Let’s say it’s midnight, I’m tired, and I’m home alone with nothing better to do. I know I have to get up early and I’ll feel better / be more productive the next day in direct proportion to how much sleep I get. I still just don’t want to go to bed. It requires real force of will not to stay up and find something else to do, even if it just amounts to reading random stuff online or otherwise killing time.
I’ve gotten better at just making myself go to bed anyway in that situation, but I don’t know why it should take any effort in the first place. Going to sleep should – at least occasionally—be my most attractive alternative, even from a short-term perspective. But for some reason it never feels that way.
I don’t have insomnia, nightmares, apnea or any other condition (that I know of) that would make sleep/bed unpleasant – so at least in my case the act of sleep itself doesn’t seem to be a factor.
I have at times set cron to shut down the PC, with a 1 minute countdown. It worked wonders. It did cut down on productivity somewhat. Working 25 hours straight actually does get a lot of stuff done!
The only times I recall “going to bed” feeling like a good idea is when I’ve been so far into exhausted sleep deprivation that base instincts took over and I found myself doing so almost involuntarily.
Even in those cases, my conscious mind was usually confabulating wildly about how I wasn’t actually going to sleep, just lying down for a half a moment, not sleeping at all… right up until I pretty much passed out.
Would you guys mind terribly if I picked your brains?
The kind of experience you’re describing is described fairly often in autistic communities. There’s a few variations, generally falling into the categories of sensory processing or executive dysfunction issues. The former category would include not experiencing, or noticing that you’re experiencing, ‘tiredness’, even when your body is acting tired in a way that others would notice (e.g. yawning, stretching, body language). The second case involves not being able to stop whatever activity you’re engaged in and go to bed, even though you recognize (perhaps briefly, before being drawn back into what you’re doing) that you are tired and it would be a good idea. (This isn’t quite the same as ‘I’ll do one more part, and then go to bed’ in that it’s less conscious and therefore harder to break out of—in many cases it takes a significant effort of will to stop your body from automatically taking the next step in what you’re doing, even if you’ve actually decided not to take that next step.)
I’m curious to find out if those issues are also experienced by people who aren’t autistic—perhaps to a lesser degree, or with different explanations than the ones that I mentioned. Do the issues I described sound like what you’re experiencing? Are they close, or similar in some interesting way?
The former category would include not experiencing, or noticing that you’re experiencing, ‘tiredness’, even when your body is acting tired in a way that others would notice (e.g. yawning, stretching, body language).
I’m not sure if this is what you’re talking about, but I’ve long distinguished two aspects of “tiredness”. One is the sensation of fatigue, exhaustion, muddled thinking, &c.--physical indicators of “I need sleep now”.
The second is the sensation of actually being sleepy, in the sense of reduced energy, body relaxation, and a general feeling that going to bed sounds like a fine plan.
I almost always notice the former, but unless accompanied by the latter (often not the case), acting on it by going to bed requires a conscious decision. Usually, the sleepiness will appear after I’m lying down, but at times I’ve been unable to clear my mind of activity and will lie in bed for two or more hours, unable to sleep despite being extremely tired.
If I’m deeply involved in something and not feeling “sleepy” I can easily fail to notice the fatigue (along with hunger and various other non-urgent physical sensations).
The second case involves not being able to stop whatever activity you’re engaged in and go to bed, even though you recognize (perhaps briefly, before being drawn back into what you’re doing) that you are tired and it would be a good idea.
In my case it’s more garden-variety procrastination; going to sleep is just one more thing that I know I should do but don’t really want to, because it’s boring.
I’m curious to find out if those issues are also experienced by people who aren’t autistic—perhaps to a lesser degree, or with different explanations than the ones that I mentioned. Do the issues I described sound like what you’re experiencing? Are they close, or similar in some interesting way?
My experience mostly reduces to a disconnect between a non-critical physical need and the desire to fulfill it, generally to an extent proportional to how much mental activity is bouncing around my conscious mind (the default state being “too much”).
As a final note, besides the melatonin not making me sleepy, neither ethanol nor caffeine seems to have an appreciable effect on whether I can get to sleep (though both will reduce the quality of any sleep).
I’m not sure if this is what you’re talking about...
I almost always notice the former...
If I’m deeply involved in something and not feeling “sleepy” I can easily fail to notice the fatigue (along with hunger and various other non-urgent physical sensations).
That doesn’t sound like the experience I was trying to describe, which is of not noticing sleepiness or fatigue at all, even when not doing something engaging. The ‘not noticing’ caveat is there because some autistics won’t automatically notice those sensations, but can consciously check to see if they’re occurring, and get into the habit of doing so. (The issue can apply to hunger, too.)
If you’re actually collecting datapoints, not just using the term semi-metaphorically, it may help to add that I’ve been diagnosed with (fairly moderate) ADHD; if my experience is representative of anything, it’s probably that.
I’m curious to find out if those issues are also experienced by people who aren’t autistic—perhaps to a lesser degree, or with different explanations than the ones that I mentioned. Do the issues I described sound like what you’re experiencing? Are they close, or similar in some interesting way?
How will you distinguish between a non-autistic ‘experiencing an autistic associated experience to a lesser degree’ and, well, someone experiencing a lesser degree of autism? Considering the context I am not sure if a “I notice that too” from a LessWrong poster would inform me much at all about how much prevalence independent of the causal factors behind autistism.
My experience, for what it is worth:
The former category would include not experiencing, or noticing that you’re experiencing, ‘tiredness’, even when your body is acting tired in a way that others would notice (e.g. yawning, stretching, body language).
My main experience of ‘tiredness’ is metacognitive awareness of impaired cognitive function. For example, I’ll notice that my verbal expression and spelling becomes impaired and the names of things elude me and then conclude that I am tired. I don’t feel ‘sleepy’. Note that now that I have discovered melatonin I actually can feel tired (if I take ~6 mg). This was quite a novelty! I also seemed to have developed somewhat more awareness of other ‘tiredness’ indicators such as yawning over recent years (late 20s).
The above applies to hunger as well, for most part.
The second case involves not being able to stop whatever activity you’re engaged in and go to bed, even though you recognize (perhaps briefly, before being drawn back into what you’re doing) that you are tired and it would be a good idea.
How will you distinguish between a non-autistic ‘experiencing an autistic associated experience to a lesser degree’ and, well, someone experiencing a lesser degree of autism?
I’m not sure that those categories are naturally distinguishable, actually—there’s a fair bit of controversy over whether there’s a smooth spectrum between very autistic individuals and very NT individuals, and such datapoints could be taken as evidence for that theory. Whether the NT-leaning-toward-autistic portion of that spectrum (assuming it exists, which I believe it does) manifests in single examples of significant autistic-type experiences in otherwise NT people vs. multiple slightly autistic-leaning traits (or both) is also interesting.
I tend not to spell that kind of thing out unless asked, though—not everyone reacts well to overt suggestions that they might be autistic-leaning because of some trait. ‘NT with a quirk’ is much more palatable.
The second case involves not being able to stop whatever activity you’re engaged in and go to bed, even though you recognize (perhaps briefly, before being drawn back into what you’re doing) that you are tired and it would be a good idea. (This isn’t quite the same as ‘I’ll do one more part, and then go to bed’ in that it’s less conscious and therefore harder to break out of—in many cases it takes a significant effort of will to stop your body from automatically taking the next step in what you’re doing, even if you’ve actually decided not to take that next step.)
This sounds like me. Not just for going to bed, but for anything I need to do. Do you have links to descriptions or discussions of this experience? Have people found any way of dealing with it? I’m probably slightly on the autism spectrum.
ETA: I’ve also heard this described as ADD or OCD.
This is my go-to article on the subject. I can probably dig up some more things later, if you’re interested. (I’m about to go to bed.) Mostly it’s more worked-around than overcome, but there are resources out there on how to work around it, and I’ll make a point of trying to find some of them if you want.
Executive dysfunction is part of ADD, too, so I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of it being an element of that. My understanding of OCD is that the mechanism behind the issue isn’t the same, but I could easily be wrong; I haven’t done as much research on OCD.
Let’s say it’s midnight, I’m tired, and I’m home alone with nothing better to do. I know I have to get up early and I’ll feel better / be more productive the next day in direct proportion to how much sleep I get. I still just don’t want to go to bed. It requires real force of will not to stay up and find something else to do, even if it just amounts to reading random stuff online or otherwise killing time.
I’ve gotten better at just making myself go to bed anyway in that situation, but I don’t know why it should take any effort in the first place. Going to sleep should – at least occasionally—be my most attractive alternative, even from a short-term perspective. But for some reason it never feels that way.
I don’t have insomnia, nightmares, apnea or any other condition (that I know of) that would make sleep/bed unpleasant – so at least in my case the act of sleep itself doesn’t seem to be a factor.
Use cron to make your browser open a new tab once a minute starting at midnight that says “GET TO BED!”
I have at times set cron to shut down the PC, with a 1 minute countdown. It worked wonders. It did cut down on productivity somewhat. Working 25 hours straight actually does get a lot of stuff done!
This is my experience as well, for the most part.
The only times I recall “going to bed” feeling like a good idea is when I’ve been so far into exhausted sleep deprivation that base instincts took over and I found myself doing so almost involuntarily.
Even in those cases, my conscious mind was usually confabulating wildly about how I wasn’t actually going to sleep, just lying down for a half a moment, not sleeping at all… right up until I pretty much passed out.
It’s rather vexing.
Would you guys mind terribly if I picked your brains?
The kind of experience you’re describing is described fairly often in autistic communities. There’s a few variations, generally falling into the categories of sensory processing or executive dysfunction issues. The former category would include not experiencing, or noticing that you’re experiencing, ‘tiredness’, even when your body is acting tired in a way that others would notice (e.g. yawning, stretching, body language). The second case involves not being able to stop whatever activity you’re engaged in and go to bed, even though you recognize (perhaps briefly, before being drawn back into what you’re doing) that you are tired and it would be a good idea. (This isn’t quite the same as ‘I’ll do one more part, and then go to bed’ in that it’s less conscious and therefore harder to break out of—in many cases it takes a significant effort of will to stop your body from automatically taking the next step in what you’re doing, even if you’ve actually decided not to take that next step.)
I’m curious to find out if those issues are also experienced by people who aren’t autistic—perhaps to a lesser degree, or with different explanations than the ones that I mentioned. Do the issues I described sound like what you’re experiencing? Are they close, or similar in some interesting way?
I’m not sure if this is what you’re talking about, but I’ve long distinguished two aspects of “tiredness”. One is the sensation of fatigue, exhaustion, muddled thinking, &c.--physical indicators of “I need sleep now”.
The second is the sensation of actually being sleepy, in the sense of reduced energy, body relaxation, and a general feeling that going to bed sounds like a fine plan.
I almost always notice the former, but unless accompanied by the latter (often not the case), acting on it by going to bed requires a conscious decision. Usually, the sleepiness will appear after I’m lying down, but at times I’ve been unable to clear my mind of activity and will lie in bed for two or more hours, unable to sleep despite being extremely tired.
If I’m deeply involved in something and not feeling “sleepy” I can easily fail to notice the fatigue (along with hunger and various other non-urgent physical sensations).
In my case it’s more garden-variety procrastination; going to sleep is just one more thing that I know I should do but don’t really want to, because it’s boring.
My experience mostly reduces to a disconnect between a non-critical physical need and the desire to fulfill it, generally to an extent proportional to how much mental activity is bouncing around my conscious mind (the default state being “too much”).
As a final note, besides the melatonin not making me sleepy, neither ethanol nor caffeine seems to have an appreciable effect on whether I can get to sleep (though both will reduce the quality of any sleep).
Thanks for the datapoint.
That doesn’t sound like the experience I was trying to describe, which is of not noticing sleepiness or fatigue at all, even when not doing something engaging. The ‘not noticing’ caveat is there because some autistics won’t automatically notice those sensations, but can consciously check to see if they’re occurring, and get into the habit of doing so. (The issue can apply to hunger, too.)
If you’re actually collecting datapoints, not just using the term semi-metaphorically, it may help to add that I’ve been diagnosed with (fairly moderate) ADHD; if my experience is representative of anything, it’s probably that.
How will you distinguish between a non-autistic ‘experiencing an autistic associated experience to a lesser degree’ and, well, someone experiencing a lesser degree of autism? Considering the context I am not sure if a “I notice that too” from a LessWrong poster would inform me much at all about how much prevalence independent of the causal factors behind autistism.
My experience, for what it is worth:
My main experience of ‘tiredness’ is metacognitive awareness of impaired cognitive function. For example, I’ll notice that my verbal expression and spelling becomes impaired and the names of things elude me and then conclude that I am tired. I don’t feel ‘sleepy’. Note that now that I have discovered melatonin I actually can feel tired (if I take ~6 mg). This was quite a novelty! I also seemed to have developed somewhat more awareness of other ‘tiredness’ indicators such as yawning over recent years (late 20s).
The above applies to hunger as well, for most part.
Spot on.
I’m not sure that those categories are naturally distinguishable, actually—there’s a fair bit of controversy over whether there’s a smooth spectrum between very autistic individuals and very NT individuals, and such datapoints could be taken as evidence for that theory. Whether the NT-leaning-toward-autistic portion of that spectrum (assuming it exists, which I believe it does) manifests in single examples of significant autistic-type experiences in otherwise NT people vs. multiple slightly autistic-leaning traits (or both) is also interesting.
I tend not to spell that kind of thing out unless asked, though—not everyone reacts well to overt suggestions that they might be autistic-leaning because of some trait. ‘NT with a quirk’ is much more palatable.
This sounds like me. Not just for going to bed, but for anything I need to do. Do you have links to descriptions or discussions of this experience? Have people found any way of dealing with it? I’m probably slightly on the autism spectrum.
ETA: I’ve also heard this described as ADD or OCD.
This is my go-to article on the subject. I can probably dig up some more things later, if you’re interested. (I’m about to go to bed.) Mostly it’s more worked-around than overcome, but there are resources out there on how to work around it, and I’ll make a point of trying to find some of them if you want.
Executive dysfunction is part of ADD, too, so I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of it being an element of that. My understanding of OCD is that the mechanism behind the issue isn’t the same, but I could easily be wrong; I haven’t done as much research on OCD.
Thanks! Yes, please dig up more on that! (Guess you didn’t go to bed right away.) I’d love to see resources for how to work around it.
I definitely have those kinds of experiences. I don’t believe that I’m autistic.