A question re stimming?

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Is it something you do consciously or not?

Both. Mine can be conscious and planned, or sometimes I don't even notice.

This. I rock a lot without noticing, but other stuff like my bouncing or hand flapping I'm more conscious of.

I'm not conscious of most of it. I'm conscious of my rocking sometimes because of the comfort it get from it. And I'm conscious of using stim toys/items.

Not conscious but I can stop to a degree if I become aware. it's not easy but I don't think anyone notices if I wiggle my toes or seem a little wobbly.

For me sometimes it is conscious and other times other people tell me that I am rocking and I don't even realize I am. Same with echolalia. Often I catch myself repeating or rocking.

I consciously rock when alone. I am not aware of rocking and tapping my feet when my stepdaughter is with me. However at my third assessment she said I rock and tap my feet. I'm not aware of anything else I do that could be called stimming.

I didn't realize I rock when upset until my husband noticed the pattern...he could tell I was getting upset by a conversation before I could! Now I notice it more because I know I do it, but I usually start it unconsciously. It was particularly annoying the last time I had a stomach bug, because I kept rocking because the nausea upset me, but then the rocking made the nausea worse, so I would stop, but then start again without realizing it...vicious cycle. A small part of my brain found it humorous. The very small part that wasn't miserable and wanting to die.

This. I rock a lot without noticing

I rock without noticing. I also bite and chew things (shirt collars, sleeves, coins, etc.)

I came only quite recently to the realization that I'm probably autistic. If you'd asked me a couple months ago about any of my stims I would have called them either nervous habits or "just this funny thing I do." I certainly wouldn't have called them stims at that point: I didn't have that word. Some of them I was oblivious that I was doing them ar all, some others I didn't realize I did so regularly.

A month or two ago I started looking seriously into autism and paying attention to my patterns and realizing I do them frequently, especially when emotions are running high, like my subconscious had figured out they were helpful and was doing them when I needed them. My conscious reaction was, "Holy cheeseballs, I have a built-in secret superpower for calming my nerves! This is awesome!" I started sometimes consciously doing some of the more socially neutral ones when I thought I might be getting stressed out or uncomfortable. The jury's still out on whether or not it's actually helping: My experimenting with it has been confounded by high levels of stress just from noticing more often how not-ok my baseline is. But my confirmation biased subconscious is pretty sure it's helping. It might even be right.

Anyway, in response to the original question: As someone just coming to terms with autism at an older age, I used to stim a ton subconsciously, and I still do. Now I do it sometimes consciously, too, because it feels good and (I think) keeps me more in my emotional comfort zone.

I use to stim when I was a wee little one. I learned to transition from one stim to another and then eventually I stopped stimming altogether. In working with dyslexics who also stim, it was the common perception that a stim was a way to send a small electrical shock into the system. It was a mild way of saying FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.

I can be aware that I am stimming, but it starts on it's own. Like breathing, it happens automatically but I still have some control.

That makes sense to me.
I stim constantly from the moment I awake in the morning. It's always automatic rhythmic and bilateral and has little to do with emotion unless it's rocking when I'm upset.

I've been like that all my life. My mother used to slap my hands to try to keep me from wiggling my fingers and was always telling me to sit still when we were in church.
It could be to send a small electrical shock to the system to stay alert or maybe for body awareness but it just seems like energy to me.