Comments on: Doing Things Differently

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:43:53 +0000

Hi amanda, your appearance on tv inspired me and let me know so much about the autistic people i’ve met. I’ve been told im about 5% autistic myself, although i consider myself a fully functional individual i had a number of problems as a kid, thought patterns, obsessive compulsive rituals, and ADHD.

My question is about the paranormal. I’ve had a number of unexplainable events in my life: I can sense the presense of other people or animals; usually sensitive enough to tell how big the life form is and sometimes direction, I can sometimes read the surface thoughts in other peoples minds; never by force though only when i don’t expect it or i am very relaxed. I am very interested to know if you have ever had similar experiences. In your TV segment you said that meaning was already known, I immediatly thought of this as some higher form of communication and it seemed like this was played down in the broadcast as foolishness.
Any response or comment is welcome.

P.S. I think you are very brave to allow so many people a window into your life.

By: Beth Adele

Beth Adele — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:21:04 +0000

Thanks for sharing this — it was both intriguing and poetic. I don’t think I can see the social patterns you’re talking about through direct observation; NTs seem to require videos slowed down and watched over and over again in order even to glimpse these patterns. I’m thinking specifically of sections of Malcolm Gladwell’s book BLINK about the human social dance that happens regardless of explicit verbal communication, everyone making tiny movement in synch with each other… I was astounded and fascinated to read about it, but I’ve never really been able to *see* it.

Huh. You’re right, it really does beg the question of who is qualified to “test skills,” and how, and what skills to choose to test in the first place.

By: Jannalou

Jannalou — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 18:56:26 +0000

I can, for instance, read a book. And I will not be able to answer any questions you have about the book right after I read it. I will not have any particular understanding of it that I can pull out. (Unless it’s a very specific kind of book.) But within hours, days, months, or years, all the information pools in the back of my mind.

Then, I cannot pull out that information at will, but when a topic triggers it, I might spit out entire paragraphs of whatever I had been reading, or else even paraphrased, the ideas will come out.

I just explained this (to an extent) to my boss when we went out for lunch today. I read things and then I remember them… but it sometimes shocks me what I know, because random facts get triggered and I don’t even realise I know things until that happens.

The rest I do understand, to an extent. The “chaining” phenomenon, where if you do one thing, then you naturally move on to whatever comes next in the chain, and so on and so forth. I have little chains like that built into my days and am continually working on developing more.

But it’s all about learning yourself well enough that you can do such things and find success in what you’re trying to achieve.