Daydreaming (related to aspergers syndrome)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47hH3m9-MX0

This guy mentions extreme empathy and intense daydreams.

I have not found this anywhere els so does anyone know anything?

I didn't watch the video, but "extreme empathy" is not associated with AS, although "extreme daydreams" might be.

I think it very well does pertain to a lot of people with AS.

Daydream extremist here.

He talks about it at 3.00 minutes in

anyone know anything about it?

Same here...

Yes and here.
But I'm aware that I'm daydreaming, but it's sometimes hard for me to come out of a daydream. I think others have alluded to this idea on this site.

I see daydreams as a way of interpreting and thinking about the world.

As an analogy, I view daydreaming as similar doodling on an acetate sheet overlay with marker pen over a photograph. The photograph representing the real physical world and the doodling/annotating on the acetate as a mental interpretation of it. An individual projects his/her mental interpretation onto the environment.

Day dreaming can be very useful if it's focussed on achieving a specific task such as brainstorming or drawing annotated field sketches. Day dreaming can be a powerful analytical tool if used and disciplined in the right way. Daydreaming can be used for creativity and finding meaning.

When doodling on acetate, you could almost obliterate your view of the real world with "doodling" that had nothing to do with the real life task or scene at all. Irrelevant doodles in exercise books are products of daydreaming.

What would happen if say someone was constantly "daydreaming", but interpreted his/her hallucinations and thoughts as part of the real physical world: and couldn't distinguish between interpretation and physical reality? Like having an intense waking dream and accepting the dream as reality. Would that be like schizophrenia?

There's an arbitrary social construct called "imagination", but I believe that imagination and interpretation actually lie on a continuum.

For instance, in the arts and poetry, there are similes (comparisons/analogies) and metaphors (literal expressions of comparisons/analogies). These could be compared to lucid dreaming, being aware that you are in a dream, imagining things or playing a "let's pretend" game.

I believe that it's actually very "short step" from a metaphor to a confusion between fantasy and reality: a waking dream. A "delusion" or something else?


Simile:
"The gnarled tree branch looked as crooked as an old man’s arm."
(Here it’s clear that the speaker isn’t "deluded" about the tree. The speaker is making a comparison. This is socially acceptable. The social "let's pretend" context is clear.)

Metaphor:
"The gnarled tree branch was an old man’s arm. It grabbed angrily at the wind."
(In a poem/story/ artistic convention acts as an acceptable imaginative social context here)

A short step from being imaginative to...

Delusion/waking dream/literal/concrete interpretation/something else?:
"That gnarled tree branch is actually an old man’s arm I swear, he keeps trying to grab me. I’m not pretending. He keeps trying to grab me. He seems very angry with me."
(There is no acceptable "let's pretend" social context here, unless the person has consumed an intoxicating substance, or is a "religious prophet". The speaker might be viewed as "deluded" by other "normal" people or having "magical thinking" or strange beliefs. This is probably equilavent to a "waking dream" where the dreamer isn't aware that s/he is dreaming).


I wonder also if "empathy" can be over general, by that I mean if someone empathised with inanimate objects. Perhaps if no other people were around, someone out of desperation might resort to "empathising" in this way, if that person craves human contact. That's kind of like daydreaming, perhaps like an extreme case of Pareidolia: projecting "faces", biomechanics, emotions and empathy onto inanimate physical objects. The "man in the moon" and "sightings" of the Virgin Mary in food items are popular examples of Pareidolia. Maybe the face emotion and detection "software" in the brain goes into overdrive or is overgeneralised, and projected onto the surrounding environment. Is this the origin of pathetic fallacy and personification?

The phenomenon of Pareidolia is probably why we're able to appreciate art and cartoons.

It's quite interesting to think about all these things.
Is empathy like daydreaming: projecting social and emotional interpretations onto other people/situations?

Daydreaming.

I've read that's typical for ADHD (especially inattentive type).

Hallucinating and daydreaming.
Experiencing qualia (sensory experiences/sensations) without any sensory input at the time?
Remembered sensations reactivated in a creative way?

Amber eyes what are you talking about?
lol try to stay on topic please.

Yes, I haven't heard about it in the AS usual characteristics.
But I do like everyone until they give me a reason not to. Since I was little, I smiled at everyone. I've always been very naïve to think that everybody would feel or think they way I did. It was the logic thing to think. I've been hurt for thinking everyone had good intentions. So now a days, I tend to be a lot more careful concerning that.

Day dreaming and extreme empathy.

The relationship between extreme empathy, day dreaming, artistic expression, ADHD, AS, schizophrenia and Pareidolia.

I thought I was on topic.
These are my thoughts.

Sorry if I confused anyone.


I was thinking about how extreme day dreaming could be used to analyse and interpret the world.

Also about what would happen if someone had difficulty coming out of a daydream or was constantly daydreaming?
What would this mean?
Do some brain conditions cause excessive "waking dreams" which make it harder for a person to distinguish between fantasy and physical reality?

Yea thats called schizophrenia they can't tell the diff between reality and what the imagine resulting in seeing there imagination

ie think of a unicorn see a unicorn

but the topic is more about if anyone has heard specificly that aspergers can come with extra empathy that causes daydreams as the person in that video described

In my case, probably yes: over-general intense empathy, hence my identifying with objects and animals.

Schizophrenia, could be an extreme example of over-general empathy and daydreaming.


Could there be two or more types of AS(?):

-AS caused by over-generalised extreme empathy/intense sensory experiences.
Lots of daydreaming and possibly ADHD?

-AS caused by under-generalised empathy/un-intense sensory experiences.
Hardly any day dreaming/dreaming.


Just wondering.

(I think) to your point, AmberEyes, I heard an interview with neuro doctor on public radio last week about the concept of "multi-tasking". The doctor said the brain doesn't truly multi-task. It can activate a number of different areas at the same time, but each area can only be processing one thing at a time. However, the areas do have the ability to quickly switch between tasks (. . . in an NT brain anyway!) So the doctor spoke about how driving while speaking on a mobile phone is dangerous not just because you have to look down at the keypad to dial the number you want, but even during a conversation if you are listening to someone describe something or if you are describing something yourself, and therefore imagining what it looks like, you're using up the parts of your brain that process images, which can really put a dent in your ability to "interpret" (to use your word) what you see on the road!

He said MRI have proved that to most of the brain, the difference between imagining something and seeing something is marginal.

In my own experience, I used to notoriously run red lights while talking to my passengers in a car.

And if I find myself daydreaming while in a group of people, like in a meeting or a class, (which I often do), I have no idea what I'm "actually" looking at. Sometimes I'll come out of a daydream to discover that I've been inappropriately staring at other people's body parts!

I think there are certainly very different types like these indeed. More though, maybe there are individual differences too?

Imagination is put together by many different parts/aspects, so perhaps empathy and certain parts of imagination are connected somehow.

I for example lack empathy, I fulfil the criterion (classical autism) of inability to spontaneous make-believe play, despite that I have ADHD I never daydream, but I dream vividly. All these may be connected to imagination.

A person could have normal/strong aspects of imagination, but still have impaired imagination in other areas.

If empathy means 'experiencing emotions that match another person’s emotions'. Empathy extremist here.

OMG, you are just like me.