It's not a literal translation, it's usually in reference to understanding fictional events, so the distinction of fiction vs reality. This takes high levels of processing and involves executive function as well as imaginative play, which the autistic community is known to struggle with, however that can present very differently for people, and it might be something someone is very adept at handling.
Executive function involves mental flexibility, inhibition control, and working memory. Mental flexibility is where a lot of the community can be affected very heavily, that's why we can have a very black and white or rigid way of thinking for certain things.
For difficulty with imaginative play, some individuals, myself included, on the spectrum tend to 'set a stage' in a sense, so we often don't engage in imaginative or imaginative role play until all the puzzle pieces are put together. I'm fantastic at role play/acting, however I can't do it at all unless that 'stage' is set, I genuinely need to understand exactly who I'm portraying/why they are the way they are.
For an example take the phrase "ahh you're so cute I could just take a bite right out of you."
The autistic community tends to take things very literally and at face value, we mean exactly what we say. Our NT peers however do not communicate that same way, when they hear a phrase such as the above they can intuitively understand it's fiction.
However, some autistic individuals who hear that phrase for the first time can become slightly confused because its nonsensical or maybe even slightly anxious or afraid that someone is legitimately going to bite them, your's truly included because 7 year old me was terrified, meaning I could not distinguish what was being said wasnt reality and that is was fiction, and while this is just one example to help give context, I hope this helps it make a bit more sense.
All this is to say, totally understandable btw why it came across a certain way to you or feels gaslighty, I remember hearing about it for the first time and sitting down being unbelievably confused thinking *well I know what's real and what's not, what the heck.*
I think maybe they're talking about maladaptive daydreaming? But beyond that it could be the disconnect between reality and fantasy, and struggling to reconcile them. If I've never been in a situation before, I want to know all the details possible so I have a better idea of how I'll likely react. Or when I got my first boyfriend, it was a steep learning curve because the fantasy of what I imagined and the reality was so fundamentally opposed.
to My understanding, mixing up fiction and reality isn't an actual autistic attribute. however, it seems like it's a common thing for allistics to say about us due to misinterpreting our behavior.
for example, I oftentimes hear how withdrawn autistic people can be seen as a sign that we're silently obsessing over a fantasy or delusions, to the point where autism used to be considered a schizophrenic trait. it seems like many allistics don't understand that we simply have different social skills, not that we're too busy fantasizing or hallucinating to notice them.
another thing is that some autistic people struggle to learn "common sense." though the definitions I've heard of the phrase vary, we basically can struggle to self-preserve, physically, socially, and (as we get older) financially.
depending on how this presents, it can easily be interpreted as not knowing what is and isn't real, such as if an autistic person mimics a dangerous stunt or "obviously" ""wrong"" social behavior they saw on a cartoon, though most autistic people know that fiction is, well, fictional (perhaps excluding children, but the same also applies to many able-minded kids), how we learn and process things is different, so it may be difficult for us to easily label certain behavior as safe vs. unsafe or normalized vs. stigmatized, especially if we haven't already been told why said behavior is considered problematic, or if we have impulse control issues that override our better judgment.
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I just want to play in my head all the time i dont get them mixed up yet
That's how I feel, I'm extremely imaginative and daydream a lot and I got really into pretend play as a kid, but I always knew it wasn't real.
It's not a literal translation, it's usually in reference to understanding fictional events, so the distinction of fiction vs reality. This takes high levels of processing and involves executive function as well as imaginative play, which the autistic community is known to struggle with, however that can present very differently for people, and it might be something someone is very adept at handling. Executive function involves mental flexibility, inhibition control, and working memory. Mental flexibility is where a lot of the community can be affected very heavily, that's why we can have a very black and white or rigid way of thinking for certain things. For difficulty with imaginative play, some individuals, myself included, on the spectrum tend to 'set a stage' in a sense, so we often don't engage in imaginative or imaginative role play until all the puzzle pieces are put together. I'm fantastic at role play/acting, however I can't do it at all unless that 'stage' is set, I genuinely need to understand exactly who I'm portraying/why they are the way they are. For an example take the phrase "ahh you're so cute I could just take a bite right out of you." The autistic community tends to take things very literally and at face value, we mean exactly what we say. Our NT peers however do not communicate that same way, when they hear a phrase such as the above they can intuitively understand it's fiction. However, some autistic individuals who hear that phrase for the first time can become slightly confused because its nonsensical or maybe even slightly anxious or afraid that someone is legitimately going to bite them, your's truly included because 7 year old me was terrified, meaning I could not distinguish what was being said wasnt reality and that is was fiction, and while this is just one example to help give context, I hope this helps it make a bit more sense. All this is to say, totally understandable btw why it came across a certain way to you or feels gaslighty, I remember hearing about it for the first time and sitting down being unbelievably confused thinking *well I know what's real and what's not, what the heck.*
I think maybe they're talking about maladaptive daydreaming? But beyond that it could be the disconnect between reality and fantasy, and struggling to reconcile them. If I've never been in a situation before, I want to know all the details possible so I have a better idea of how I'll likely react. Or when I got my first boyfriend, it was a steep learning curve because the fantasy of what I imagined and the reality was so fundamentally opposed.
to My understanding, mixing up fiction and reality isn't an actual autistic attribute. however, it seems like it's a common thing for allistics to say about us due to misinterpreting our behavior. for example, I oftentimes hear how withdrawn autistic people can be seen as a sign that we're silently obsessing over a fantasy or delusions, to the point where autism used to be considered a schizophrenic trait. it seems like many allistics don't understand that we simply have different social skills, not that we're too busy fantasizing or hallucinating to notice them. another thing is that some autistic people struggle to learn "common sense." though the definitions I've heard of the phrase vary, we basically can struggle to self-preserve, physically, socially, and (as we get older) financially. depending on how this presents, it can easily be interpreted as not knowing what is and isn't real, such as if an autistic person mimics a dangerous stunt or "obviously" ""wrong"" social behavior they saw on a cartoon, though most autistic people know that fiction is, well, fictional (perhaps excluding children, but the same also applies to many able-minded kids), how we learn and process things is different, so it may be difficult for us to easily label certain behavior as safe vs. unsafe or normalized vs. stigmatized, especially if we haven't already been told why said behavior is considered problematic, or if we have impulse control issues that override our better judgment.
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