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Can anyone help me learn what sensory overload might sound like?

ktseahorse

Hello everyone!

I am a musician who has recently started studying and exploring composing.  Since having my two sons, both with diagnoses of autism now, I have become interested in learning about how it is to be autistic.  

As a project for integrating music with sound design for a course I'm doing, I'm working on a soundtrack for a film of stills made from a picture book story about a little boy with autism.  The most difficult bit for me to write is when he has a horrid time with sensory overload leading to a meltdown.  I really want to try and get as close as possible with sound/atonal music to conveying what that might be like, but it's hard to know if I'm along the right lines as I myself am NT.

It's very important to me that the little boy's point of view is as present in the music as his mum's, so I want to be authentic.  

Is there anyone out there who might be willing to help me get this as good as I can by listening critically to what I am doing, or giving me descriptions of what it might feel like if the images were real?

I hope it's OK to ask.  I don't know anyone who experiences sensory overload personally, or I'd ask them!

Parents

  • Hi ktseahorse,

    One of the problems you have is that we are all slightly different in the way we perceive the world around us; if you ask ten people you will probably get ten different answers.

    Ferret mention the perpetual tinnitus, this sound is like the old TV's when you unplug the aerial, but at a higher frequency. For me this frequency is about 8KHz.

    Even though it is 7am and everyone else in the house is aseleep, I can hear at equal volume:

    8KHz fuzz

    The fan of my PC which modulates slightly

    My neck making small clicking noises as I move my head

    SOme cars outside, even though the nearest road is about 100m away

    An aeroplane flying overhead, it is quite high and has propellers

    An external hard disk which has just "woken up" and the disk is spinning up

    A cat scratching in another room

    Perhaps the best example I can give you is if you have a bad hangover. You now have to go and do an IQ test whilst sitting in a childrens nursery full of playing / screaming kids. After 8 hours would you rather go home and sit quietly or go out to a party?

    I think NAS did some TV adverts similar to you project, you may find them on youtube?

    Good luck in your project,

    Simon

Reply

  • Hi ktseahorse,

    One of the problems you have is that we are all slightly different in the way we perceive the world around us; if you ask ten people you will probably get ten different answers.

    Ferret mention the perpetual tinnitus, this sound is like the old TV's when you unplug the aerial, but at a higher frequency. For me this frequency is about 8KHz.

    Even though it is 7am and everyone else in the house is aseleep, I can hear at equal volume:

    8KHz fuzz

    The fan of my PC which modulates slightly

    My neck making small clicking noises as I move my head

    SOme cars outside, even though the nearest road is about 100m away

    An aeroplane flying overhead, it is quite high and has propellers

    An external hard disk which has just "woken up" and the disk is spinning up

    A cat scratching in another room

    Perhaps the best example I can give you is if you have a bad hangover. You now have to go and do an IQ test whilst sitting in a childrens nursery full of playing / screaming kids. After 8 hours would you rather go home and sit quietly or go out to a party?

    I think NAS did some TV adverts similar to you project, you may find them on youtube?

    Good luck in your project,

    Simon

Children
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