How do neurologically typical people feel & experience life?

I know this is pretty futile musing, although maybe some of the more neurologically typical people on here can help! (I shy away from using the term "NT's" because it feels a bit "them and us" to me).

I've found myself wondering, as I'm accepting, exploring and deepening my understanding of my own atypicalness & ASD diagnosis, about what it's like for others.

For every "aha!" moment I have about e.g. noisy restaurants, eye contact, lack of capability / impetus to maintain friendships, exhaustion in social situations, there is a corresponding "What's it like for others?" moment.

So for example, for typical people:

  • How does the world *sound*? Is it muted, filtered by attention etc?
  • How does eye contact *feel* when experienced as something that you *want* to do? Even with strangers?
  • What's it like to be drawn to want to be with a group of other people?
  • What's it like to enjoy a day out with friends, and not be exhausted (except in a tired & content kind of way)?
  • What's it like to be thrilled at the prospect of going out every single evening for days in a row?
  • What's it like to want to ask other people where they went on holiday, and be interested in what they tell you about where they went and what they saw?
  • What's it like to say the opposite of what you mean, because for e.g. you're being polite, and yet know that everyone knows what you actually mean?
  • What's it like to wish that you had more time for travel, seeing family members, more face to face meetings etc?
Parents
  • I think one of the things that made me realise just how different I was was when I was describing total sensory overload from the effort of trying (involuntarily) to process the 1000s of simultaneous noises on the train to my best friend. He said "ugh, that's when I just have to turn the audio input off". I asked wow can you actually do that and he was equally baffled that I can't.

    So yes, apparently NT people can control the sound filter, and even decide to block it out if they want to!

  • Wow. Amazing that we all grow up thinking everyone is like us except for personality & likes, dislikes etc, and in reality, people can be so different.

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