• Replies 9 replies
  • Subscribers 81 subscribers
  • Views 1508 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

What is it like to PLAY, as an autistic? =:-D

BiteyMite

I’d love to hear how you (autistics) relate with “play.” I am an autistic artist and I relate my art practice to the play of an autistic child. Of course, we don't all share the same experiences, so I'm interested in how you feel or think about play? 

I feel like my play as both child and adult was/is sooo magical. Why would I want to play socially when I can be totally immersed in the fantastic stillness of repetitive and/or stimulatory bliss?? I feel like the autistic child’s play-space, the internal, “detached,” or just ‘mesmerized in some far-off place of the mind’ is the most incredible thing…

Do/did you experience it that way or similarly? How would you describe it? I feel like I am the happiest when the world around me disappears. When I’m “in the zone,” in a space of "no-mind,” immersed in a “flow-state,” etc.

What do you think about your own play, as an autistic? What was the experience like in your childhood? As an adult? Fun fun fun fun fun...

Parents

  • I'm in my mid 50s and I have loads of toys - I had Ker-Plunk and Buckaroo for my birthday.      I enjoy the challenge of being the best - total perfection - and adding extra challenges for personal and intellectual satisfaction.

    For example, when playing Spider Solitaire on the pc, it is only acceptable for me to create colour patterns as the cards place themselves at the bottom left - all of one colour then all of the next colour etc..     If it has to be a combination of alternate colours, I don't feel as satisfied.    I will not allow myself to finish with a random pattern.

    With Freecell, I've got a 100% record with over 12,000 games.

    With Ker-Plunk, my daughter and I knit the sticks into a highly tensioned nest so there's extra jeopardy as the tension twangs the balls around as a stick is withdrawn.

    I make huge RC model boats - people spend thousands creating these masterpieces - I challenge myself to win awards for my boats and spend as little money as possible - normally on the water for under £100.    I make good profits selling them.

    I have tons of Technical Lego airfix models and a video games.   The challenge is to buy the best for almost no money-  maximum fun for minimum money.

Reply

  • I'm in my mid 50s and I have loads of toys - I had Ker-Plunk and Buckaroo for my birthday.      I enjoy the challenge of being the best - total perfection - and adding extra challenges for personal and intellectual satisfaction.

    For example, when playing Spider Solitaire on the pc, it is only acceptable for me to create colour patterns as the cards place themselves at the bottom left - all of one colour then all of the next colour etc..     If it has to be a combination of alternate colours, I don't feel as satisfied.    I will not allow myself to finish with a random pattern.

    With Freecell, I've got a 100% record with over 12,000 games.

    With Ker-Plunk, my daughter and I knit the sticks into a highly tensioned nest so there's extra jeopardy as the tension twangs the balls around as a stick is withdrawn.

    I make huge RC model boats - people spend thousands creating these masterpieces - I challenge myself to win awards for my boats and spend as little money as possible - normally on the water for under £100.    I make good profits selling them.

    I have tons of Technical Lego airfix models and a video games.   The challenge is to buy the best for almost no money-  maximum fun for minimum money.

Children
  • in reply to Plastic

    Wow! Goodness! What an awesome array of systematic and intellectual play! I've noticed your comments on other threads, and you give such thoughtful and in-depth responses. You explain yourself clearly, thoroughly and insightfully. I greatly appreciate that kind of dialogue.

    I don't have personal experience with the games/activities you mentioned here, but I enjoy your enthusiasm about them. Seems like you may feel very "alive," and often so. Technical challenges are a crux of my own "play." My artwork involves the development of various "systems" for new artistic techniques and methods.

    I'm not so much into brain-teasers, though I find those skills enviable. Would you describe what the experience feels like of getting into these kind of highly focussed interests? Do you think in words while you engage, or do you think in pictures, or perhaps mathematically/spatially? I have a very geometrically spatial mind-state when I'm able to go within myself creatively. I love it when words disappear.