not concentrate on what you're saying.



I was diagnosed with hyperacusis (and tinnitus). I'm overly sensitive to sound.

Just this morning, getting ready for work, the dog was barking incessantly. I could only freeze where I stood with my hands to my ears. Someone else had to go shut the door to the room he was in. Loud sounds and loud environments cause great stress to me. I will often wear foam earplugs in noisy environments and wear these at home when I feel it's loud or I'm stressed:



Hyper-sensitive to smell: I react strongly to colognes and perfumes as well as any other synthetic fragrances such as room/car fresheners, febreeze, scented laundry detergents/dryer sheets, scented candles, etc. I TASTE those things and it's all terrible.

Touch: I do not like "light touch" at all. A feather wisp on my arms/body? Unpleasant.

Taste: I'm an adventurous eater for the most part, but I do have an issue with a few food textures I don't like.

I have noticed that I get mentally tired from being around lots of people or in a place with lots of sounds, especially a place with both lots of people and sounds. I can still function normally, but everything feels a bit off or almost blurry, like I'm not all there. Also, I become more quiet and don't really initiate conversations. I do answer people when they talk to me though, but I don't say many words.

When I go to social events, especially parties, I get really disorientated. Like if there's strobe lights, I almost feel like I smoked some weed or something. Or at least that's the best way I can describe what it's like. Groups any larger than maybe a dozen and I get these feelings.

I think one reason I speak in a lower volume isn't so much that I am afraid to speak, like a low self esteem thing, but I think it is because my own voice sounds louder to me so it feels like I am raising my voice just to speak "normally" at times.

That's my theory anyway.

Otherwise, I don't have as much of an issue just with noise in general if I am in a place that is normally more noisy, but the times where it is otherwise quiet and say, I hear the grass cutting implements outside my apartment, or hearing someone chew with their mouth open, a coworker's music player... it feels really bad, like a mild form of torture.

But if the environment is already noisy, it may be fatiguing, but I don't feel as much like I am going crazy, since the context itself is noisy. I still would rather it be quieter, but it doesn't make me angry like the lawnmower outside my window, disturbing my peace

Sometimes I have mild auditory hallucinations at a time where I would usually hear the lawnmower (like in the early morning) and start getting anxious. So the expectation itself bothers me so much I hallucinate the sound (very, very mildly)

My auditory reaction varies.

At best, unfiltered and have the processing power and speed to process unfiltered hearing at all, and without any glitches or mishearing. I could go on with multiple conversations at once, and in a long time too. Many things around me are a pleasure.

At worst, overwhelmingly painful despite being partially half deaf along the line(for a different reason little to do with AS), too fast and sudden at the same time, and everything sounds are very distorted and chaotic. Multiple conversations are impossible, words are easily misheard, hearing everything and nothing at the same time.


In overall I don't have filters, I'm usually sensitive with good threshold to count on -- enough to not end up exhausted because of sensory input in everyday life and occasional special events.
My tolerance varies, my processing capacity and speed for multiple stimuli varies, my sensory accuracy varies inconsistently, and there are days I fluctuate. Environment is a separate matter.


If I were to take account of sensing the world as an autistic, I won't stop with the 5 basic senses. But portraying beyond hearing and sight is tricky and not easily explained...
Also, I wouldn't just stop with sensitized and sensitive autistics either.

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I'm an occupational therapist so I'm posting this in reference to the kids I work with who have auditory hypersensitivity.

The easiest sign for me to see is when kids cover their ears when sounds are new or too loud. Sometimes it is accompanied by crying and I believe what is usually not easily observable is that the "self-stimulating behaviors" appear (such as flapping hands or moving there hands in front of their eyes) when they feel like they don't have the control to stop the sounds. They react when someone is chewing food in front of them, when too many people are talking in the room, when someone is talking in a certain pitch, or when the room itself amplifies sounds.

I have kids who cannot understand or even listen to me while I talk because (I feel) their brain processes it first as "Is this sound the right volume?" and then protecting themselves if the volume isn't tolerable (by way of the behaviors I listed above), instead of "What am I hearing and what does it mean?" and then coming up with a response.

So it gets really stressful for them because they have layers of challenges when we work on language, including but not limited to: 1) tolerating the volume of sounds and 2) understanding the questions and coming up with answers.