quackademicI have often wondered to what degree the everyday state of an autistic brain resembles that of a neurotypical person under the influence of psychedelics.
Brain scans of people experiencing altered states after consuming psychedelics show heightened communication among areas of the brain associated with ‘higher thinking’ & among those concerned with hearing & vision.
Compare this with the ‘synaptic pruning’ frame for understanding autistic experience, that explains autism as both developmental delay & lifelong difference or disability. At birth our brains are densely interconnected. In ‘normal’ development the complexity of synaptic connections decreases throughout childhood, enabling us to process our sensory & informational worlds without overwhelm. In autistic folx this ‘pruning’ is delayed &/or occurs to a lesser degree, leaving many of us struggling to navigate our lives with brains that are far more interconnected & reactive than most people’s, making it difficult or impossible for us to develop the protective filters & simple conceptual maps that are most people’s normal.
I am acutely sensitive to drugs in general & psychedelics in particular. Any food, plant or substance that has psychoactive properties affects me strongly.
I’ve always understood this to be because my normal states of sensory & information processing are at the edge of what most folks describe as psychedelic experience. The smallest nudge tips me right over the edge.
I have always felt kinship with friends who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic conditions. What we have in common? Living with unshared realities. Our perceptions, information processing & meaning making is different from most folks & if we don’t hide it we are pathologised. We live with all the trauma a lifetime of gaslighting & exclusion accrues.
There’s so many ways to be human. I wish we could be kinder to each other.
Kevin Davy