What do the sensations enact? — fdrake
I crawl around on the floor, and lie on the floor wriggling around, at least once a month. It absolutely makes you look at the world differently and allows you to tap into perspectives you have neglected since childhood. — I like sushi
being mesmerized by the changing visual patterns of fireworks, ocean waves, a roaring fire. — Joshs
any people see it as a form of comforting oneself (and some evidence backs this up), but it is more or less about a need to process and interact with the environment I believe. — I like sushi
Primarily stemming from early childhood adaptation and learning regarding items like cause and effect, — I like sushi
being mesmerized by the changing visual patterns of fireworks, ocean waves, a roaring fire.
— Joshs
Those ones probably don't count as stimming. Since they're not repetitious in the context of the stimmer's life. — fdrake
Just for clarity, by hypersensitivity I mean a much lower than average ability to down regulate arousal associated with that sensation. That is, a hypersensitivity to a sense engenders states of enduring and heightened arousal associated with that sense — fdrake
Reductively analyzing stimming behavior in terms of arousal mechanisms misses the creative sense-making motivation behind it. Stimming is not a thermostatic mechanism, its pleasure comes from learning to organize a chaotic hodgepodge of sensations into regular patterns. — Joshs
I think whether you see it as an adaptation depends upon how you read adaptation. Whether a given person stims or does not stim seems relatively innate, as do the senses which the person stims with, but the specific stims used are unlikely to be predetermined. — fdrake
Infants do this to understand their environment. Infants are hypersensitive. — I like sushi
Reductively analyzing stimming behavior in terms of arousal mechanisms misses the creative sense-making motivation behind it. Stimming is not a thermostatic mechanism, its pleasure comes from learning to organize a chaotic hodgepodge of sensations into regular patterns.
— Joshs
Didn't you say the same holds for everything we do though — fdrake
I suppose where the above gets complicated is that being able to stim like that allows a form of stimming play, which is what Baggs is doing. — fdrake
Which is to say that your explanation of "stimming" is self-admittedly not an explanation of what Baggs is doing, which is interesting given that you are the one who introduced this word "stimming." — Leontiskos
The intentionality associated with stimming is not toward the stim source, it's a means of the body coordinating to produce a regulated and focussed state. — fdrake
So then play is merely down-regulating? — Leontiskos
. I don't interpret everything they do as mere down-regulation. — Leontiskos
There is no reason at all to rule out such a possibility. — Leontiskos
Indeed.
— Joshs
That strikes me as incredibly reductive. The specificity of Baggs' conduct has been dissolved into a broader glut of sensorially infused and creative sociality. — fdrake
Nor do I. What about stimming? — fdrake
So you exclude the possibility of true play; — Leontiskos
There might be something specifically autistic about what Baggs is doing, but the phenomenology doesn't reduce to the autistic cognitive style which promotes stimming — fdrake
↪Joshs - This is elsewhere referred to as deautomatization — Leontiskos
(A key here is to understand that stimulation and down-regulation are not at all identical. Stimulation will also involve, for example, up-regulation — Leontiskos
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