Is it only me who has noticed that there seems to be a larger than average (compared to the general population) rate/collection/amount? of people with aspergers within the nexus?

I would love to hear your theories and observations about this

Could be only because you're paying attention, looking for correlation. I don't have aspergers, but do deal with depression and there's been times I've felt everyone here does too. There's a lot of folks here, correlations could be drawn from any number of sources.

That is a very good point. Aspergers isn't the only one, just happened to be the one sitting on my mind when I thought to make this post. I've noticed depression comes up a lot as well, alongside with a few other mental.. I don't want to say illnesses because for many I don't believe they are illnesses... Challenges? Others have mentioned veganism and people who have been abused.
I just think it's all super interesting about our demographics

psyches as a pro level hobby sorta requires a degree of time, money, and smarts to pursue.

of course this place is gonna be a full range of unique and offbeat types of personas.
were the only ones who can afford the luxury.
most mainstream people lack cash , time ,or brain horsepower to participate.

the typical citizen is over run by kids, mortgage , bad food, and overwork for low pay.
mainstream is a whole different planet.

How can you tell who's on the Spectrum here?

Aspergers is now a defunct term, it's all ASD now.

Blessings
~ND

I agree. How does one know or analyze such behavior online? And why? Without said users voluntarily explaining their ASD, it would seem quite anonymous. I think this may apply for most other sensitive disorders, as well.

Alot of people talk with invisible entities as well. It's a madhouse.

something however i do seem to have found to be fact is a lifetime prevalence of addiction (physical depedence/ abuse issue) to drugs other than hallucinogens, i have noticed several members speaking about their past issues with these things.

this is by no means the rule but but if it was a general rule it would not surprise me. i think that the concept of "co-morbidity " could explain the increases in any mental "illnesses" if you wish to call them that. some level of dysfunction i think is needed to even wish or be open to the terrifyingly alien and ballistic-unlimited-expansion one undergoes merely by partaking!

and adding to what anne said, even at a sub pro level. the supra-meta-self-analysis that these chems breeds is in its self a whole nother "world". or paradigm which is not even glimpsed by many who i guess exist "inside" the confines of; the consumption of food rearing of children and basic economical functions to survive and "prosper" in society

If you are looking in the new members area, I can understand why autism would come to mind. Otherwise, absolutely not. Many have experienced trauma and survived incredible trials and yet here they are improving their life every day, step by step by step. And I think mental disorders such as autism is a completely unfair / baseless assumption to make.

I'd have to agree with those that have questionned how you'd substatiate your claims...
That said, I think a well conducted demographic survey of us Nexus members would be quite interesting. Just who are we psychonauts?

There have been a few polls over the years. You can find them if you use the search function.

If I recall correctly, in general, Nexus members are male, cisgender, generally white, from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, and generally based in the USA.

Given how much The Nexus has grown since I started here though, it may be time to update that picture.

Blessings
~ND

Can't seem to find anything (using demorgaphics, survey, demography as keywords)

i
remember reading this which i found very interesting

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...amp;m=540533#post540533

i too am interested in the results of an updated & (semi) comprehensive demographics breakdown of the members here

In some sickly sense of this subject, we're all autistic to some extent or another; ASD is an umbrella term large enough to tackle all of us weirdos underneath one gigantic stigmatized tarp; hell, even those whackos at the NIMH don't know what in the hell to do with us & them; it's just one of those unprofitable brain bug continents which can't be rehabilitated into good normal socially-acceptable sheeple via super-profitable life-long pharmaceutical consumption or top-notch CBT, ECT plaecebo or whatever in the hell else works to mold aspies into neurotypical straight-thinking citizens, put in little boxes, sent out to the university, educated, rehabilitated and put back into those filthy monochromatic little boxes, where they all come out just the same.

Also, it is rather easy (IMO) to tell if someone is neuroatypical (read: weird/aspergial) just by reading through their posting/writing style accross anonymous forum mediums such as this site where the blessing of apparent anonymity and lack of having to be blindly mind-raped and misunderstood by the oh-so-common inability to understand, cope with and adequately go along with the 93% of interpersonal communication which consists entirely of nonverbal communication (i.e. "body language"; thus, I find it easier to interpret personality (as well as possible defects) via writing/posting styles accross anonymous/faceless forums & blogs as the blessing of the illusion of anonymity strips us of the masks we wear in public, allowing me to see the actual inner-workings of the mind without having to cut through jungles of uninterpretable psychosomatic/kinesic mumbo jumbo.

A very common neurobiological feature among autistics is an abnormally large/dense/overactive neural connection/network between the fusiform gyrus (a region of the brain which is responsible for the recognition/memory/perception of faces, as well as [to some extent] the ability to communicate with one another on a nonverbal level via facial expression) and the amygdala (AKA fear-producing center of brain when activated); when an autistic sees faces, this circuit goes haywire, producing a fear/panic response whenever one communicates face-to-face with another person, especially so when looking them in the eyes (the windows to the soul). It has been hypothesized that this neurobiologically-based abnormal fear response to faces in autistics may be one reason why they're so notorious for avoiding direct eye contact and appear to be emotionally 'out-of-tune' with others whilst communicating with them face-to-face due to this nearly uncontrollable knee-jerk fear reaction to facial recognition & perception, thus impairing their ability to effectively communicate directly and effectively with others. Through the magic of the internet, one can easily bypass this brain bug, and thus more effectively & accurately articulate their true selves to others via faceless, text-based communication networks such as these.

This over-activation of the amygdala-induced fear response can, of course, be mitigated through the magic of neuroplasticity as well as psychedelic drug use. Multiple fMRI studies investigating the neuropharmacological properties of psychedelic/empathogenic drugs in humans have revealed that these agents decrease CBF to the amygdala, thus tuning down this fear response and allowing for more effective communication/connectivity with others in person as well as freeing oneself from fear of the unknown; however, the only way to permanently tune-down this connection is simply to face one's innate fears over and over and over again and again and again such that this over-active circuit will degrade like LSD in a cloud of hydrogen chloride gas, thus making it easier for autistics to better cope with dealing with IRL social interaction. One cannot have pleasure without the price of pain, nor can one reach heaven without going through hell.

One major detail regarding psychedelics is that, by reducing amygdala activity, could in fact catalyze this therapeutic process of neural rearrangement. It has been hypothesized that psychedelics may induce neurogenesis as well as acting as neuroplasticity-inducing catalysts. Consider this as an example: the exothermic combustion reaction of hydrocarbons into CO2 and H2O is constantly occuring, albeit at an extremely slow and practically unnoticeable rate. However, if one were to spark a match in such a solution, the free energy from such a small spark would catalyze an exponentially higher reaction rate as, once a certain 'activiation energy' is reached, the reaction rate would blow up like the world trade center, thus resulting in a fire/explosion. This same concept can also be applied to the use of psychedelics to degrade this fear response. Such a psychedelic spark may provide the activation energy needed to catalyze a much faster rate of neuronal rearrangement and reduction of the fear-inducing functional connectivity common amongst autistics as, by blowing the doors of perception right off their hinges, psychedelic drugs may provide an explosive means of inducing a drastic reduction of neurobiologically based fear-conditioned antisocial behavior in the autistic brain, thus catalyzing (& possibly inducing) the process of neuropsychosomatic re-conditioning necessary to promote better social & face-to-face empathetic/communication skills which autistics all-too-commonly lack and may otherwise never be able to achieve otherwise.

Again, this is just another one of my all-too-long-winded hypotheses regarding the treatment of ASD; others are also on the table but time is running short and the real world beckons my presence forth to face the beautiful struggles of this new day. If one would be interested in gaining a better grasp concerning the inner workings of the autistic mind & brain, I would highly suggest checking out wrongplanet.net --a bastion of information encompassing all aspects of the autistic spectrum, from the subjective to the objective and just about everything else in-between.

Selah,

-God

"One cannot have genius without a dash of autism." --Hans Asperger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDIQ7Otf1mw

Great link, thanks for sharing

True that! But is it inherent within their biology or neurology? or is it just learned responses?

This fits nicely in with the thread on the scientific paper on reduced fear learning in mice from psilocin.

No, i have not found that there are many aspergers on the nexus, judging from what i have read. A few maybe, but not many.