High functioning ASD child with "visions"

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I have a very creative, analytic 8 year old 3rd grade son who loves anything involving strategy (especially video games and math). He very recently has been diagnosed as being within the Autism Spectrum (his doctor won't say Asperger's because apparently that diagnosis is going away in the next release of the DSM). He also is an avid story creator/writer - he enjoys anything involving the paranormal as well. He "sees" things on a regular basis and describes them to me in vivid detail. They don't scare him in the least and he loves to pick them apart to try to analyze their meaning. Some examples are:

*We were working on spelling words and he suddenly kind of zoned out on me and couldn't focus. He swore that no matter if he closed his eyes or opened them he saw the image "3C" in his visual field then moments later he said he saw a "work desk" in the periphery of his vision (not directly in front of him but to the side). He just kept saying "something is trying to tell me something and I just don't know what it is." Shortly after that he zoned back in and we continued with spelling.
*He will often talk of hearing/seeing things that we don't hear or see. They don't scare him in the least but he tries really hard to make sense of them. He will say "I just want to know what they are trying to tell me."

I am going to start keeping a log of what he tells me he sees/hears. Often it is a single word or visual cue or very short sequence. To him they are puzzles to be figured out and his dad and I do not respond like he is strange. Instead we try really hard to query him on what he is seeing and what he thinks they mean. I do tell him that I don't see/hear the same thing and then he acknowledges that he knows they aren't "physically there". He can tell the difference between the physical world and these sensory perceptions.

I would love to hear from other parents if they have kids in similar situations and how they respond. Again, because these things don't scare him I'm not wanting to make him think they are strange/unusual or something to fear.

Much appreciated!! !

That's interesting. When I was a kid I remember seeing things / people that others weren't seeing and my parents kept telling me they weren't there and it was my imagination and indeed it stopped shortly afterwards.

I have been seeing non-scary things that don't physically exist since childhood, and it never stopped. It has never bothered me, but psychiatrists are alarmed by it.

The images are a great source for my creative imagination. I enjoy them, and refuse to take the antipsychotics that I was prescribed for it. When I tried the antipsychotics, they had no effect anyway, at any dose.

I can already tell what is real and what's not, and they are not upsetting or dangerous in any way, so I don't understand why it's considered a disorder in the first place. Not everything unusual should be considered automatically "bad".

I think you're doing the right thing by letting him know they're not real to everyone else and that only he can see them. Unless they start limiting him in being able to do ordinary things, or they start upsetting him or getting scary or bad, or they begin taking over his life, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

If you tell a psychiatrist, he'll most likely be labelled as schizophrenic or schizotypal, which are serious disorders with grim outcomes in children. I wouldn't want my child to be saddled with that.

Thank you Molly! I'm not really "worried" about his visions - I tend to have a pretty open mind and I know to him they are very real but as long as they aren't causing him anxiety or stress then I would much rather let his mind lead him to where it is going to take him. Who am I to tell him that what he is seeing doesn't exist...how do I know that it exists and I am the one that is flawed .

I appreciate your insight. I will probably mention it to his pediatrician but only because I trust the man implicitly to be nonjudgemental (very few doctors do I trust to fall into that category!)

It might be a form of Synesthesia, which is usually more common amongst people with an unusual brain wiring.

To keep it simple, usually people's senses are relatively separated from the rest of their brain, and information only flows one way. For example, your eyes send signals to your visual processing center, and then your visual processing center makes sense of it and sends the signals out to the rest of your brain. What happens in some cases is that information from other parts of the brain leaks into the visual processing center, and as such triggers you to see something that your eyes dont.

With Synesthesia, it is usually the other senses that get mixed up and send signals into the other sensory processing centers. That's why people will see sounds, or hear colors, or smell numbers. But this can also happen with other parts of the brain. For example, your son's object recognition systems might be linking back into his visual cortex, and occasionally getting him to see things that aren't there.

Overall, while Synesthesia can be somewhat spooky to hear about as it is commonly confused with hallucinations, it is not inherently dangerous. As long as your child knows what is and is not real, and isn't terribly alarmed by it, then I wouldn't make a big deal about it. If anything, many people with Synesthesia say that they enjoy the cool images, and that it helps them to remember things better, or be more creative. I would talk with your son, and let him know why it is happening, and that it isn't anything to worry about. And possibly get him a book on Synesthesia or something.

I think that it could be a mental health thing, but I'm not sure that you have to do anything about it now if you and he are okay with it, and he knows that the visions are not real.

Abilify, an atypical anti-psychotic FDA approved in the U.S. for treating irritability associated with autism spectrum disorder, may be an option down the road. I would have a child psychiatrist or pediatric neurologist handle meds of this sort.

I have actually heard of a woman in my area whose son sees through walls. Unfortunately, his behavior has not always been great and he apparently even once set her apartment on fire.

Sometimes an issue like what your son has worsens as the child gets older, so I would definitely keep an eye on things and try to do whatever intervention that you can before he physically gets too big for you to handle.

My son has an usual relationship with his subconscious, and I wonder if that due to something similar to what Tracker described. I think what you are describing is fine at age 8; let it be. Sometimes kids use startling descriptions for things that are actually quite normal, just not within their range of experience and vocabulary. And sometimes kids really just are in tune with the world in a magical way we adults can no longer relate to. My son used to say he could see into the future, and he described experiences that made it seem he really might have.

More interesting will be to see how this plays out past puberty, if it continues at all. My son's magical observations went away with the rest of his young child self somewhere in the middle school years.

I only see and hear things that aren't there when I've reached an extreme point of exhaustion, or when I've been under heavy medication. None of these experiences makes sense, even when I'm able to remember them in any great detail, and none of them are evidence of any "psychic" ability or "supernatural" beings.

They're called "Hallucinations"; only this, and nothing more

My family could communicate with the dead for generations.

My general tendency is to say yes, to your very last statement, however I would not say all. Caution here, to be sure.

pattercat

I would not try to kill this. people think differently and he sounds like he just might have a gift. Unless it creates harm, what is the harm? It is only a problem, if it is a problem.

I think my shrinks were taken aback by my insights to what I saw, but many years of thought into them, after they happened. They were very much on the spot for what was happening. And not at all pleasant, although no fear, even in the depth. Invigorating,, comes to mind for the time. Yes, the labels came from them anyway.

I actually push myself at times now for the "visions", they help in reaching a completion I can't with, say words, with trying to do an explanation, of especially an abstract thing. Looking for a bridge, between me and the rest of you. And I don't mean that in any bad light, I just know I'm out here and i don't mind it, just miss others, on bad days ;p

Sounds like a gift to me. At his age, be very careful at some other point. Bipolar is notorious for another version of this. When it first comes on, it can be pretty intense, but like I said, sounds like a gift to me. Actually I think BP is too, just one hellava gift, if you know what I mean.

Yes I used to have vivid visions up to the age of 11 that included seeing a cascade of lights like a kaleidoscope at night time when I slept in bed. I used to sit at my bedroom window and watch lights over the ocean that seemed to be under some type of intelligent control. I suspected they were real because every time they appeared my ears would pick up a high pitched sound that automatically sets off the neighborhood dogs for the duration the lights were present.

As a child I was always curious why nobody else saw them. I never discussed these events with my parents as they would have taken me straight to the psychologist.