I don’t know a whole lot about autism. I mean, I’ve read Oliver Sacs and seen the movie with Dustin Hoffman, and that’s about it.
This morning I overheard something Rachel was listening to, about an autistic child who has learned how to type, and through typing, reveals a side to herself that is profound and insightful.
In her communications, she says that, at times, it feels like her body will explode, that her senses run on override – she sees and hears cacophonies – and the only way to prevent the explosion is to bang her head/scream/hit…as if she is in a body that she has no control over, this strikingly articulate, endearingly mischievous, thirteen year old girl.
And so, just now, I was thinking. Because there are times when I have felt a sensory opening and my reaction is wholly dependent upon my state of mind. On one hand it can feel like the beauty of the whole universe is alive to me, and at others I am struggling, fighting to keep some anchor of control – like a bad acid trip where all I want is to be ‘normal’, in control again.
Recently I read about ‘controlled’ medicinal use of LSD where patients are given the drug under the supervision of trained experts in situations designed to engender complete feelings of total comfort and safety. Situations where the patients can let go and surrender. In the article, their experiences are described as ‘enlightening’. They suddenly have a sense of who they, arguably, really are. A sense of the greatness of which they are a part.
And so I’ve been wondering, what if autism is like a bad trip of sorts? What if those who experience it could be guided to relax, to trust, to recognize the expanse to which they are privy and navigate the terrain of their perception, not with a view to making it ‘normal’, but with a view to the beauty? What if they were led in meditation? What messages would they have for us then?
Like I said, I don’t claim to know much about autism, I just wonder if it might be a link, a portal of sorts to that which I recognize as the All…and we have become so accustomed to trying to ‘fix’ it, we have lost sight of the gift it might actually be.