Sometimes it feels like I’m in a room where everyone is shouting over one another, and I just hear noise in my head. I can’t make sense of any of it. Yes, and you do try. The best course in those situations is to rest. If it’s important, it will get to you anyway.

In science speak, they call the resting sections of the brain the default mode network, and if these cannot keep a healthy rhythm of activity, you become mentally imbalanced. So your brain actually works like a diesel engine. It saves more energy by idling in an active state than by switching on and off.

Is that like autism? In the case of autism, the default mode network spikes sending jamming signals to the parts of the brain responsible for cognitive switching that let you focus and let go of things. Which breaks down cognitive process, as normals see it, all together.

So does an autistic person find resting more difficult? Yes. Imagine you are wearing headphones and a visor that barrages your eyes with light, then a suit that sends a constant tingle all across your skin, and then you have had an awful lunch that is making you nauseous, and you are really really strained from a bad work out. That’s autism.

My goodness. Well, it has its upside. Are you familiar with the various austerities practiced in all parts of the country? Fasting, self trial rituals, things like that? Things that make you let go of your body. Well, it’s like nature gave me that gift, permanently. I have learned to function. I just have to see things from that altered state. In fact, for me, the seizures during puberty were a God send. The agony beyond agony of a seizure helped me get oriented. Map these states that were otherwise drowning my awareness.

To get back to rest though, rest is letting go but not giving up. If my life has taught me any one lesson, it’s letting go. Yet life continues even when you let go, and rather than including you out of events, it lets you back in. Much more deeply than your thinking could, but only when you allow the rest.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~