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Zoning out?

It's not quite the same as what happens when NTs daydream. When they daydream, they typically stop doing whatever it was they were engaged in at the time. Also, when they awaken from the daydream, they usually can say that they had been daydreaming & recall what they were thinking about during the daydream. The mind can get distracted when doing a repetitive or familiar task but the person will respond if someone addresses them. The Aspie zone out is more comparable to the meditative trance carefully practised by Buddhist monks & Hindu gurus.

It can also be similar to the side effects of some strong sleeping pills. A person takes the pill & hops into bed. A short while later, they wake up in their pjs at a bowling alley in Poughkeepise & they have no idea how they got there, why they're there or even where THERE actually IS!

These states involve a deeper level of unconsciousness but one that often leaves the body able to conduct complex tasks requiring both gross & fine motor skills, spatial awareness, coordination & memory ALL without the conscious mind's (the personality) awareness or contribution.

@Dovi: Despite being zoned out, I'd bet you drove quite well: stopping at red lights, turning when appropriate, stopping at stop signs etc. You weren't driving on the wrong side of the road with 2 wheels on the side walk, sending pedestrians leaping for cover. Regular NTs daydream & they do get distracted or lost in thought but the zone out is a much more extreme & often substantially different event. Fro ex. few NTs can daydream at will. Many Aspies can choose to zone out much like a monk can choose to enter into a meditative trance BUT they had to study & practise for years in order to cultivate this ability.
 
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I 'zone out' as you've described, but not voluntarily. For me, it's a response to sensory overload, where I literally start shutting down because I can't handle the processing of all the input. It works, in that it prevents me from getting visibly panicky and/or having to leave the situation, but there are circumstances when it's not appropriate, like when I zone out because it's gotten too noisy at work and a co-worker asks what I'm staring at and if I'm alright. I wish I had more control of it, so that I could actually count it as a beneficial coping mechanism.

For what it's worth, I can also fall into light meditative states very easily - zoning out is different and that bit deeper, possibly because I haven't knowingly induced it.
 
Zoning out is a side effect of going to my thought palace ;P so yeah I do this too. I find it harder to 'zone out' with more distractions, but that should be obvious and probably the same with everyone. I love silence.
 
My need to zone out causes irritation when I'm in public and someone is talking to me. I'm not always "alive" I guess, in order to talk and function and improvise.
I have a cartoon world in my head I go to often, ever since I was a child.
 
It IS sort of like not quite being alive, now that you mention it. Physically present but unavailable for any kind of interaction.
 
I zone out all of the time. I never realized it was an Aspie thing though.

I have entire worlds I've created in my mind, and I like to visit them when I'm bored at work or school. My body runs on autopilot while my brain takes off. I've always found it useful because I can pass long hours of the day doing something else in my head. I've used these worlds in stories I've written and even a couple of things I've published.

As I get older though, I've been spacing out to less imaginative fun things, and more to thinking about life issues. This type of spacing out is useful sometimes, but leads to worrying in circles other times. (Usually the worrying occurs when I'm over-tired or my blood sugar dips too low) Hmmm.... I wonder if I could train myself to only go to positive places when I zone out.
 
Animal_Girl said:
Hmmm.... I wonder if I could train myself to only go to positive places when I zone out.
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Mmmm...that's an easy one! Just make sure you get off at the right exit - i.e. deploy the escape pod over planet Eden instead of over planet Venus with its sulphuric atmospheres and intense storms. Better to be sat on some cosy beach somewhere with coconut trees and waves gently lapping against the shoreline than to be sat in a hot crater surrounded by lava springs and gasping for fresh air.
 
When I zone out I always retreat into imaginings - rather like a screenplay with definite storylines. I must be aware of the 'real world' on some level since if I'm doing routine filing it akways ends up in the correct place. Also, I'm much more NT in my imaginings when I'm zoned out.
 
Animal_Girl said:
IAs I get older though, I've been spacing out to less imaginative fun things, and more to thinking about life issues.
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Me too, and I'm good with that as well. My fantasy of saving the world from the Devil with Jack Sparrow and Lord Voldemort at my side was fun when I was little, but now I'm interested more in pondering morality, linguistics, history, philosophy and things like that. I'm very content.
 
Soup said:
Many Autistic people live the vast majority of their life in a zoned-out state where they are minimally accessible to other humans including their close relatives....

One of my Aspie skills is the ability to completely zone out. Sometimes I get a few spacey days (like yesterday & today) where I'm sort of on auto-pilot doing what I have to do but not being truly present. Zoning out is even more extreme: it is the ability to completely shut out the world & go into a trance- like state. Does anyone else out there do this? Please tell me about your experiences with this skill.
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As I learn more about my aspie self I recognize behaviors with a different perspective and "new eyes." I have only just realized that I occasionally zone out. I cannot do it the way soup describes but I notice myself sometimes staring out into space.

Just like I used to think I did not stim until I looked more closely, I now see I also zone out at times.
 
Zoning out or shutting down is my normal way of being. Even when I'm in crouds of people, It never occures to me to pop out of it and interact. Being with my family is different though, but I'm usually by myself, inside my head and not interacting with the world. Except for animals, I talk to animals.
 
As strange as it sounds to others, 'zoning out' is one of my favourite pastimes, haha. I'm sure it looks odd from the outside, but inside it's truly wonderful.
 
I used to do it a lot. I was diagnosed with various mental health disorders and each time my psychiatrist told me that this was dissociation - a part of mental illness. So, I worked for years on not dissociating, and now I dont do it so often, but I get super stressed instead. For me, zoning out reduces my stress, but there are times when I cant stop from zoning out and then I am completely gone. Cant converse, couldnt tell you what day it was or even my name if Im too far gone. I try not to zone out because the world around me doesnt like it.
 
Since some sudden & recent changes in my life (I'll discuss those in a more appropriate place), I've been going into epic zone-outs. I just shut right off for protracted periods, emerging when I'm suddenly ravenously hungry or when the pug comes & 'gets' me out from wherever I went.

Today, after attending to a whole lot of duties, I vanished into the bath. I add 2 cups of pure sea salt ( I can get it in bulk for cheap from a natural stuff place). Then, with the water very hot (but not scalding) I open the window about 3cm & turn on the air jets. WOOOHOO! Aspie paradise! The jets make this white noise & water bubbles sound that is easy to get mesmerized by & the open window causes thick tendrils of steam to rise, making everything seem otherworldly. With the lights off & the only light coming from a candle, you can see how conducive this atmosphere is to zoning out! You literally go into zone-out mode as soon as you're flopped in the water. I emerged from the trance 3 HOURS later (with satin smooth skin from the sea salt & steam) as a bonus).

Being able to zone out well as needed re-charges me, acts as a default mechanism that resets me to my 'factory delivered state'.
 
I read the replies here, its fun to learn what's going in people's head. :)

I zone out all the time ... Even in those one on one situations. Someone is talking to me ... and I just disconnect ... then I wake up and I have no idea what he was talking about ... most of the time I can catch up ... but when I missed instructions, I have to ask the person to repeat big chunks of what they just said. I'm not sure if its aspergers or something else, but it doesn't help in social situations.

Someone said that they zone out when they are driving. I do too ... I think everyone does. Its a normal brain thing. I just think some people are doing it more than others ... maybe aspies are just doing it more often and more deeply.

Several times a day, the brain is going into hypnosis ... like when you wake up or fall asleep or while doing a boring task like driving on the highway. Some layers of the brain will relax, leaving you alone with your subconscious. Its entirely normal and natural. It would be false to think the "normal" people aren't experiencing this.

I don't know .. saying that ... I would be kind of "normal" to zone out if we don't have a big interest in the subject. Maybe I zone out often because most of the time when I talk to people, I'm just trying to be social ... but in my head, I'm not interested in what they are saying ... so my brain zone out because of that.

So zoning out would be entirely normal. Could be just a symptom of the problem/difference of not being interested enough in what other people are saying.
 
I dont know if this would be considered zoning out but back when i was in college(my one glorious year<- sarcasm) i would usually just let my mind drift into the projects i was working on,majoring in game programming, so i would be walking back to my dorm thinking about what i could do to make things better/what to try in my next iteration. Usually i have to cross one road to get to my dorm and like always people are constantly driving up and down it, the only thing is is that i would cross the road with only an inche or so between me and the car hitting me..now that i think about i guess you could chalk that up to guessing its speed and my speed then its distance •~• meh no idea.

Almost forgot to add this but i would never be..frightened if the car almost hit me. Gues frightened would be the correct word for it.

Other then that im usually zoned out 24/7 i can hear whats going on around(still havnt figured out how to turn my ears off :p ) me but my mind is usually focused on other things, games/books/ideas/theories etc etc
 
I zone out often when there is a sensory overload -- e.g. when too many people are talking at once, too many things are on my mind, one person is talking and there is a song in my head and I am worried about whether my boss thought I was incompetent, etc . . . Sometimes I zone out at work after finishing a task and trying to figure out what task to do next.

I also noticed the terrible habit I have of zoning out while driving. I often forget periods of routine driving and have been in trouble a couple of times because I wasn't 100% focused (I ran into the back of a car which slammed on its brakes suddenly and also rolled through a stop sign and received a citation). It scares me that I wasn't in control during these situations and now I try to focus more on driving.
 
Kelly said:
When I zone out I stare at one spot and everything becomes hazy, almost dream like and distanced, it's such and odd feeling but I can do it at will now, I just concentrate really hard on one spot and let my mind drift.

Christian I can drift off into an imaginary place or replay a movie in my head or whatever but that's not the same as my zoning out, when I zone out my mind goes completely blank, I can still hear things and repond to an extent but I don't know, it's so hard to explain. If I begin to think about things I snap out of the zone and into a different place if that makes sense? I'm still staring at one particular spot but my mind is active, so it may look like I'm zoned out but I'm not.
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What you're describing is meditation
 
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