Sensory Room

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Wikipedia defines a sensory room as:

A sensory room is a special room designed to develop a person's sense, usually through special lighting, music, and objects. It can be used as a therapy for children with limited communication skills.

Although sensory rooms for autistics seem to be often geared for children, I believe they are also suitable for adults with the correct accommodations put in place.

One of my main challenges is dealing with sensory issues. Certain sounds/music/conversation/etc. can get on my nerves. Bright lights including sun glares can greatly annoy me. I often need to get away from the so-called main floor of life and find some deep crevice of a secret cave. Sometimes I just want to escape from this tech-modern world and retreat to what I considered a simpler world.

I am currently in the process of creating my own sensory room ... a room that I can find escape in. There is a lot more to this room ... it is more than just a sensory room, but I can get into that later. It is 11 feet long by 6 feet 6 inches wide with a ceiling around 7 feet tall. It has one solid panel door and no windows. It is located below ground level and blocks out the sound of the world around me.

I would like to discuss with others here about sensory rooms for adults and see what you think would benefit you in such a private space for yourself. I will also talk more about my room and what I plan on doing with it if anyone is interested. Thank you for reading.

Sounds like a great space. I love sensory rooms and I detest how everything about Autism is always described as for children as if we magically stop being Autistic on our 21st birthdays.

I wish I had a sensory room, it would do me so much good. I love natural lighting though so I would need a room with soundproof glass picture windows, preferably in an area that is very natural like a forest with a lake, ocean, or a river nearby. I would have a cloth swing, stuffed animals, lots of textures that I like, things that I like to visually stim on like lava lamps, fake aquariums that look very real but that don't require the expensive upkeep of real aquariums, super comfortable bean bag chairs, that I can sit or lie in, a beautiful sky window that I can star and moon gaze through, temperature control, weighted blankets, soft, fluffy regular blankets and pillows, a super soft thick carpet, sensory toys, coloring books and art sets, play dough, a desktop kinetic sand box, a waterbed mattress, or a great therapy mattress bed, my piano keyboard and all my musical instruments and music, and a great sound system that I can listen to soft music or my favorite audio books as well as curtains that block all light if I need a dark room in daylight.

What would you put in your own sensory room?

In my case I would fill it with those rubber artificial grapes you can buy to put in decorative fruit bowls. I love to squish them.

They are fun!!

I recently read an article about a woman who carve out a space to vent stress energy. She called it a mum cave.

"You hear about man caves and toy rooms, but I'd never heard of a mum cave," she said. "I suffer from [postpartum] depression and I felt like I needed somewhere I could take myself without inflicting my mood on the children and then I can come out and be mummy again."

A young mom who needed some time to herself converted a closet under the stairs into a peaceful "mum cave."

Jessica Pool, 25, from Oxfordshire, England, has three children. And after her newest arrival, she started to suffer from postpartum depression. She also noticed her children would take themselves away when they needed some quiet time, and that everyone had their own space — except for her.

Pool said the space, which she has dubbed the "Mum Cave," is a phone-free area with no distractions — just a place where she can sit and think.

"It's a nonelectronic cupboard so I don't take my phone in there, I go in there for headspace and to recharge."

The room came together quickly, too. She managed to create the space in just two hours by taking the trash to the dump. Plus, the little money she spent on it — just 17 pounds, or roughly $22 — was used for paint, and Pool said the value far surpasses the cost.

Source with before and after photos of the mum cave: Mom of three carves out tiny 'Mum Cave' underneath the stairs, uses it to 'recharge'

Thank you for replying. I enjoyed reading your ideas and information on sensory rooms.

Perhaps these sensory rooms can serve or mean different things for us -- with the overall effect being for the relief of stress/anxiety/or other mentally taxing things.

They can be cozy "feel good" spaces. They can be places to meditate. They can be retreats away from our typical environment when we get sensory overload. They can be places for us to calm down when our anxiety reaches high levels ... or they can be ... as I am experimenting with ... a kind of Star Trek "holodeck."

Well ... I know that is in the realm of science fiction, but the mind can be a powerful tool to simulate things if we know how. I am speaking of self-hypnosis in a specially prepared "sensory room" where under the correct mind conditioning can emulate an "almost" realistic holodeck type of experience. But, on Star Trek, the crew knew they were in the holodeck experiencing a simulation. In the self-hypnosis type experience in the sensory room, the mind can almost be fooled into thinking the imaginary is real. That is what I am working on.

The bottom line is that I (along with many others) believe that sensory rooms can benefit us in very positive ways. I encourage us to find our special places that can create an escape from the environments that often cause us challenges.

I love your ideas, glider18 and have created a couple of sensory-type rooms outside in my yard. The first is a SheShed(I only use it in the summertime, but it's pretty special. Has books, sewing, a daybed, tub chair, cute cupboards, art on the wall. I basically converted an old shed into a little haven, painting it inside and out, put black out curtains in it, and planned it all carefully. The second is very special as being an Aussie, and loving being in water, as a form of stimming really, and destressing, I bought an all-weather gazebo, some waterproof lights, as well as some twinkling lights that are positioned in rows on the ceiling of the gazebo. Then I placed a Monaco LayZ spa on a foam base on cement, and swim in it maybe 3 times a week, of a night, and it completely destresses me. It's like entering the holodeck, and feels like a little piece of Florida, even in the middle of an English snowy winter . I've used sensory rooms for blind children in my work, as well as children with various illnesses and disabilities. Love the Snoezelen Multi-Sensory Rooms ...
https://www.snoezelen.info/

I'd love to hear more about what you do with your sensory/escape room, and I wish you good luck as you create and refine your room to suit your needs and make you happy.

It's cool to hear from someone else who seeks out this sort of room for their solitude. As someone who really loves to listen to music (one of my special interests ), I have what I call my "music room" that is pretty small at 11' x 9' x 6.5', and in it I have all of my music, sports memorabilia, and some of my other most favorite objects that I've collected. It is a welcome getaway from all of the noise I have to deal with at work or just out in the world, and even from the other rooms in my house.

Similar to yours, it's mostly underground, and although it has windows on 2 of its 4 sides, they are very small and virtually soundproof, and the room has a solid door I can close and lock. I typically never bring a phone or computer in there, and I've never had a TV in there. Although there's a nice stereo system with speakers, and lots of records and CDs, the room is more typical of what you'd have found in 1989 instead of 2019. While in there, I usually just listen to music -- the music which I have collected and enjoyed listening to over the past 35 years -- with dim light or no lights at all. If no music is playing, I'll probably just stand or sit, and enjoy my dim, quiet room

I love what's familiar, and I love to escape the sights and sounds I don't like, so my music room and all of its contents provide just what I need to help me calm down and make my life more enjoyable. Therefore, I'm also interested in hearing about others who use a designated room to help smooth out the rough edges of life.

I have always wanted one of those!!

That's excellent. You have two sensory spaces ... both for relaxing, but both serving to accomplish it in different ways. The SheShed as a place to enjoy your books and sewing, and the second a gazebo with a spa. It's the second I can relate to (with my project) because it can emulate a setting (in your case a "little bit of Florida").

Skibum -- The Holodeck fascinated me the very first time I saw it on Star Trek. I wondered if someday that technology might exist. Perhaps there have been some steps taken ... the virtual reality headsets perhaps?

JimSpark -- I will make another post here soon and explain in more detail what I am doing with this room. I am happy you are interested in it.

I truly believe in finding stress-relieving happiness in my room, and I am sure all of you that appreciate sensory rooms do too. I am no expert on sensory rooms, but I have been working on my own version of one, so I feel like I have a good idea for one that will work for me. May we all find our peace, relaxation, and happiness in our personal spaces. I will post better details and philosophy on mine here soon. Thank you for reading.

I actually have VR headsets. They are really fun and I like them. The only problem is that any of the good VR experiences you have to pay for. I found a couple of little ones for free on youtube and I really enjoyed them. I wish I could afford really awesome ones so that I could visit different places and do cool stuff while lying on the couch!