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  • Folding Worlds: Monotropism & Neuroqueering Attention

    Folding Worlds: Monotropism & Neuroqueering Attention

    by Helen Edgar — More Realms

    “The whole world is only a virtuality that currently exists only in the folds of the soul which convey it, the soul implementing inner pleats through which it endows itself with representation of the enclosed world.” — Gilles Deleuze, The Fold (1993, P. 24).

    Thoughts…..

    I am exploring how Deleuze’s ideas in The Fold entwines with the theory of monotropism and the lived textures of Autistic perception and attention through a neuroqueer lens.

    What if monotropic attention and perception is folded, what happens when we unfold?

    What if Autistic time moves in spirals, not lines?

    Folding Worlds

     “The world is an infinite series of curvatures” 

    Sometimes, when I’m deeply absorbed, following the rhythm and flow of an idea, a line of flight, or feeling sound ripple through air the world seems to bend inward. Time loosens, boundaries blur and my mind folds into the moment until it feels like my thought, body, and world are all moving together as one continuous curve.

    Deleuze, in The Fold, imagined reality itself as endlessly pleated, an intricate fabric of curves and contours where inside and outside are never truly separate, each perception and experience establishes ‘folds in the soul’. (p. 112) As Autistic people our sensory systems are more porous, each life, each experience, each moment, is a fold within this larger flow of existence, all entangling together with the environment around us.

    As an Autistic person, you may feel like I do, that you live in the liminal spaces, the in-between. The world doesn’t divide neatly into subjects and objects but moves almost as if it is a single and multiple simultaneously, perhaps holographic , a folded plane of becoming.

    Monotropism (Murray et al., 2005) is the theory that explains how Autistic and ADHD experience is shaped by deep, focused attention. Instead of our attention spreading thinly across many things, our attention folds inward, gathering tightly around may be just one or a few single streams or tunnels of interest or sensation at any given time. It’s not a limitation, it’s a different rhythm, it is how we experience flow and can be a really energising and regulating experience when we are looped into something positive that helps us. Our minds tend to curve toward what holds meaning, creating a rich, textured world from within that fold where our attention dwells.

    Where neurotypical attention might skim across multiple channels of attention, monotropic attention lingers and has capacity to stay focused for long periods, especially when in the right supportive environments. Monotropic attention inhabits, it listens deeply and it is in these moments of flow, the world is not distant as some may think, rather the world is inside us, rich and intense. It is like it is folded through our senses, our language, our movement to such intensity we become-with our surroundings.

    Unfolding

    “A fold is always folded within a fold, like a cavern in a cavern”. (P.6)

    Folds can be fragile, like origami. When too many demands pull at once, such as sensory input or social expectations, it is like the fold can’t stretch without straining and something has to give before it breaks. Overload, fragmentation, and burnout emerge when the world presses too hard against our natural curvature and forces the fold to carry more than it has capacity for. We may experience more meltdowns or shutdowns and over a longer period could enter a full burnout. Burnout, in this sense, isn’t failure of our body minds; it’s like a wound in the fold. It happens when we are forced to unfold too quickly, without time or gentleness and without the right support.


    Liminal Folds

    The space between inside and outside, that delicate threshold in the liminal zone, is where I live and perhaps many other Autistic people live too. It’s the edge of sensory, emotional and social attunement, where the world can feel both too near and too far at the same time. Safety, trust, and co-regulation allow the fold to breathe, it gives space to expand and recover. To unfold safely, enables us to unmask ‘to increase and grow’.

    When others meet us at our own tempo and in our own authentic ways, our fold can open slowly, naturally, toward a node of connection with others. It strengthens the vulnerable liminal spaces in-between, it can be empowering and gives us energy to follow that curve of a fold and see where it takes us, to resist neuronormative linear ways of being.

    Neuroqueer Curvatures

    To neuroqueer is the act of living otherwise, resisting the norms that demand sameness, linearity, and temporality. It invites us to honour different ways of moving through the world: curved, recursive, and rhizomatic.

    Through this lens, embracing your Autistic/ADHD monotropicness can become a neuroqueer ecology. It is a way of being that disrupts the assumption that we must flow in straight lines and contort ourselves and fold and contort ourselves to fit into heirarchies and systems. To embrace the liminal and the Autistic fold is an act of quiet defiance, a refusal to flatten complexity or to perform productivity and neuronormative expectations at the expense of our own well-being.

    Our monotropic deep focus isn’t a deficit, it’s an orientation, it is a different way of being and living. To embrace flow and see where the fold takes us. It reveals a world that thrives on depth and immersion rather than breadth. To move with with the flow of our monotropic attention, along the fold is to inhabit curved time, the slow, spiral rhythm of a mind that folds toward what matters most to us.

    Folding Time

    For many of us, life doesn’t move in a straight sequence. It curves back, loops, and gathers around moments of attention. This is folded time, neuroqueer temporality or what others have called mad time, time as felt texture rather than moving like clockwork.

    When I am in deep flow, the past and future dissolve into the intensity of an ever expansive ‘now-ness’, when the fold releases, I spill gently back into a wider space, I always need time to recalibrate, to find the edges again and to find something to loop and back hook into before I can move on.

    To live through folded time is to understand that attention has its own seasons. Some days are for spiralling inward, composting thoughts and gathering energy and others may be for stretching outward, connecting, creating and reaching new nodes.

    Folding with the World

    “Perception establishes the folds in the soul” (P. 112)

    In the folds of Autistic attention and perception lie whole worlds of knowing and becoming. Through monotropism and neuroqueer theory, we can reimagine these folds not as constraints, but as living spaces of creativity, connection, and a different temporality.

    Within these curvatures, difference becomes depth, a way of sensing the world through texture, rhythm, and relation rather than conformity. Our attention moves like tidewater, folding and flowing inward to nourish the self and unfolding and rippling outward to meet the world again.

    When we are allowed to move at our own pace, these folds open into more realms of possibility, spaces where curiosity can root, where safety and belonging can take form.

    To live within the Autistic fold is to recognise that we are not separate from the world, but continuous with it, each of us a unique curvature in the greater flow of being. By embracing our folds and natural flow of monotropic attention, we can honour the quiet sensory moments, our rhizomatic ways of being, and the beautifully entangled ways we come to know, feel, and create within our selves and connect with others.

    Reflections

    How does your attention fold?

    What might unfold if your natural rhythms were met, not resisted?


    References


    Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. U of Minnesota Press. (quotes from Continuum edition, The Athone Press, 2006).

    Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. Autonomous Press

  • Neuroqueer Revolutions: Difference, Becoming, and the Politics of Refusal

    Neuroqueer Revolutions: Difference, Becoming, and the Politics of Refusal

    This piece brings together four strands of thought: I have been hugely inspired by David Gray-Hammond’s recent writings about the metaphysics of neurodivergence, Robert Chapman’s historical and mad studies framing, Nick Walker’s neuroqueer theory as transformative praxis, and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of difference. Each offers a potential lens for us to reconsider what it actually means to be neurodivergent, how our identity is shaped and recognised, and how it might be reimagined beyond fixed categories and labels.

    David Gray-Hammond’s Beyond Definition: A Metaphysical Inquiry into Neurodivergence (2025) asks what makes someone neurodivergent in the first place. He identifies three intersecting dimensions:

    1. Neurological difference from the statistical norm: in structure, function, or developmental pattern.

    2. Lived cognitive difference: a phenomenological divergence in perception, attention, or reasoning.

    3. Social positioning as “different”: the recognition of these differences by ourselves or others, often in ways that create barriers or stigma.


    This proposes that neurodivergence is neither purely biological nor purely social, but emerges in the interplay of embodiment and environment. Tracing through history, Robert Chapman’s Mad Pride in Revolutionary England: The Ranters as Mad Activism (2025) deepens this understanding by focusing on the Ranters in the 1640’s to show how categories of difference, from “mad” to recent terms such as “neurodivergent”, are shaped by power, capitalism, and state control. Labelling is never neutral; it has been used to regulate, exclude, and also to organise resistance throughout history and continues to do so, causing so much harm to marginalised people and anyone who is different.

    Where Chapman maps the long shadows of how difference has been policed, Walker turns us towards neuroqueering acts that stretch those boundaries and enables cognitive, psycholgical and somatic liberty for everyone. Nick Walker’s Neuroqueer Heresies (2021), frames the act of neuroqueering as both a deliberate refusal of neuronormative conditioning and an emergent process that unfolds in everyday life, which has the potential to create radical systemic change to benefit the whole of society. 

    This is in parallel to a Deleuzian perspective, which sees identity as never being static but built from many connections, relationships, and processes. Neurodivergence is not a fixed thing, but a living mix of our fluid bodyminds entangled with our environment, constantly shaped by the social, political, and ecological worlds we move through and the relationships we have.

    The Metaphysics of Neurodivergence



    Neurodivergence is often treated as a fact, decided by a medical diagnosis or by self-identification. Neurological variation without lived difference might go unnoticed; lived difference without social recognition might remain unlabelled or misattributed. It is the interaction with norms, expectations, and power structures that creates and solidifies the socially constructed category of neurodivergence, even for those of us who are innately different from birth.

    Gray-Hammond suggests the idea of neurodivergence rests on three intertwined dimensions. None alone fully defines it, but together, they create its lived reality, of these, being positioned as “different” or “weird” often shapes daily life most directly and affects our wellbeing and how well we can function and thrive. This raises their deeper question: Is neurodivergence defined by the way it is lived and experienced, or by an underlying difference that exists whether or not it is recognised?

    From a Deleuzian perspective, differences are not static traits but elements of a shifting assemblage. Neurodivergence is not a fixed essence but an ongoing process of becoming, shaped by sensory and cognitive patterns, environments, and cultural narratives, all filtered through intersectional privilege and oppression. Difference is generative, producing new perceptions, movements of thought, and ways of living, even if it is temporarily somewhat stabilised or held through labels such as being Autistic or ADHD.

    Gray-Hammond distinguishes between essential properties, those without which neurodivergence would not be what it means today and accidental properties, which can change without altering the underlying being. Essential properties might include monotropic attentional flow, sensory processing patterns, physical disabilities, or other health differences. Accidental properties might include diagnostic labels, learned coping strategies, or outward behaviours. This matters because it undermines claims that compliance-based behavioural interventions “cure” neurodivergence, it suggests that outward behaviour can be suppressed or reshaped, but our essential cognitive and sensory architecture often remains split, fractured by trauma and masking, leading to burnout and mental health crises.

    In Empire of Normality (2023), Chapman reminds us that the notion of “normal” is not an objective truth but a social construct, shaped by cultural and historical contexts. Over time what is seen as  “normal” and what is deemed as  “pathological” have shifted, not because humans have changed dramatically, but because society’s priorities and systems have. These boundaries have often been drawn to serve industry, capitalism, and the institutions that sustain them, rewarding some ways of thinking and being while excluding or penalising others. A clear example is the behaviourist approach entrenched in the US & UK school systems, where reward charts and social stories enforce neuronormative behaviours, harming Autistic children and pushing them to deny their needs expecting them to fit in at all costs.

    In this light, Gray-Hammond’s question, ‘who counts as neurodivergent, and under what conditions?’ is not only personal or diagnostic, but it is political. It invites us to question the shifting line between “different” and “acceptable,” “normal” and “abnormal,” and to consider whether this line can be moved, reshaped, challenged, or even erased.

    Walker’s neuroqueer theory builds on this idea, framing neurodivergence not only as a site of vulnerability for stigma and oppression, but as a space of creative potential. Neuroqueering resists the idea that support or education should aim to make neurodivergent people “normal”. Instead, it treats difference as a strength, a way to stretch the boundaries of what is possible, to reimagine living, thinking, and relating. It holds space for diverging even further from the norm, for exploring new ways of being and learning, and for the radical possibility that anyone can become neurodivergent through the act of neuroqueering and by choosing to move away from normativity.

    When we see neurodivergence as dynamic, shaped by relationships, environments, and histories rather than as a fixed list of traits, we can step beyond the rigid binary of “neurotypical” vs “neurodivergent.” This opens neuroqueering possibilities for a more fluid and liberating society, one that values diversity not as a box to tick but as a living, evolving force. It is an invitation to embrace difference, explore transformative ways of becoming, and continually reinvent ourselves, our work and the worlds we share. However, even as we reimagine neurodivergence in more fluid and relational ways, the language we use and the labels we inherit carry the weight of the histories that have shaped how difference is seen and treated.

    Hidden History of Neurodivergent Labels

    The words and language we use to describe people have never been neutral. They are shaped by politics, history, and power. Robert Chapman’s historical account of Mad Pride shows how labels for cognitive difference often come from systems built to manage and control people. In the 1640s, for example, radical groups like the Ranters challenged the strict religious and social rules of their time. They refused to conform, rejected rules imposed from above, and gathered in ways that disrupted the status quo. They didn’t use today’s words as being neurodivergent but they clearly didn’t fit into the expected norms of the time. Their defiance and solidarity can be seen as early acts of Mad Activism resisting the idea that there is only one “right” way to think, feel, or live.

    Neurodivergent people have often been denied the right to name and define our own realities. For most of history, “official” knowledge about us has come from deficit-based medical models, shaped by institutions and used to serve those in power.

    As I shared in my blog ‘Autistic Mental Health: Beyond the Pathology Paradigm‘ (Aug, 2025), research suggests that as many as 8 in 10 Autistic people have a mental health condition. Sadly, Autistic people have been found to have up to an eightfold increased risk of death by suicide compared to non-Autistic people (Brown et al., 2024). For Autistic children, the risk of thinking about or attempting suicide is 28 times higher than for their non-Autistic peers. These are not just numbers, they are lives cut short by systems that fail to meet our needs.

    The latest Assuring Transformation NHS Digital data (April 2025) paints an equally troubling picture:

    • 2,025 Autistic people and people with a learning disability are in mental health hospitals in England. Of these, 1,455 (72%) are Autistic.
    • 240 under-18s are in inpatient units. Of these, 230 (96%) are Autistic.
    • The number of Autistic people without a learning disability detained in mental health hospitals has increased by 141% since 2015.
    • In 2015, Autistic people made up 38% of the total in hospital. Now it is 72%(National Autistic Society, 2025).

    These statistics are not personal failings, they are systemic failures of education, healthcare, mental health services, and broader society to support Autistic people and those of us who are different in ways that affirm our needs, identities, and ways of being. This is epistemic injustice, as the people most affected are excluded from the conversation, and the words we need to describe our lives are often missing, invalidated or treated as problems. A clear example of this is neurodivergent experiences of burnout.

    When a community lacks language for its own experience or our experiences aren’t believed, it is easier to cause harm. It’s not just about being misunderstood; it’s about blocking self-understanding, choice, and autonomy. Every label we inherit, from being “Autistic” or “weird,” “defiant’ or “disordered”, carries a built-in set of assumptions about how we should be seen and treated. Labelling can trap us in someone else’s story…..or it can be reclaimed and re-storyed to tell our own narratives.

    The power to name and label, and use certain language shapes who is recognised as being fully human and “right” who is pushed to the margins. The meaning of labels is always shifting; institutions try to lock differences into fixed categories, diagnoses, risk labels, and lists of “deficits.” In response some communities are pushing back, reclaiming words like “Crip”, “Autistic” or “Mad” and filling them with their own values, histories, and pride. But changing words alone is not enough, real change needs systemic transformation, and neuroqueer theory offers ways to put that into practice.

    Refusing Normal: The Practice of Neuroqueering

    Neuroqueering can happen on many levels and in many different ways; from the small, everyday choices we make in how we use our bodyminds to the larger work of changing systems. On a personal level, it can mean moving, speaking, or sensing in ways that feel natural to us, even if they go against social expectations. On a collective level, it involves challenging and dismantling the systems that enforce able-bodiedness, demand constant productivity, and dictate narrow, “acceptable” ways of socialising and communicating.

    However, living neuroqueerly by stimming openly, rejecting therapies aimed at making us “normal,” choosing to play, learn, work, or rest in our own ways can still lead to exclusion, discrimination. It is a risk without being in a safe environment with people who understand and accept your authentic self and ways of becoming.

    Neuroqueer theory recognises that neurodivergence doesn’t stand apart from other forms of oppression. The same bodymind that pushes back against neuronormativity is also navigating intersectionality, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, class inequality, and the impacts of colonialism. True freedom for neurodivergent people means breaking down ableism and these other systems together. Deleuze, like Walker and Gray-Hammond, sees this refusal to “fit in” not only as resistance but as something full of creative potential. Embracing difference isn’t just about stepping away from the norm; it’s where new ways of living, relating, and imagining can begin and transformations can emerge.

    Neurodivergence isn’t something that lives inside an individual’s brain; it takes shape in our bodyminds, who we are is inseparable from the rhizomatic networks of meaning and care, or their absence, that surround us and our environments. Liberation needs to be a collective flow: changing life for one means changing it for all of us. It needs to be co-created through the ways we think, feel, and act, shaped by how others respond to us, and vice versa.

    Neuroqueer praxis is both personal and social, it is the daily choice to resist being pulled into the norm, while building community solidarity to challenge the systems that enforce neuronormativity. It’s about creating and sharing new ways of knowing, and about changing the very conditions that limit who we can be, moving beyond labels and expectations, so we can live as our authentic selves and build supportive, meaningful communities.

    A neuroqueer politics of difference does not seek permission or validation from systems that marginalise. It works to build worlds where many ways of being are not only accepted but recognised as essential to our shared survival and joy. To live fully as ourselves is not just inclusion, it is the ongoing work of reworlding.

    References

    Chapman, R. (2023). Empire of Normality, Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Pluto Press.

    Chapman, R. (2025). Mad Pride in Revolutionary England: The Ranters as Mad Activism. [Manuscript in preparation].

    Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1968)

    Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? (H. Tomlinson & G. Burchell, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1991)

    Gray-Hammond, D. (2024, March 21). The metaphysics of neurodivergence. Emergent Divergence.
    https://emergentdivergence.com/2024/03/21/the-metaphysics-of-neurodivergence/


    Walker, N. (2019). Transformative Somatic Practices And Autistic Potentials: An Autoethnographic Exploration. (Doctoral dissertation). California Institute of Integral Studies.

    Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. Autonomous Press.

  • Monotropism, Spiral Time, and the Rhizome of Memories

    Monotropism, Spiral Time, and the Rhizome of Memories

    *“Memories scatter like shards of seaglass along a fractured spiral, the centre always slipping just beyond my grasp. Hazy images and sensations drift in and out of the fog, sometimes offering sharp glimpses, but rarely staying long enough for me to hold. Most pass by shrouded in a soft mist, like half-formed echoes trapped within a labyrinth. Sounds, images, smells, and feelings blur and merge, tangling into an ever-expanding rhizome, sprawling in all directions, folding in on themselves. Memories come more as felt impressions than as concrete events. Remembering isn’t straightforward for me; it’s less recall and more a process of re-navigation. I have to trace uncertain paths, try and find a thread to hook into to regain my flow, often sensing that what I’m reaching for is just out of reach if trying to recall a specific event, but my sensory memories are more clear and vivid as they are felt sensations – which is hard to explain to people who may not experience their memories in this way. ”

    I am currently on a Neuroqueering Your Creative Practice course led by KR Moorhead, Marta Rose and Meg Max. This week we were exploring time and memories, which felt very apt given my recent monotropic outpourings about time. In this week’s session I wrote the above piece about how I experience memories.

    Memory may not be linear for neurodivergent people. It may feel like a spiral of felt sensations. Being monotropic shapes how I re-sense moments, navigating echoes and threads of sensory experiences rather than always recalling events. I felt validated that some other people seemed to relate and share similar experiences of their time not being linear and also being quite hazy recalling specific events but having really vivid recollections of more sensory experiences.

    Monotropism and Memories

    Monotropism is a theory of Autism (Murray et al 20025) that describes a way of focusing attention that tends toward deep but fewer channels. For those of us who experience the world monotropically, attention locks in and tunnels can form like portals. These attention tunnels can lead to intense engagement and immersive sensory experiences, but they may also shape how we encode, retrieve, and relate to our memories.

    Memory for me is not a fixed archive of past events filed neatly on shelves. It is alive, constructed in the present, woven from threads of past focus, emotion, embodiment, and attention. For monotropic people, those threads may be less linear and deeply context-bound in our sensory experiences. We may not remember when something happened in conventional, sequential neuronormative time but we may vividly feel how we experienced something, we may recall the sensory landscape, the tone, the rhythm of presence or absence.

    Spiral Time and Felt Time

    I’ve written previously about monotropic experiences of time as being like ever expanding rhizomatic spirals like rather than a linear A-B or 9am to 10pm of time as lived by the clock and conventional calendar. I think this also shapes how memory functions, rather than stretching out along a clear chronological line, time for me feels like it folds back in on itself and experiences and memories happen and are stored within the folds (a concept from Deleuze that I have written about at length). A moment from years ago might feel right now, while a conversation from yesterday may feel distant or unretrievable unless there is something to hook me in and brings it back into focus so I can retrieve the thread and follow the flow.

    In monotropic spiral time, memories don’t behave like neurotypical people may expect or how we may have been brought up to understand how memory works. My memories don’t line up neatly, they tangle, twist, merge and drift like mist through a forest. Sometimes I feel I’m not remembering in the traditional sense at all, but kind of re-sensing, like I am trying to feel my way through a fog of echoes and impressions, a texture, a tone of voice, the way the light fell. It makes my memories of concrete events feel hazy and fuzzy but my experiences feel vivid and it can be quite confusing and frustrating at times.

    Labyrinths and the Rhizomes

    For monotropic people our minds and memories may feel less like walking through an album of neatly arranged photos and more like navigating a vast, living labyrinth. I can’t easily “go back” and retrieve a memory, it feels like I have to wander, I have to reach out and try and sense where the thread of recall might catch and hook onto something, what I often find is not a single event but a tangle, a rhizome of multisensory experiences that I have to unravel.

    This rhizomatic quality of navigating time means my memories don’t live in isolation, they’re not strictly filed under “birthday, age 9” or “Monday morning, March 3rd.” Instead, they seem to connect through shared emotions and sensory patterns. One feeling or sensory experience might loop me back to three seemingly unrelated moments, a smell might pull on threads across decades and I don’t always know why. This can be disorienting in a world that expects time and memory to be neat and logical but it’s also a kind of richness, a depth of connection that linear systems seem to often miss. It can make conversations with friends and family hard as it seems like I am not interested enough in people to have created a core memory like in the Disney film Inside Out, my memory of real life events feels like a sieve where things happen then disapear but they are all there, it is just perhaps that they are stored differently.

    It brings me back to my first blog I wrote on More Realms (2023), Middle Entrance. In 1943, T.S. Eliot’s collection of four poems were collated to form Four Quartets. The final poem in this series Little Gidding (1942), continues Eliot’s exploration of time and our connections with each other through generations and current society.

    “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

    My memories, relationships and ways of being are like constantly evolving spirals that spin in and out in multidimensional ways. Different connections and experiences add to and contribute to a wider, deeper fluid rhizomatic network of potential that is always in a constant state of flux. This idea of an evolving spiral, hooking onto a node of the rhizome and returning to a new beginning in the middle, liminal spaces, within the folds is how I experience memory. I need time to process, time to rlect and for memories to and beautifully reflected in Eliot’s poem Little Gidding:

    “We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.
    Through the unknown, remembered gate
    When the last of earth left to discover
    Is that which was the beginning;
    At the source of the longest river
    The voice of the hidden waterfall
    And the children in the apple-tree
    Not known, because not looked for
    But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
    Between two waves of the sea”    .

    — T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.”

    Navigating Memories

    Memory for me feels less like recall, I am not able to press a button and retrieve a file (unless it is related to my own special interest about Autism research or teaching in which case my filing cabinet seems to ping open!). It is more like a re-navigation, I have to find the right entry point and node of the rhizome, I need to feel for the thread, follow it gently and try not to tug too hard in case it disappears back into the fog. I often know I know something, but I can’t get to it directly. I need the right conditions or sensory cue to draw it out and that takes time and and can make me appear distant or uninterested when the opposite is true.

    This is why questions like “What did you do last weekend?” can feel like demands rather than simple curiosity. It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention, it’s that the question doesn’t align with how my memory map works or how I perceive time. If you ask me what the light looked through my window like as I sat reading in bed, or how the air felt when we stepped outside I might have a more instant response but I probably won’t be able to recall the chronological sequence or events and relate things in an easy to understand order, it is like that gets lost in the spiral. It can be frustrating at times just to have fleeting impressions of memories that I know mean a lot to me but I can’t easily retrieve.

    Understanding and Support

    Understanding memory through a monotropic lens may helps us honour our different ways of knowing, recalling, and connecting with events and people. For those supporting Autistic individuals, whether as educators, therapists, or family members this means shifting assumptions and instead of assuming memory is absent or deficient it may be better to consider asking things like:

    • How do memories show up for you?
    • What helps you reconnect with something you felt or experienced?
    • Is there a sensory or emotional thread that brings it back?

    This may also be empowering for those of us who live and experience life monotropically. It validates the experience of having a different bodymind, of perhaps remembering more through attention tunnels of sensation rather than facts or dates. It recognises that memory is not a failure when it doesn’t fit neurotypical expectations it’s perhaps just a different kind of map that we have to navigate.

    “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

  • Neuroqueering Time: Bergson, Deleuze, and Monotropism (an exploration)

    Neuroqueering Time: Bergson, Deleuze, and Monotropism (an exploration)

    By Helen Edgar – Autistic Realms

    In my previous blogs, Monotropic Time and Neuroqueering Temporalities (2025) and Quantum Neuro-Holographic Thoughts from a Liminal Space (2024), I explored how Autistic and other neurodivergent experiences often unfold outside of neuronormative frameworks. I am AuDHD and deeply resonate with the theory of monotropism. Through the lens of monotropism, I experience time as a multidimensional holographic spiral, immersive, shaped by deeply focused attention tunnels and being engaged in fluctuating states of flow. I am considering if our sense of time perception as monotropic people is different as we find ourselves on the edges or in the in-between liminal spaces of society, trying to fit into neuronormative time frames, which go against our innate, authentic ways of perceiving time.

    I am on the edge of a new monotropic interest (time perception) and want to loop back to some of the thoughts I have been exploring over the past 2 years about the neuroqueering potential of Deleuzean philosophy and bring in some of the main concepts from the philosophy of Henri Bergson who I am just beginning to explore. Both thinkers profoundly reimagined what time is. Rather than seeing time as an objective, linear sequence of moments, like many neurotypical people may perceive time using conventional clock-time and calendar time, both Bergson and Deleuze highlight that time is not linear; it is experiential, fluid, and heterogeneous in nature. Both of their concepts of time seem to fit into how many neurodivergent people experience time and my own experience of time.

    I can only write about my own experience of time as an AuDHD, monotropic person. My time is not linear; it stretches, loops, pulses, collapses, and dilates in tune with my fluctuating energy, capacity and attentional resources, depending on my environment and access to flow states. My time is measured in sensory experiences, moments and patterns rather than calendar events. I find it really hard to recall specific memories and events unless I have a photo to ground something. I have only recently begun to realise that the theory of monotropism may also help to explain how my recall and memories may be different from those of other people who are not Autistic/ ADHD due to a more fluid sense of time. I find memories really hard to pinpoint as my memories are often not based on time but on sensory experiences and patterns of thoughts, events and situations. It can make joining in conversations hard with others who don’t experience this, and I am only just beginning to understand why that may be, for me at least!

    “Crip time is time travel. Disability and illness have the power to extract us from linear, progressive time with its normative life stages and cast us into a wormhole of backward and forward acceleration, jerky stops and starts, tedious intervals and abrupt endings. Some of us contend with the impairments of old age while still young; some of us are treated like children no matter how old we get.”
    ― Alice Wong, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century

    Post-Human Theory and Being Part of the Environment



    I resonate with Ombre Tarragnat’s post-human theory, where they discuss Subverting the autistic bubble metaphor (I): the Umwelt Theory (2025). Autistic people are not in a bubble where we can’t be reached and can’t reach out. Jakob von Uexküll’s (2010) concept, the Autistic Umwelt, has traditionally been described as Autistic people being bounded, bubble-like, and even sealed off from the world; unapproachable or unable to be a part of the ‘real’ functioning world where neuronormativity rules. This view is painfully inaccurate and really harmful.

    I like and need my time alone, in my cave space, but what may seem like an Umwelt for me is more like a porous, shimmering neuro-holographic bubble, shaped not only by perception but by constant affective, sensory, and cognitive entanglement with my environment. I am not an ‘other’ in my own bubble, separate from real life. I feel I am deeply entangled and part of the environment, not separate from it, but living in it. I am in a constant process of folding and unfolding from the liminal in between spaces of my bodymind, trying to navigate the reality of society’s expectations for how I should be and my day-to-day life as a mum, trying to juggle family needs, work needs, and manage my own Autistic ways of being.

    As Autistic/ADHD people, we may be, as Tarragnat suggests, practising “worldmaking where the boundaries between the subject and the world dissolve”. In many ways, we have to create our own spaces and live in our own timeframes to survive (and hopefully thrive)! I think it was James Baldwin who said, ‘The place we need does not exist, we must create it’. Tarragnat, in their blog,  From the Autistic Umwelt to Autistic Worldings, drew my attention to the work of Stacy Alaimo (2016), who, in line with post-human feminists, suggests that Autistic people are not   ‘in the world…. but we are of the world’. We need safe spaces to be our authentic selves and be of the world and accepted.

    My relationship with my environment is fluid, porous, and deeply relational. This profoundly shapes how I live, perceive, and manage my time. I connect strongly with the theory of monotropism, yet I also see value in layering a post-human and neuroqueer lens to help frame my temporal experience.

    As an Autistic person, subverting neuronormative time often feels essential for my survival, even more so now after repeated cycles of burnout. I need to find ways to help prevent another burnout cycle or at least lessen the impact, if I can. I feel I need more space to honour my own monotropic rhythms and energies, more space to go with my flow, rather than against it, as described in my recent blog about my Map of Monotropic Experiences, Stuck States vs Flow States.

    I believe this kind of release from the grip of neuronormative and capitalist time isn’t just for neurodivergent people; it could benefit everyone. By neuroqueering ourselves and time, anyone and everyone can break free from the neuronormative time structures that bind us all to capitalism and restrict our lives in so many ways. Instead, we may be able to live more attuned to our own temporalities and more at one with our environment and those around us.



    Bergson’s Durée and Monotropic Time

    Dinah Murray, Wenn Lawson, and Mike Lesser developed the theory of monotropism in the late 1990s. It is typically described as a neuro-affirming theory of Autism, but I think it is also a temporal mode. I am considering whether being monotropic is not just about using attentional resources differently but could also about experiencing time differently due to how we use our attentional resources, and this impacts us.

    If you’re monotropic you may notice that:

    • Time is immersive and fluid.
    • How you use your attentional resources may feel like being in a tunnel, and the world outside of that tunnel may feel like it is melting away or completely disappearing.
    • Temporal markers (like deadlines, calendars or clocks) may lose meaning or become really stressful and cause intense dysregulation.
    • Transitions may feel disruptive because they pull us out of durational temporal coherence and flow.

    I think this may be why neurotypical expectations around punctuality, deadlines or “moving on” often feel unnatural and sometimes even painful for monotropic bodyminds. I am suggesting these aren’t signs of being too rigid or an innate dysfunction; instead, they may reveal a mismatch between temporal systems, different ways of perceiving time.

    Monotropic people may innately value and resonate more deeply with continuity and internal flow. Neuronormative time, which the majority of the population live by, values and prioritises a more fragmented, externally governed time (that of the clock) that fits into workplace demands much more easily. This conflict of time perception can cause a lot of pain and is a constant tug-of-war and hard balancing act to maintain.

    It dawned on me whilst listening to Absurd Being today that this mismatch of experiencing the world is not just a communication gap and difference, as described in the Double Empathy Problem (Milton 2012) it’s also a Double Temporality Problem. Perhaps the world and the majority of people run on neuronormative time (temps), but monotropic people live and experience life more in felt time (durée) – in fluctuating flow states, a different internal rhythm that is unique to each person.

    The philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) distinguished between two kinds of time:

    • Temps: spatialized, quantitative, clock-measured time.
    • Durée: lived, qualitative, and immersive duration. This is the rhythm of consciousness itself and FELT experiences.

    Temps divides time into identical units, i.e., seconds, minutes, and hours. Durée is felt time. It is how we experience time from the inside, and for Autistic/ADHD people, that may be more sensory and dependent upon the environment and how safe we feel. Bergson saw durée not as a subjective illusion but as the real nature of time, with clock-time being the abstraction.

    Clock-time has been constructed by society. It is what Freeman (2010) in their book Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories, called chrononormative time. Chronomormative time is an understanding of time set up by society for the purpose of production. It makes an ideal framework for capitalist society to thrive, but potentially goes against the natural rhythm of many neurodivergent people and causes harm and stress, and can lead to burnout, as I described in my last blog, Monotropic Time.

    For many Autistic people, durée may actually feel more like our authentic way of being than temps. This duality of time may help explain some of the difficulties we experience (feeling of always rushing, being overly early or ending up late to events, stressed with deadlines, juggling diaries and executive functioning tasks – ending up either late or early to events!). Autistic/ ADHD people’s difficulties with time may be due to our internal sense of time not being innately aligned with external clocks and calendar time. In many ways, neuronormative time goes against the natural flow of monotropic time perception. Monotropism is defined by having an intense focus on a limited number of interests. I think this generates a different temporal experience, one that often resists fragmentation as it breaks up flow.

    Fragmenting time into minutes, hours, and days is needed to physically function in the world today, but it can also cause many problems for monotropic people and needs to be carefully managed. It takes huge amounts of energy to navigate my way through every day. I have to set many alarms, I have reminders up everywhere, and task manager apps to keep myself on task and to ensure my work and family life functions, but this also has its downsides. It can be highly dysregulating to have my monotropic flow and time upset by alarms, unexpected events and interruptions, as all I want to do is live in my monotropic time and deep dive and remain in a flow state (often by myself or with intermittent parallel play/body doubling way of working and existing)! It is when I am experiencing monotropic time and completely engaged and absorbed that several hours can pass by unnoticed and feel like minutes. Alternatively, when in states of overwhelm, every minute can feel stretched and unbearable, and it feels like it is lasting hours.

    Rather than living by the ticking of a clock, I feel I do better and feel better when I am living my life in monotropic time, it supports my natural way of being, but real life demands – family, work, household chores make that hard at times, really hard! Monotropic time is deep and rhizomatic; it doesn’t flow easily across a calendar of events, it is almost as if it is multidimensional or neuro-holographic. A monotropic way of being is not measurable by using a 24-hour clock or regular calendar and is unique to each individual. It is shaped by emotional salience, sensory flow, and what I could describe as interest gravity (the weight and pull of attentional resources towards certain things that draw us into flow states), not by ticking hands or digital countdowns.

    Flow States: Restorative Time for Monotropic BodyMinds

    Flow is the psychological state of full immersion in a task or activity. This concept is not limited to neurodivergent people; everyone benefits from flow. I think flow is deeply aligned with both durée and monotropism. Coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990), flow involves things like:

    • Intense focus,
    • A distorted sense of time,
    • A merging of self and action,
    • And deep emotional reward.

    Monotropic people often enter positive flow states with ease, especially when we’re able to follow our interests without interruption and when we are in neuro-affirmative supportive environments. This is when we thrive as monotropic people. Flow is not just about work and productivity, it is about sensory experiences. Flow can be joyful, rejuvenating, restorative and balance the bodymind (it can of course have it’s flipside though, especially for those experiencing OCD as discussed in my blog Monotropism, Autism and OCD (2024).

    For myself, monotropic flow isn’t just a productive state, it’s a healing one. It brings regulation, coherence, and balance. However, when I am forced into chrononormative routines, my access to flow is often denied. Flow, for my monotropic mind is like a temporal home, it is my basecamp. Being outside of flow and battling with neuronormative time has significantly contributed towards my repeating cycles of burnout.

    Deleuze, Becoming, and Neuroqueer Temporalities

    From my limited understanding of the philosophy of Deleuze and Bergson’s thinking, I see Deleuze as having expanded Bergson’s concept of time a bit further. As I have previously written, I feel that Deleuzean concepts fit Neuroqueer theory really nicely, as described by Nick Walker in their book Neuroqueer Heresies, (2021). Deleuze in his book The Fold (2006), describes time as being folded, and nonlinear. I explored this in more detail in my writing about Caverns, Pleats and Folds (2023).

    It is in these folds and liminal spaces that perhaps monotropic people can find flow, as the spaces outside of the liminal are so hard to fit into. If we lean into the folds and gaps in society, we can create our own spaces and ways of being that really meet our needs, so we don’t need to mask, reduce or suppress ourselves to fit into society’s expected ways of being, including fitting into neuronormative time. In Difference and Repetition (1968), Deleuze proposed that time is not simply a container for events, but an active process of becoming, it is a ceaseless unfolding where past, present, and future interweave. It is in these in-between spaces that we can unfold and be our authentic selves and be expansive.

    It is perhaps when we find our safe people and safe spaces that we can engage in flow, live in monotropic time and neuroqueer time, further opening up more possibilities for ways of being and ways of living. An example of this is how my sleep has always been seen as dysregulated and somehow ‘wrong’. I have naturally always been awake more in the early hours of the day and late hours of the night, even as a young child – maybe because the world is quieter then and I can just be myself in flow. No amount of sleep training advice or medication over almost 50 years has ever really had an impact. Battling against this to live and work in neuronormative time has been hard and led to burnout and mental health difficulties. Now that I am no longer working as a teacher and restricted to set hours, I have more flexibility with time. I am able to plan my day around my own attention tunnels and children’s needs to enable a smoother flow that is more in line with my monotropic perception of time. I carve out pockets in my day for monotropic time and flow as I juggle against the reality of needing to keep to appointments and other work commitments, and meet my children’s needs. It is a bit of a balancing act, but being aware of this helped enormously.

    Deleuze wrote of time being “out of joint,” embracing it as a space for new potentialities. Many neurodivergent people live in this “out-of-jointness”: in liminal, quantum, speculative time. We are not delayed or broken; rather, we may be differently temporal. Understanding this and having a more flexible approach to time and managing flow could be really helpful and support the well-being of many Autistic/ ADHD people.

    Neuro-Holographic Time: Folding Time and Memory

    In Quantum Neuro-Holographic Thoughts from a Liminal Space, I explored how my Autistic perception often feels layered, recursive, and multidimensional, like a hologram where each part contains the whole and is deeply entangled and resonating with the space around me.

    I think this matches Bergson’s view of memory as something durational, not stored data but rather a living resonance. A smell can collapse decades, a sensory pattern can echo across timelines and dimensions of time (neuronormative time and monotropic time). Many Autistic people may not live in a rigid timeline but instead live more in a temporal field, one that is sensitive, porous, and entangled and could be described as being neuro-holographic.

    Neuro-holographic time is not fragmented; it’s folded and can be unfolded and expanded. Time may be experienced differently within a fold. Folds hold memory, emotion, and sensory perception as simultaneous experiences. In this folded time, our sense of identity itself becomes fluid, unfolding in nonlinear rhizomatic omnidirectional ways. We are not fixed selves on a schedule; we are more like events in motion resonating with our environment.

    Neuroqueering Time: Time Travelling

    To neuroqueer time is to resist the assumption that there is one correct way to be on time, or one right way to live, to grow, to succeed. Chrononormativity (Freeman, 2010) is the cultural pressure to conform to timelines of productivity, milestones, and life stages. But for many Autistic/ ADHD people, these timelines feel alien and can cause stress and lead to burnout as neuronormative time goes against monotropic people’s natural flow and use of monotropic attentional resources. It can feel like we are maybe time travellers going between neuronormative time and monotropic time, time travelling is exhausting (and misunderstood!)

    By embracing felt time or monotropic time (durée ), we can engage in flowy, spiraly time, embrace the intensity, and find restoration and rejuvenation in the liminal spaces where we can be our authentic selves. We can begin to liberate ourselves from neuronormative time constraints and structures. When we stop forcing ourselves to match neuronormative ideals, time frames and rhythms that exhaust us can be liberated. We can reclaim our own unique sense of time, a different way of resting, a different way of working and managing our days. I didn’t choose to be measured by neuronormative time frames, it has actually caused me harm. I am starting to lean more into my authentic monotropic ways of being, which includes a more spirally, expansive, flowy perception of time too, which is supporting my well-being.

    By neuroqueering ourselves and neuroqueering time, anyone and everyone can break free from the neuronormative time structures that bind us all to capitalism and restrict and cause harm to lives in so many ways. We may be able to live more attuned to our own temporalities and more at one with our environment and those around us if we liberate ourselves from the ticking hands of the clock and find more flexible ways to manage our flow and our own time.

    Like Bergson’s idea of duree, monotropic time is FELT. It is immersive, expansive, flowy, omnidirectional and deeply rhizomatic. Let’s dwell in our natural flow and rhythms, actively resist neuronormative time, find spaces to neuroqueer time further in the liminal spaces and embrace our own unique rhythms and monotropic time.

    References

  • Caverns, Pleats and Folds

    Caverns, Pleats and Folds

    Cartographers are people who create maps, and they transform physical geography into an accessible format so people can navigate in and through the spaces of the world. I recently watched a National Geographic documentary about caving ‘ Explorer: The Deepest Cave | Disney+ (disneyplus.com’). It led me to consider the underground maps inside the earth, the connections, pathways and hidden caverns that have not yet been explored. There is a whole space deep below the ground where you are currently that offers new possibilities, and it is within these folds of rocks that form the earth there are even more folds and spaces full of potential to explore. Whilst watching this film, I related it to the potential for people and thinking about how we need time and space to explore and discover what is inside us, time and space to make connections with others to give our lives meaning and time to explore the spaces within our folds, pleats, caverns and channels.

    A particular moment in the documentary sparked my imagination. Around 11 minutes into the film, the cavers were trying to find the best route to go next. They created a small amount of smoke as they explained that ‘the stronger the smoke, the bigger the spots between the rocks are,’ which would indicate a path for them to explore. They said, ‘The wind can go places that we can’t. So the question is, can we follow the wind?’

    ‘Can we follow the wind’?

    This leads me to Deleuze and his work around The Fold (1993). ‘A fold is always folded within a fold, like a cavern in a cavern. The unit of matter, the smallest element of the labyrinth, is the fold…’ (pg. 6). A fold is like a continuous curve; there is always a deeper element. I see this as much like a cave with pleats in its geography, where there are ‘folds of winds, of waters, fire and earth’. As I sat watching this programme with my son, I began to think about the infinite nature of our bodyminds and how caving could work as an analogy to describe the internal process of neuroqueering that is expressed outwardly on a cartographer’s map.

    Neuroqueering and being a part of the neuroqueering community is the equivalent of trying to work your way around a rhizome, another concept Deleuze and Guattari (1987) discuss in their book One Thousand Plateaus. The outward map of how we live our lives in society reflects how we present ourselves and our bodies. This map can also reflect the journey our bodyminds take over time as we age. Increasingly, people are leaving digital trails of their thoughts all over the internet. They are making connections within these spaces, leading to an ever-increasing multidimensional map between cyberspace and the reality of where we are physically.

    Choosing to neuroqueer your bodymind can be seen as an act of rebellion. However, I see it more as an act of seeking connections at a much deeper level with those in a similar space to you rather than needing to outwardly represent ‘queering’ in the way perhaps the punk movement did in the 1980s. Maps are a way we navigate paths as we head towards a destination, or they are used to reflect on past journeys and movements. If you choose to neuroqueer, you may find an intersection where the digital paths of the internet communities meet the folds inside your bodyminds. Within these rhizomatic communities, meaning is potentially being created for so many people who are otherwise unable to connect or feel a connection with people outside of these spaces in their local communities.

    There is a natural human need to feel understood and connected; connections build relationships and support good mental health. For some people, those connections and relationships may not look different from the more conventional norms the majority of society holds but are equally valuable. For people who feel marginalised either by neurodivergence, disability or by being in another minority group, there is often no space already carved out for support and building connections in local communities. This can cause feelings of isolation and disconnection. Yet, the need to find people who understand and can connect within the same folds, with similar interests and values, can lead people to create their own communities.

    It feels like a rabbit warren of underground tunnels and caves where people meet, mainly through online social media platforms. The continuous physical growth of these spaces where people are connecting is slowly creating ripples and heading into real family spaces and showing a genuine need for change in our education system as more and more children are showing how the current frameworks are just not meeting needs and resulting in school attendance difficulties and mental health concerns. There is a rise in the UK in families actively seeking alternative pathways through home education or alternative provision routes. Neuroqueering is not just a philosophical theory; it is about actively looking for positive change and creating new paths in your life and for your family towards a happier future.

    Deleuze considers if ‘the world is infinitely cavernous if worlds exist in the tiniest bodies, it is because everywhere there can be found a spirit in matter’ (1993, p.7). This supports the idea of energy flow and the importance of the soul as a subject if we want to go beyond any boundaries and evolve and improve our mental health and that of our families. If this is the case, we need to unfold ourselves; this could be linked to a much deeper concept of autistic unmasking, where you find ‘some little opening’ of possibility within yourself to expand your body-mind; it is a space within a tiny fold / unfolding that we may be able to begin to neuroqueer. Much like the cavers who have to physically twist, turn and contort their bodies to fit through the gaps to find new caverns, we can find new spaces within and between the folds of our bodyminds through neuroqueering.

    The potential to neuroqueer is inside us all, within a fold in a cavern. This may feel much deeper within some people than others due to the heaviness of neuronormativity, adding its layers and creating tighter folds for some people. It would be interesting to discuss if the concept of folds and caverns within autistic people is more porous or open to the possibilities of neuroqueering than non-autistic people.

    Neuroqueering could enable a metamorphosis, a transformation process from within a fold. This is like how Deleuze describes a butterfly being ‘folded into the caterpillar that will soon unfold’. Deleuze finishes his first chapter by describing how ‘ the Fold is always between two folds’. Neuroqueering offers the potential to explore what is between the multiple folds and creases we live in and that are within us.

    Let’s ‘follow the wind’ and see where neuroqueering takes us.

    Find out more:

    https://stimpunks.org/glossary/autistic-rhizome/

    https://emergentdivergence.com/2023/04/21/neuro-anarchy-and-the-rise-of-the-autistic-rhizome/

  • Exploring ‘Being With’

    Exploring ‘Being With’

    I experience and interpret ‘Being With’ as a process of be-coming together. Deleuze’s concept of the line of flight allows us to explore and follow meaning together. This article will explore these ideas in a bit more detail.

    This post is a pulling together of several discussions I have had online over the past few weeks that were initially inspired by Joanna Grace and her team of researchers (all of whom have profound and multiple learning disabilities). Joanna Grace has been sharing the progress of their PhD project across social media, exploring the idea of ‘Being with and Identity’.

    Some discussions here about slow pedagogy and conversations around Deleuze’s line of flight and created serendipity have also recently been reflected on Stimpunk’s website.

    The 3-minute YouTube video of ‘Being With’ was part of The Research Methods e Festival (an online event organised by NCRM) looking at identity and ‘Being With’. There are two videos I’d like to share that I feel capture the wonderful potential and essence of what I believe should be at the heart of care and educational experiences for everyone celebrating the potential of:

    *togetherness

    *sense of embodied belonging

    *shared experiences

    * safe spaces

    Video 1

    Video 2

    Bridging a Gap

    Up until now, people with profound and multiple learning disabilities have been the “missing voices of inclusive research” (Walmsely, J). They have been the people others have researched on or for but not with (Nind, M. (2017), Practical Wisdom of Inclusive Research). This new research is helping to bridge that gap, not just by finding the voices of those with profound and multiple intellectual and learning disabilities but by providing space for them to share their way of being collaboratively. By being with people, we can create a space of shared experiences; there is potential and possibilities for a more enriching time together. This may be felt as an experience, a shared engagement rather than an event that can be easily captured in words or put into a lesson plan in school. It involves trust, not only between the people involved but within a school setting it also involves trust within the education system that those facilitating learning know the people they are working with.

    Creating a Space of Being

    Joanna Grace’s research team includes a girl called Felicity. In the video below, Joanna Grace talks about ‘creating a space of being with Felicity so that space can become a research encounter. This is an intended becoming of togetherness and enables a creative shared meaning that can only be experienced in a space of safety which is built up over time.

    Giving time and ‘being with’ enables a deep connection to grow. I am familiar with intensive interaction and think it’s a truly wonderful approach. However, at the same time, having something called an approach can be a way of ‘othering’ those we are trying to include. This new research builds on intensive interaction in many ways, but I also resonate with this perspective shift and the simple potential of ‘being with’. These videos are only a glimpse of the wonderfulness that can happen when people are with each other in an embodied way, tuned in, sharing a flow state and rhythm together. To truly understand it, you have to ‘be with’.

    “The concept of ‘being with’ is linked to finding the rhythm of the children but also attention to the ‘rhythm’ of colleagues, materials and ideas.” (Clark, A. (2023), Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child).

    Felicity-ness

    By creating space and time to be together, Joanna describes how it “enabled the Felicity-ness” of her “dancing fingers” so they could “dance together!”. I love the phrase ‘Felicty-ness’ as it sums up what can only be experienced in person with a unique individual. It is a feeling created between two people that may occur through dancing fingers, a vocalisation, an eye movement, or a different body movement. It is a moment that only happens in response to each other’s presence, a togetherness. The Felicity-ness of Felicity was able to shine through the space in what could have been missed in a busy classroom or by being preoccupied with everything else going on in life.

    “A person’s ability to communicate is not dependent on their being able to master certain skills; it is dependent on our ability to listen and communicate responsively” (Grace, J. (2017), The Sensory Projects, Supporting People with PMLD Core & Essential Service Standards).

    Learning and Being Together

    Working with children with profound and multiple learning and intellectual disabilities felt like my happy place to be. We shared and created sensory experiences together. Within the structures of a school setting, I aimed to ensure the children led our time together as much as possible and I tried to work as a facilitator to help enrich and develop those experiences in some way as a ‘teacher’ along with the class team. Sometimes things worked well, and other times less well. It was always a learning curve for me, too.

    Tuning in and Togetherness

    My Autistic Realms work is advocating to ensure learning environments are as neurodiversity-affirming as possible. I am not just talking about being inclusive practically or functionally and providing access to educational resources and differentiated meaningful learning opportunities; this should be a given. We need to be inclusive in our bodies and minds to be with each other. Being a teacher in the often stressful environment of a UK school system where everyone has targets to meet, and teachers are accountable for ‘progress’, I feel we are sometimes missing the essence of what ‘being with’ people is about in our role as teachers. If we focus more on ‘being with’ people, that narrative shifts slightly; there is less hierarchy and more equal opportunity to learn together.

    To ‘be with’, you need to slow down and have time to tune in to a togetherness. It is very much in line with some of the core concepts of what has been described as ‘Slow Pedagogy’, an understanding of the need to value the present moment, the sensory needs and the pace and flow of the person you are with.

    Line of Flight

    Deleuze and Guattari (1980) explore the concept of the ‘line of flight’ in their work One Thousand Plateaus. Their work is helping me understand the neurodiversity paradigm and very fixed ideas we often have of people’s identities, systems in society and ways of being. Deleuze opposes the ideas of fixed identities, ‘normality’ and offers a way of embracing the differences and ways of being for everyone. I am still reading through much of their work, (definitely no expert on this) but I feel there is a strong connection between Deleuze and the neurodiversity movement and the process of ‘becoming’.

    If we make spaces to be with people, we can follow a line of flight and have an embodied connection of ‘dancing fingers’ together. This could lead to a whole new, wonderful sense of belonging and a more meaningful connection and communication between people that can grow and ‘become’.

    Collective Flow

    Being together allows people to join in a collective flow state, a line of flight, which can lead to new possibilities for individuals but also impact rhizomatically within a classroom and lead to more learning opportunities. However, I would argue that actually ‘being with’ is not necessarily about learning ‘more’ in the traditional sense of the next steps of a curriculum and mastering skills. Instead, transcending those preconceived ideas of what being a teacher means, what being a student is, and what being a person with profound and multiple learning disabilities may mean is a way of also reframing of identities. For me, ‘being with’ is about going deeper into the folds between people, embracing the shared feeling of belonging, being understood in the moment, and seeing where that takes you together.

    Being-with and Be-coming

    Deleuze’s concept of the line of flight allows us to explore meaning between created spaces and through our connections with people. It is a way of moving beyond and between the gaps of the often preconceived ideas of what ‘being with’ people may mean, what our roles as teachers educators, care facilitators may be.

    ‘Being with’ creates an opportunity for an embodied sense of belonging and wonderful, meaningful shared experiences. ‘Being with’ is a process of be-coming together and full of potential.

    Thank you to Joanna Grace and research team, including Felicity and Senen (in videos above).

    Further Reading:

    Aldred, K & D. (2023), Embodied Education: Creating Safe Space for Learning, Facilitating and Sharing

    Clark, A. (2023), Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child

    Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1980) A Thousand Plateaus

    Grace, J. (2018), Sensory-Being for Sensory Beings