In his book, “The Soul of Autism,” author Bill Stillman provides dozens of examples of people with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who have had a spiritual, psychical, or anomalous experience—call it what you will. Stillman, who himself has Asperger’s Syndrome, writes about these perceptions with a firsthand knowledge. Another author with an ASD, Donna Williams, has recounted her own psychic experiences, connecting them with sensory sensitivity and thin boundaries. Even among savants—who make up about 10 percent of the percentage of people with ASD—anomalous perceptions are not unknown. A large-scale study of child savants in the 1970s turned up a few whose parents reported that their son or daughter had extrasensory perception; a more recent cataloging by savant expert Dr. Darold Treffert indicates a similar smattering of cases.
I suspect that such accounts reflect a genuine difference in sensory processing—and, consequently, a different sense of self.
Accumulating evidence suggests that people with an ASD (or, for that matter, a Sensory Processing Disorder or SPD) are, from an early age, bombarded by sensory input that they have trouble discriminating. Their boundaries, we might say, are thinner than those of other people for whom the distinction between “outer” and “inner” is more constant, more firm. But even among individuals living with such a condition, there is a spectrum between high functioning and low functioning forms. People with high functioning forms of ASD or SPD will have somewhat thicker boundaries and a more fully delineated conception of self. People with low functioning forms will be more likely to withdraw into their own world, dissociate from feelings and sensations that become overwhelming, and become less engaged and communicative.
