What do you hyperfocus on? And for how long?

[fracturedstory]

Wait for others to chip in. I think it can be an ADHD co-morbid with AS thing. Special interests are usually known as an autism spectrum thing, much the way the word hyperfocus is rarely used within that group.

There are way too many terms, maybe we should just all mash them together.

Also, fish
Nine hours.
Hmm, I wonder if I could see any asteroids tonight.

Also, I realise I'm continuing a conversation from PMs. But I think I worked out why it makes me hyper; it overrides the medication. Actually now I'm not sure. I think it just makes me hyper.

[Assumption]

Mash them all together eh? Special Hyperfish.

[fracturedstory]

With pumpkins and potato.

[Assumption]

Yesss, because it's mashed! Mashed pumpkins and potatoes, with special hyperfish, hmm....

Damn. I don't know how to cook fish. I generally just crumb it and fry it. But I think a special hyperfish would need better treatment than that.

I always wanted to build my own sous vide bath. And then use a butane torch to crisp hyperfish up.

[Kasi]

Ahhh. I wish I could hyperfocus on things of my choosing, it would make things a lot easier and my homework would get done. I vary in my periods of hyperfocus, there are things I consistently return to when there's new information and such, those can go for years. Art, tattooing and car design do fit into this aspect.
However, there's also when I get intensely interested in something and I just sink into it for a very, VERY intense few hours or days. In example, I went from knowing next to nada about computer hardware, and inside of nine straight hours, I learned how components fit together, the differences between connections and why some things wouldn't work with others, how to build a desktop computer, and the changes over the decades of the material used for memory, disc writing, etc.
I don't do that often, thankfully, my eyes wanted to kill me by the end of it.

[DvlsAdv0c8]

I'm C on the first, and DEPENDS on the second.

My wife was initially skeptical of the idea of me having ADHD, because, paraphrasing her, "your problem isn't that you can't maintain focus; it's that you have TOO MUCH focus on the WRONG THINGS. You get obsessed over one thing and neglect every other aspect of your life."

I actually have a job that I enjoy doing, so when I get a project that requires a high level of creativity and also the opportunity to learn or apply a new skill, I tend to hyperfocus on it to the exclusion of all else. My supervisor will say something to me and I will have forgotten that I'm even at work...

I have often wondered - even though it's called Attention DEFICIT Disorder, could it really be TOO MUCH ATTENTION Disorder? Our brains are always so active. Every minute of the day my brain feels more like it's trying so hard to take in everything at once, with the result being that it is constantly drawn to new stimuli, hence the distraction quality. We're so USED TO being stimulated that we can't function WITHOUT the stimulation.

[Drewbacca]

Originally Posted by Assumption

I declare my poll officially broken! Haha. I was thinking of special interests as counting, too.

That's what we do here... we break things.

[Geno]

When I was younger I could hyperfocus on a good video game for 12 hours at a time.

[Conman]

i only hyperfocus on things introduced to me (like something that's new to me i find out about) or cool stuff like nuclear physics

[fracturedstory]

I had some strange pepper lemon fish induced hyperfocus last night. At first I just did the usual writing distracted thoughts down on paper with a marker pen, then I saw a link on Facebook about an autism documentary. I watched the little trailer video and noticing it was going to air in 10 minutes ran down with my phone (to post sarcastic comments - it was a theory I didn't agree with) and sat down in the cold lounge room to watch it.
Normally, I would record it and watch it at an agreed upon time.
But I watched it while writing my comments online. They went from sarcastic to thoughtful and argumentative. Then with 10 minutes left of the documentary I lost interest and spent the next two hours writing a letter on the show's website.
It was a good little letter too. Almost as well as I would on medication.
I couldn't really follow the science though. I got the overall idea.

I also told anyone who would stand still long enough what I thought about the documentary.

Oh and by bedtime I was energetically reading in my bed, out loud. I'm glad no one was home. It was very loud and I put on all the different voices for the characters.

And today I used the Sonic image I'm working on for a birthday card to make my friend on FB (singer of a band I like) a happy birthday message. I spent hours on the text of his name. It was a stain green capital font. Well it was the Sonic the Hedgehog font. And then I tried to make it look like is was speeding into the screen, and inside the letters was some texture to give the sense of movement.
I planned to do just a bit more writing. That didn't happen.

And then I found out the official Stargate SG-1 app was released. Nearly bought an iPad 3 (to play the feature not available on iPoad Touch 3) without much thought. I manage to slow down enough to look for the best deal and now I have to wait 3 days for the auction to end. Not an impulsive purchase.

[Assumption]

Don't get an ipad 3! Get a windows 8 tablet! It's a full PC! Ipad = crippleware (and I own one and use it every day!)

Seriously though, I have the theme music to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 stuck in my head now.

[DvlsAdv0c8]

Originally Posted by Drewbacca

That's what we do here... we break things.

You got that right!