Are your physical senses very sharp?

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I've been thinking that maybe aspies would make great trackers and hunters. I have very sensitive hearing, sight, and smell. I can hear animals moving very easily and nobody ever sneaks up on me. I tend to move very quietly too. I can recognise people by smell too when I don't have a cold.

Is this a aspie thing or a me thing?

I agree. When I'm walking in the woods, I can spot and track small, moving animals like squirrels and birds fairly well. It seems are senses and instincts are more tuned for living in a natural environment rather than a social one.

Sometimes I feel more like an animal than a human and feel more comfortable with animals. No social pressures or judgments.

I doubt the hunter part. Because many autistic people have motor issues. Or are just generally clumsy.

So even if they have super senses, the possibility to move smoothly and quietly on an uneven ground and in a complicated environment such as a forest may not be exactly very high for a clumsy person.

Anyway, autism can go in hand with hypo- and hypersensitive senses. And it usually does; many autistic people have sensory issues.

On a side note, interesting enough, non-autistic people as well as the utopian 'NT' can have hypo- and hypersensitive senses as well.

Interesting.

I don't have movement issues. I love moving smoothly and quietly.

Guess who made the first reference in great apes!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

I think some Aspies would make good trackers/hunters because I have similar sensory stuff. Though I have times of clumsy idiocy which would probably alert whatever it was I was tracking to my lumbering presence.

It depends. Certain things if not at the right volume I can't hear at all. However, other noises are horribly painful even at moderate volumes. And whereas my senses of touch and sight are very sensitive, my sense of smell is markedly less so.

I would not make a great tracker and hunter because my senses suck.

Only my hearing is especially acute. I hear everything. My other sense are duller than average. I wouldn't make a good hunter, I am very clumsy.

I have pretty quick reflex response which has saved me from numerous dangers I have walked into (often completely oblivious) in the past. I also find my ability to pick up tiny sounds and focus on minute details visually very enjoyable in a wilderness type scenario. I don't think this is unusual for anybody to think though.

My spidey senses are tingling....

It's interesting you bring that up because theres a theory concerning the evolutionary origins of ASDs that asserts people with ASDs are the genetic remnants of hunter-gatherers, where NTs have adapted more for agricultural life.

search Hunter_vs._farmer_theory on wikipedia.
(I don't have enough posts to insert URLs)

Interesting.

/strokes beard and disturbs resident owls

First Corn Crop circa 20,000-40,000 B.C.
Someone with Asperger's Syndrome was the first one to yield a crop from the land. The NTs were so busy gossiping with each other they didn't gather enough food from the woods and the supplies were short. A quiet guy with no social skills or friends who was admired for his ability to figure things out but that's it began digging around in the soil with some seeds he collected from an ear of corn growing wild in the valley. He tended to the tender seedlings everyday. He liked routines so it was natural for him to return to the same seedling daily.

NT hunters and collectors wondered what the odd man out was doing. "Just more of his strange, eccentric, impractical ideas that benefit no one." They muttered to themselves, confused and a bit jealous. He only did them because no one ever talked to him he was so weird, the NTs decided amongst themselves.

Soon, this seedling grew into a cornstalk and much to the Aspie's delight the stalk produced food for his community.

This was the first attempt at farming the land.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 28 Jul 2008, 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes I feel more like an animal, too. My sight's not very good, but I notice the sounds which seem not to exist to anybody else. And I can creep very silently. Sometimes the smell of other people makes me almost faint.