AutisTime: imagined friends and borrowed clocks
This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.
About the autistic author markerMcGrath, J. (2025). AutisTime: imagined friends and borrowed clocks. In Critical Neurodiversity Studies (pp. 202-217). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350421202.ch-012
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Abstract
This experimental essay combines critical research with life writing and poetic forms to explore and begin defining ‘AutisTime’. As a choice, a state and a necessity, ‘AutisTiming’ is immersion within imagination. It involves daydreaming, is emphasised here as a root of creativity itself. The naming AutisTime is, in part, an answer to a question the author was frequently asked as a child, often with mild concern: What are you DOING all that time on your own in empty rooms? Against preconceptions that time alone for autistic people actually means loneliness, the essay positions autistic time alongside Anderson’s (1983) notion of simultaneity: the awareness and appreciation of shared co-existence beyond immediate living space. After discussing ‘imagined friendships’ with neurodivergent others in past, local settings, the focus grows global, to platform autistic voices (in particular from Black authors) alongside contemporary concerns in autism studies.
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