Yesterday, I participated in an engaging dialogue about sensory processing, which left me with a question I don’t believe has any simple answer. I’d love to hear your input about it.

I was speaking with a professor with many years of experience helping severely disabled children with different types of diagnoses. He sought my opinion about sensory processing and overload because he knows that since my brain surgery, I often experience sensory overload. I am also the parent of neurodistinct children, including my autistic son.

He asked if I thought it was possible to help people become less sensitive to sensory stimuli by gradually exposing them to them while in a completely safe environment, working with someone they trusted.

The only answer I could come up with was that it depends on the day and the situation. Perhaps some progress could be made if the timing was right and the environment was safe and calm. But I’m unsure if the ability to decrease sensitivity would be situational or if the changes could become permanent.

My instincts tell me that perhaps some of them could improve to a degree, depending on the day and context. But I have my doubts if permanent changes could be achieved. However, I am unsure if my gut feelings about it are accurate or if they are in reaction to my particular lived experience.

I know that my ability to cope with different sensory stimuli depends on many factors, such as how tired I am, how sensory intense the environment is, the various types of stimuli I am being “bombarded” with, and if they occur in different senses simultaneously, my emotional state at the time, my health, whether I am hungry or thirsty, if I am experiencing cognitive overload, and many other factors. There are days I can deal with loud music for a little while, and there are days where even two minutes of it will make my body shake, and I will feel the urge to flee.

Exposure to light, including daylight, without my Irlen spectral filters is always problematic. For the first four years after my brain surgery, until I started wearing colored Irlen lenses, I experienced severe visual distortions, such as blurred and double vision, vertigo, poor depth perception and balance, headaches, and chronic exhaustion. Strong or flashing lights would cause an immediate sensory overload, and my body would sometimes freeze or shake.

My ability to function significantly improved when I started wearing Irlen lenses and ear defenders (in noisy environments such as restaurants or shopping malls). To date, even with ear defenders and Irlen filters, I cannot enter an environment with flashing lights and music, such as a wedding or musical performance.  No amount of exposure improved my ability to process light better or cope with varying lighting situations. 

I’m wondering if perhaps it’s more difficult to slowly “rewire” the visual centers of the brain to become used to different types of stimuli than the other senses. For example, some of my children’s hypersensitive tactile senses gradually improved over time as they grew older, although none of them (or me) can stand things like an itchy tag or certain types of material in their clothing to date. I will never understand why manufacturers continue to put itchy tags on clothing. They should know they can ruin someone’s day!

As you can see, so many factors are involved with sensory perception, processing, and overload that I am unsure if brains can be somehow “rewired” to become tolerant of or less sensitive to stimuli that, for that particular person on that specific day, cause dysregulation of the sensory system.

I’d love to hear your opinion on the subject!

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