can someone explain a sensory overload?

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i honestly do not understand what the people are saying at all! i mean, i can usually get a bit muggy in big places...but then i just go into my little world...but i dont think ive ever gotten an "overload".
then again, how do i know im not getting one? XD

Let's say that you're driving a car up a steep hill (not a particularly sporty car, just a very plain, practical type of car). If, rather than taking your time and driving up it slowly and gently, you press the gas pedal to the floor and try to drive up the steep hill at a high speed, you'll overstress the engine. This will cause it to overheat and can cause major damage to the engine. (There's a little more to the mechanics of it, but I never know how technical I can get with car references without losing my target audience in the details. lol)

For me, my brain can only process a limited amount of sensory information at any given time (my car can only go up the hill at a modest speed). Add to that, that I am more sensitive to sensory stimuli than most people (my car's engine is additionally stressed by turning on the air conditioner) (for example, most people don't even notice the hum of flourescent lights in a restaurant, but I can't ignore it and the sound is very annoying to me.). When my brain is trying to process more sensory information than it's capable of (I'm trying to drive up the hill faster than my car can handle), I have an uncontrolable, but short outburst in an attempt to reduce the amount of information my brain is trying to process (my car engine shuts off and will not restart until it has atleast had time to cool off). Usually, this would mean that I would shout at the people around me to stop talking for a minute and to speak more calmly and quietly thereafter.

Sorry if I over or under explained that. My aim was to use an easy analogy, but I usually either confuse the people I'm talking to (by not using an analogy they can relate to) or make them feel insulted (by over-explaining thus implying that they aren't intelligent enough to understand). If there is a better way that I could word this to make more sense or be less offensive, please let me know.

Good analogy from Anonamess. I'd have used something from math or computers, since that's my preference, but cars work quite well.

Sensory issues are common among Aspies but not required. I have extreme sensory issues, which resulted in a separate tentative diagnosis of Sensory Integration Disorder/Dysfunction. I also have seizures, easily induced by bright or flashing light, so I'd have to add some ice to that hill in Anonamess's analogy. I never quite know when my wheels are going to spin or slip, in other words.

Everyone, NTs or people on the spectrum, can experience sensory overload. But most NTs have much higher thresholds than Aspies. There are sounds, sights, and smells that will affect anyone rather quickly. For sensitive Aspies, there are just a lot more of them, and most of them would not affect others.

Do you want a copy of my link-collection?

ah...that's been definately considered as a possibility for me, as well.

Half way through reading I already finished your analogy in my head, but you took a different turn

A different version considering the road is always a straight line:

Driving down an empty country road in a vast convertible would be your relaxed state. It's mid-day and sunny. Each offending sense would be a hill you must climb, and the steepness and length would be determined by their annoyance and intensity. Small hills are fine, and they level off smoothly enough and you are back to relaxed again in no time. But persistent and intense feedback would increase the length and steepness of the hill. A large hill would obscure your view of the road infront of you, and at the exact moment you cant take anymore you hit the top where the sun turns your windshield white and you drop down in a freefall temporarily paralyzed.

But maybe some people handle driving over hills better.

^^^jeez those answers are too long

sensory overload to me is when you pay alot of attention to stuff you dont need to, like say your at a hospital and their is doctors, nurses and patients and people all moving and every once in a while someone does something extreme or something extreme happens and the aspie with the concentration to observe and think about all this also gets bad overloads with the lights and other things that are heavy burdens on our sensitive senses, so we do something stupid, crazy, abnormal or become effected by those things around you, like you feint, drink alot of water or other big things that could be classed as a simple sensory overload, your mind couldnt handle all thats happening and snapped etc whatever hope i helped

I hate light. To study, work, etc. I must have very soft light or I simply close my eyes. I'm insensible to pain and cold, I can walk naked at 10°C and when I cut out a finger I simply clamped it, went to my mother and said "Mum, I think I must go to the hospital, can you carry me?".
I also hate strong sounds, I use to see TV without audio. Overstimulating situation are a pain but I don't meltdown, I simply shout-up (for istance I can easly go to the supermarket but I behave like a "wondering spirit").

i had to cover my eyes on the bus the other day, as the milling crowds outside were hurting my head.

it was too much information coming in- its literaly an overload.
i get pannicky, upset, confused.
loud noise, like music or fans,does it too, but a million times worse- i meltdown or shut down.

its like having lots of things rapidly thrown at you which you are unable to dodge. sets of flight or fight response,too. but generally just upsetting and confusing.

thats so interesting! especially the insensibility to pain.

i get a bit flighty, anxious and scream sort of in my head if im out alone in the city or something, and fousing on multiple things at once is hard, it seems like im sort of...behind glass.
can that be considered a mild sensory overload?

Another example of sensory overload, is what's called olfactory overload. It's not nearly as "violent" or "extreme" as described in this thread, but it's like if you're in a room and then there's a very distinctive smell, after a minute or so, you don't notice the smell of whatever it was that you were noticing. That is technically a sensory overload.

Though, olfactory overloads can cause the same things as mentioned in here, headaches and such for specific types of smells.

oh? doesnt everyone get those, though?