Autistic Intuition

[RemyZee]

This article about intuition put something I have been thinking about into words. Definitely worth the read. What is your sense of intuition like? This says the relevant thing isn't that we don't have it, but that we have so much of it.

Autistic Intuition Is Real — Fish in a Tree NOLA

 

[Nervous Rex]

That’s a very interesting article. This part is especially true for me:

“Autistic intuition also shows up in pattern recognition, systems thinking…”

I definitely see everything as a system of rules - math, programming, games, language, etc.

There are rules to socializing, too. NTs know the rules but aren’t usually consciously aware of them, until they call you out for unwittingly breaking one of them.

 

[lunarious]

Autistic people are frequently told that we misunderstand social cues or misread emotional signals, yet many of us have spent our lives noticing everything. We pick up subtle shifts in body language, tone of voice, energy, and rhythm that others seem to miss entirely. We may not interpret those shifts in the way that neurotypical people expect, but that does not mean we are wrong. It means we are reading a different layer of information, often one that is closer to truth than performance. Autistic people are often highly attuned to emotional undercurrents and inconsistencies, especially when someone’s words do not match their tone or behavior. We may not always be able to articulate exactly what feels off in the moment, but we know. We feel it in our bodies. And we remember.

It's Hard to read, as this article use advanced language, that makes me wonder is it directed to autists? Is it from autists? Is this for me?

May and especially but are Red flags if it makes sense. Tip: "We can say and, instead of but". We say but as a sign of contradiction, due to social engineering, and that may also be such as we call "social cue" that feminine people pick up.

This is new to me as i don't externalize such which is OK, but a Man should be treated well and his belly filled. To extinguish God's wrath. e.g. as quoted in Tao Te Ching (Taoism..) under here chapter 3, but i'm not Taoist:

Do not glorify the achievers
So the people will not squabble
Do not treasure goods that are hard to obtain
So the people will not become thieves
Do not show the desired things
So their hearts will not be confused
Thus the governance of the sage:
Empties their hearts
Fills their bellies
Weakens their ambitions
Strengthens their bones
Let the people have no cunning and no greed
So those who scheme will not dare to meddle
Act without contrivance
And nothing will be beyond control

So @admin might lock this thread, after i said this

Edit:

 

[Outdated]

I've always trusted my intuition, it seems much more accurate than most people's. In fact it's quite often more accurate than most people's cold hard logic.

I don't believe in any hippy dippy crap about spirit guides or angels or anything like that, it is my own brain that does this. I call it Hind Mind, I've heard others refer to it as The Lizard Brain, the part of your mind that watches over you when you're asleep and wakes you if you're in danger.

That part of your brain doesn't always communicate very well with your conscious mind but it sees and hears everything you do as well as what goes on when your conscious mind is asleep. It often sees things that the conscious mind is too busy to notice and will sometimes give your conscious mind unsolicited and unexplained advice.

 

[SusanLR]

I've always held intuition in high respect. It is going beyond the superficiality that the eyes see or ears hear. It is getting into a feeling and knowing of all things that most are not concerned with.

I may be silent yet very aware of the reasons behind people's actions and reactions.
Intuition is an understanding of feelings behind the spoken words also.
Intuition is a knowledge that isn't shown therefore those around us may think we are silent and have negative thoughts about how we act.
The superficial is what they see. Still waters run deep.

 

[lunarious]

I'm INFP. I might be ISTJ.

INFP has Ne. With Defensive Weapon created with Fi and being True through good and bad, i've earned @tree respect. So i can speak extrovertedly iNtuitively (Ne) with greater tolerance from administration.

This is an autism forum, so administration struggel to reconcile government with me. As i accuse government of trying to kill me and being untrue. That may happen to ASD. Governmemt said and still say they want to help me. Which is exactly what they have not. Thei've ...

 

[Grondhammar]

Loved this article, thanks for sharing it @RemyZee

It means acknowledging when a conversation feels emotionally unsafe, even if no one else sees it that way.

Yes yes! There have been so many, hundreds, of these where something told me something dangerous was happening in a conversation a few seconds or a minute or two before it bubbled to the surface. Or, walking into a room and feeling there is something off/scary about the people in it, and having that confirmed minutes later.

And when we learn to listen to ourselves, when we stop filtering our instincts through a lens of self-doubt, we often find that we were right all along.

And here too. So many times I've felt almost instantly I knew how a person was feeling deep-down, and then I'm told I'm wrong, but later it turns out I was 100% spot-on.

This was really insightful. I wish I had a little button to press to swap out the many years of being told that knowing without being able to explain how I know is wrong/bad/imprecise/pointless. But I can start where I am and work on noticing when this happens, and not swat it down like I've been trained to do.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

What is your sense of intuition like? This says the relevant thing isn't that we don't have it, but that we have so much of it.

I am thinking... like "empathy", it depends upon what type one is talking about. Many of us might struggle with cognitive empathy but are very strong in emotional empathy... but the myth remains that, "We don't have empathy." which is totally wrong due to the simplicity of the statement. So it is with "intuition". On one hand, I would agree that many neurotypicals have a type of intuition that allows them to read people... especially intent and "reading between the lines" much better than many autistics. Neurotypicals tend to be more "people centric" than us. On the other hand, I would suggest that autistics might have a different type of intuition better suited towards the overall environment and pattern recognition. The eye-tracking studies comparing autistics and neurotypicals would be consistent with that. Autistics will most often look at specific features of a persons face...around the eyes, but not in the eyes... or from a distance, are more likely to identify specific things around another person, but not the person, per se. We tend to use a "broad lens" and rely heavily upon peripheral vision, whereas, neurotypicals are more likely to focus in on people. You also see this with the types of photos we take... places and things, plants and animals,... but rarely people. Neurotypicals... mostly people.

Ever watch a comedy movie in which up front are two characters interacting... but in the background behind them there is all sorts of wacky, physical comedy going on? My wife will focus on the two people in front... and I will be laughing at what is going on in the background.

Ever watch an action movie where, for example, the car the characters are driving will be three different cars? One car for the close-ups, one or two other cars for the stunts... this is the type of stuff I will notice that most people simply do not pay attention to. My wife will be focused upon the characters and the dialogue.

 

[Mary Terry]

I've always held intuition in high respect. It is going beyond the superficiality that the eyes see or ears hear. It is getting into a feeling and knowing of all things that most are not concerned with.

I may be silent yet very aware of the reasons behind people's actions and reactions.
Intuition is an understanding of feelings behind the spoken words also.
Intuition is a knowledge that isn't shown therefore those around us may think we are silent and have negative thoughts about how we act.
The superficial is what they see. Still waters run deep.

I think intuition is much like instinct. Maybe they're the same thing.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Always said I could read body language even on this forum, contradicting the so called experts. When I see stupid stuff I keep my mouth shut.

 

[vergil96]

My autism symptoms lie rather in sensory issues, not social deficits, so I have never experienced a worse or different than neurotypical intuition. If anything, I have a sharper intuition than most people have.

The way people define intuition varies. I would say it's information being processes unconsciously, but not by the "lizard" brain, but all parts of the brain. I often solve very cognitively complex problems "intuitively", so related to programming, mathematics, science. Or I absorb vocabulary and grammar of a foreign language "intuitively", can play or imagine music the same way etc. That's what intuition means for me, subconscious cognition, not crude and simple at all.

Some people refer to intuition as jumping to conclusions or actions without critical thinking. Someone who was autistic said to me that I'm being "logical" and some NT person "intuitive", because this person acted on an impulse and drew the wrong conclusions based on their narcissistic-like egocentric "feelings". He called it "feelings" too. I think that was far-fetched and it looks like he was trying to avoid the fact that the person is narcissistic, narcissists' feelings are unhealthy and not quite like normal feelings. It's also not normal or healthy to be impulsive and lack self-reflection.

I also think everyone has their own intuition, based on what and how they perceive. Someone with a poor perception of body language might have a poor intuition about emotions, but a good intuition about logical games if they're good at logic. The intuition is good at whatever you are good at and have the right predispositions for, and bad at whatever you lack the predispositions for. I have a good intuition about mathematics and sciences, and also about visual arts and music, but a bad intuition about literary language - something I have always been not so good at.

It's called hierarchy of competence. The first stage is wrong intuition or unconscious incompetence, when you don't know much about something. Then as you learn, you progress to conscious incompetence, conscious competence and finally to unconscious competence - right intuition.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My autism symptoms lie rather in sensory issues, not social deficits, so I have never experienced a worse or different than neurotypical intuition. If anything, I have a sharper intuition than most people have.

The way people define intuition varies. I would say it's information being processes unconsciously, but not by the "lizard" brain, but all parts of the brain. I often solve very cognitively complex problems "intuitively", so related to programming, mathematics, science. Or I absorb vocabulary and grammar of a foreign language "intuitively", can play or imagine music the same way etc. That's what intuition means for me, subconscious cognition, not crude and simple at all.

Some people refer to intuition as jumping to conclusions or actions without critical thinking. Someone who was autistic said to me that I'm being "logical" and some NT person "intuitive", because this person acted on an impulse and drew the wrong conclusions based on their narcissistic-like egocentric "feelings". He called it "feelings" too. I think that was far-fetched and it looks like he was trying to avoid the fact that the person is narcissistic, narcissists' feelings are unhealthy and not quite like normal feelings. It's also not normal or healthy to be impulsive and lack self-reflection.

I also think everyone has their own intuition, based on what and how they perceive. Someone with a poor perception of body language might have a poor intuition about emotions, but a good intuition about logical games if they're good at logic. The intuition is good at whatever you are good at and have the right predispositions for, and bad at whatever you lack the predispositions for. I have a good intuition about mathematics and sciences, and also about visual arts and music, but a bad intuition about literary language - something I have always been not so good at.

It's called hierarchy of competence. The first stage is wrong intuition or unconscious incompetence, when you don't know much about something. Then as you learn, you progress to conscious incompetence, conscious competence and finally to unconscious competence - right intuition.

View attachment 146083

I did not know how organized I was until a few colours turned into thousands of colours. One supplier turned into multiple suppliers, one substrate turned into multiple substrates, repeated with resin systems.

 

[Matthias]

Everyone has intuition. I agree with the article that some autistic people probably have more of it than average. However, I think the accuracy of that intuition is more important than how much intuition a person has. I've encountered numerous people whose frequent intuition was often inaccurate. I see this more often in others who experienced trauma or had many negative interactions with others, which I think is more common among people who are autistic. These people tend to be unusually sensitive to negative reactions from others. While this leads to better intuition in certain situations, it often leads to inaccurate intuition in other situations (such as feeling under attack in neutral situations due to a negative perception bias), which can result in people frequently feeling that others are judging, insulting, or gaslighting them when it's not actually happening.

 

[RemyZee]

I've always trusted my intuition, it seems much more accurate than most people's. In fact it's quite often more accurate than most people's cold hard logic.

I don't believe in any hippy dippy crap about spirit guides or angels or anything like that, it is my own brain that does this. I call it Hind Mind, I've heard others refer to it as The Lizard Brain, the part of your mind that watches over you when you're asleep and wakes you if you're in danger.

That part of your brain doesn't always communicate very well with your conscious mind but it sees and hears everything you do as well as what goes on when your conscious mind is asleep. It often sees things that the conscious mind is too busy to notice and will sometimes give your conscious mind unsolicited and unexplained advice.

giving "your conscious mind unsolicited and unexplained advice" is such a good way of putting it. At times I have definitely not wanted the advice, or not listened to it and THAT gets complicated.

 

[Jumpinbare]

Ever watch an action movie where, for example, the car the characters are driving will be three different cars? One car for the close-ups, one or two other cars for the stunts... this is the type of stuff I will notice that most people simply do not pay attention to. My wife will be focused upon the characters and the dialogue.

I can't not notice TV/movie visual inconsistencies. I always find them annoying, Sometimes it's enough to spoil a marginal movie for me. Also annoying seeing someone casually using a common item in a way that would never actually work.

 

[Outdated]

giving "your conscious mind unsolicited and unexplained advice" is such a good way of putting it. At times I have definitely not wanted the advice, or not listened to it and THAT gets complicated.

Hindsight always tells me I should have listened when that happens. In a lot of ways Hind Mind is much smarter than me.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I can't not notice TV/movie visual inconsistencies. I always find them annoying, Sometimes it's enough to spoil a marginal movie for me. Also annoying seeing someone casually using a common item in a way that would never actually work.

Exactly... medical scenes in TV and movies... the worst. Almost every single scene they've cobbled together some old equipment laying around the studio, thrown in haphazardly into the situation in some attempt to make it look "real"... or they've concocted some totally bizarre situation that would never happen. My wife (a RN) and I cannot watch anything medical... at some point we are always ripping it apart or laughing at their attempts. "Who are their medical advisors?!" "Would never happen...ever." "Why is it no one is ever in the hallways at night?" "What hospital shuts off the lights at night?" "An emergency room doctor would never find him/herself out on the general floors or ICUs." "Not a single respiratory therapist?...RRTs are the ones running all the equipment!" "So...anyone can walk into a pharmacy storage room?" "Drugs are not kept in glass cabinets...anywhere...ever." "They are wearing oxygen in their nose... but the sound in the background is from a 1980's era mechanical ventilator?!" The complaints go on and on and on. It's terrible. It is ridiculously, comically, not realistic in any way.

 

[Outdated]

The complaints go on and on and on. It's terrible. It is ridiculously, comically, not realistic in any way.

It's exactly the same for most Aussies every time we see another youtube video purportedly about Australia. Even the ones that have actually visited here learn only a few small facts from a very minor subset of the country and they manage to get most of those confused and wrong and just invent the rest. It's even worse when they try to fake an Aussie accent.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I see the same with chemistry, forensics stuff they cannot do or liquids coloured with a glassware haphazardly hooked up.

 

[RemyZee]

Loved this article, thanks for sharing it @RemyZee


Yes yes! There have been so many, hundreds, of these where something told me something dangerous was happening in a conversation a few seconds or a minute or two before it bubbled to the surface. Or, walking into a room and feeling there is something off/scary about the people in it, and having that confirmed minutes later.


And here too. So many times I've felt almost instantly I knew how a person was feeling deep-down, and then I'm told I'm wrong, but later it turns out I was 100% spot-on.

This was really insightful. I wish I had a little button to press to swap out the many years of being told that knowing without being able to explain how I know is wrong/bad/imprecise/pointless. But I can start where I am and work on noticing when this happens, and not swat it down like I've been trained to do.

Ilike the metaphor of swatting it down.