Perceptual abnormalities, strange thought processes etc.

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Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone else here, mainly people with atypical autism but really any form, relate to this... Literally no where else I can post this.

I don't even know how to describe it, but ever since I was young I have had these strange occurrences and thought processes... I guess this is a closure/off my chest sort of post, it's probably going to sound seriously weird but help me out here.

- OCD-like symptoms that are similar to a stereotypy... such as getting this stuffed animal that I used to have and every time I looked at it I felt compelled to pick it up and drop/catch in several times. Then again this was 1.5 decades ago and nothing since has happened, but I'm still wondering. Mam used to call this a "bad habit"

- Brief occurences of AIWS-like symptoms like derealization (had this crap for years now and it's awful, therapist thinks it's hyper-arousal), visual snow, depersonalization, deja vu, changes in how large or small I think I am, bodily illusions, feeling my identity change rapidly, and disturbing focus/awareness issues when I close my eyes and I'm tired like I took some hallucinogen, like I'm going to blend into the environment or something. These feelings induce panic if I can't snap out of it. I used 'mild' hallucinogens in the past like 2-cb and lsa, so maybe that's it, it could even be temporal lobe epilepsy, or idk.

- Magical thinking, such as thinking the weather was related to my mood, but of course not actually believing that (not psychosis). Am I wrong in thinking both asd'ers and people on the schizophrenic spectrum experience this?

- A racing mind, not anxiety related.

- There was another one to do with these strange 'mental associations', but for the life of me I can't even begin to describe it and it was the main reason that sparked this post, as I've been experiencing it more lately, sorry it's so vauge, I'll have a think and if I find a way to describe it I will.

From the very poor way I've wrote this down (I hope you feel me on having a hard time describing things", why do you think I experience these occurrences? Are they ASD related? I considered schizotypy, maybe not full-blown maybe just traits, but then again I don't relate to half the symptoms that could more easily be described by something not as severe.

Thanks for any help, I tried to write this down on reddit, but they said it was just depersonalization, although really this is causing me some concern

I am not sure I can help because I don't even understand the questions.

You mentioned AIWS. I didn't come across that acronym before so I looked it up.

Alice in wonderland syndrome (AIWS) describes a set of symptoms with alteration of body image. An alteration of visual perception is found in that way that the sizes of body parts or sizes of external objects are perceived incorrectly. The most common perceptions are at night.

The foremost symptom of the Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) is an altered body image. The person observes sizes of parts of the body wrongly. More often than not, the head and hands seem disproportionate, and in general, the person perceives growth of various parts rather than a reduction in their size. Another most significant symptom of the AIWS is that the patient perceives the sizes of various other objects inaccurately. The trademark symptom of AIWS is migraine. The individual loses a sense of time. For him, time seems passing either at a snail's pace or passing too swiftly. Some people experience strong hallucinations; they may visualize things that are not there and may also get the wrong impression about certain situations and events. Furthermore, like the visual perception gets warped, so does the auditory and tactile perception. Facts about the AIWS are still quite ambiguous; actually, not many physicians know about the disorder. Typical migraine (an aura, visual derangements, hemi-cranial headache, nausea, and vomiting) is an important cause and associated feature of AIWS. Temporal lobe epilepsy is another causal factor. Brain tumors may trigger temporary AIWS. AIWS is relatively common in children. Cases of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis with AIWS are known. AIWS has no proven, effective treatment, but treatment programs for the probable causes of the condition are employed to bring about relief. Chronic cases of AIWS are quite untreatable and must wear out, eventually. A person suffering from the disorder may have distortions and hallucinations several times during the day, and the manifestations may take sometime to subside. Justly, the individual may get terrified, anxious and panic-stricken. These manifestations are not detrimental or dangerous, and in all likelihood will fade over a period of time.

Source: Alice in Wonderland syndrome: A rare neurological manifestation with microscopy in a 6-year-old child

The only thing I can relate to in this description is the link to migraine headaches. Many Aspies are hypersensitive to light, sounds, tastes, smells and touch. In my case I am fairly fortunate that my hypersensitivity mainly occurs due to long exposure from fluorescent lighting. This results in ocular migraine headaches. A migraine episode would begin with seeing sparkling stars around my peripheral vision. Over the next half hour, these sparkling stars would work their way towards the center of my vision, after which a field of flickering stars would obscure my eyesight and I was effectively blind and then a severe 2-hour long headache would soon follow. For me walking out into natural lighting at the start of an ocular migraine episode minimizes the intensity of the migraine headache.

One other thing crossed my mind. It is related to the AIWS statement "The most common perceptions are at night."

Many years ago I worked with an individual that was blind in one eye (or perhaps he lost one of his eyes in an accident). I think he even wore a patch over one eye. (But that was 50 years ago so my memory might be a bit distorted.) He never drove at night because he had no depth perception. He could not tell how close or far away from an object he was (like another car) in the dark.

So I want to make sure that you had your eyesight tested by an Optometrists and that you are not dealing with a physical eyesight problem.

My mother was legally blind in one eye. When she grew old and her eyesight was beginning to fail, she would sometimes describe hallucinations, for example she would call me at 3 o'clock in the morning and ask me to come right over because there was a large spider crawling on her bedroom door. Well after an hour drive, I entered the house and gingerly walked into her bedroom. There was no spider on the door or under the bed or anywhere. It was like a hallucination. But to my mom it was real. My mom's eyesight was degrading and the mind tries to make sense of what it sees and fills in the missing pieces. So a shadow on the door becomes a large hairy spider. It is not a hallucination but rather the mind filling in the missing inputs. A similar example is that I am color blind. I see colors but they are not the same colors that everyone else sees. In the old color televisions (CRT) days they had three color guns that painted an image on the television screen. Combined the three color guns could produce all the colors of the rainbow. But in my case one of the color guns is inoperative and my mind manufactures the missing color gun.

^ Yeah similar to that.

And thanks for the information Jimmy, I don't know if it is AIWS but it's similar, I guess the most important thing is the cause.

I read your post and guessed that you might be in your 20s, had a look and yeah, your 22. I hd a lot of magical thinking up until around 32. Its interesting that thing lik schizopheniia often surface at around 28. No one warns you but your really in the thick of things till around 35 when people are more focused on settling. Even living outside mainstream culture, there are currents that sweep you along, as your peers are trying to realise their potential, switching directions and making plans. Its a highly sociable age group too and the social pressures are all around. This is just my take on it anyway, lots of stresses dressed up as "having fun" and quite a bit of pressure to conform, although its not always obvious at the time.
My mind still throws up some pretty random stuff, I missread words, stationary objects drift a little in my vision and I get feelings too. I had a strong sense of deja vu yesterday and occaisionally I feel my body is absent, I have a reoccuring feeling that my right foot should be amputated, hehe.
I reckon most people who have these strange things just stop analysing them or attributing meaning to them after a while. People arrive at middle age kind of suddenly and it feels like - WTF was all that? There's less identification with these random anomalies and they subside of their own accord.