Acoustic Enjoyment Words:
I found out the name for this phenomenon from my friend K and it is a common feature of Asperger’s.
I remember being in primary school when my teacher asked me if I had a favourite word. She asked us all this question but never told us why. Whether she was looking for children who did and who didn’t have favourite words so she could mark this down as a feature of certain children or whether this was done in order to find out if every child had favourite words I don’t know because we were only encouraged to tell her if so and what the word was in each particular case. I remember telling her at the time that it was “break” which I heard sung in: “Lord of all Hopefulness”. Over the years other ones have popped up but I never questioned why or bothered to find out whether other people had favourite words.
Maybe everyone does but it’s the effect that they produce in “Aspies” when they are said which may be the feature which makes them distinct and special in our case. I know people have nicknames for one-another especially for those in intimate personal relationships and I also know these words when said by others no matter what their relationships to us have a significant effect on us. K, for instance loves the word “pierce” because she has a fascination with ear rings. Luckily I don’t have a favourite word connected with medical things or true crime. I think there would be something very amiss if I loved hearing the words “murder”, “gun” or knife but there are others such as “tumble”. It’s the sound of it that is so inexplicable when it comes to why it’s so nice and appealing. It may go back to the time when I was stacking little bricks for a two-year-old boy in Liverpool and then said to him: “Shall we make them tumble to the floor”? As I said the word I knocked them all down again which made him laugh and since he had a thick Liverpudlian accent it sounded all the more delightful to hear him laugh. It was Professor Tony Attwood, the world-renowned expert on Asperger’s who told my friend K about these acoustic enjoyment words.
Scared of harmless sounds
Linked to this because it is sound, is the equally strange phenomenon of being absolutely scared and feeling real fear at perfectly harmless sounds. For instance, if someone had the song: “Transfusion”, by a guy whose stage name I’m not sure how to spell, on a play list and it popped up and I was there and didn’t know it was coming, I’d be absolutely frozen with fear. K had the same response to the middle eight I suppose, section of a Rick Astley song. I think it was: “Never Gonna Give you Up”. She heard: “Transfusion” and I heard the feared section of the Rick Astley song and both of us were fine unless we heard our own awful triggering song. I can only think that there is some cross wiring in the Amygdala, causing the wrong emotional response to the wrong stimulus. Anyway it’s awful and I have tried putting: “Transfusion” on one of my playlists to try to see if I can override this response but so far, to no avail.
Others have been scared when they have heard old single records which fell on top of each other when stacked in an old-fashioned record player with load arm and pick up arm. Sometimes the vinyl would warp and the 45’s would slip and make a horrible sound. One person I know is scared of John Lennon’s: “Revolution no. 9” which he must have written or heard in his drug-induced state in a messed-up head. That does nothing for me except fascinate me as it’s so off-the-wall. I just think: “Silly ass! You had all that ability and you messed it all up for the sake of fixes and a crackpot vulgar artist, if you can call her that”. He may have been right in his assumption that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus but he was less articulate than a gibbering wreck once the drugs got hold of him but it did mean he produced nonsensical drivel which induced this fear response in at least one blind person I know. Whether this then is a feature of blindness when it is congenital or near to birth or the person I speak of is an undiagnosed “Aspie” I don’t know. According to Doctor Attwood, there are similar characteristics seen in blind children and I assume adults who don’t recall seeing and those of “Aspies” so there must, I assume be an overlap.
Our brains, the way they are wired, what makes us what and who we are is a source of endless fascination to me. Now that you have read this, go and see whether “Transfusion” or: “Over the Hills and Far Away”, by Traffic which is another one which causes me to look like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a car (I assume that’s what you look like when fearful) and “Never Gonna Give you Up” and see if you are startled or made fearful or whether you just see them as weird songs. I hope to learn more about these acoustic enjoyment words and fear provoking songs and sounds if I get to speak to Doctor Attwood when I am out in Australia for my seventieth in June. How I used to think that was old when I heard the Paul Simon song: “Bookends”. It doesn’t seem to be terribly strange to be seventy now although perhaps a bit concerning as time is galloping on. Oh goodness! Not yet another thing to worry about!