Distraction from the car engine

This is my third blog about one part of my autism. Every time I went on car rides I wanted to distract myself from the engine noise in some way. I see things differently to most people. Different types of music connects to people in different ways e.g When people hear circus music they may laugh and when people hear Bach they may cry. For me music has always made connections to roads as I wanted to have a distraction from the car engine noise.

When we had a car called a Volvo my stepdad used to play lots of music as it had a very good stereo. I first noticed music making a connection to a road when we were driving to a friends house. A track called Shadowman by the band Afro Celt Sound System came on the stereo as we turned the corner. The road was very bumpy so the bumps went in time to the beat of the music. Some trees and bushes seemed to go with the music as well.

After I have first noticed music making a connection to a road other pieces of music started to connect to different roads before I told my stepdad. Once I told my stepdad he found it very interesting and he wanted to know more about it.

When we had to get rid of the Volvo to get a van instead it had no CD player. I started listening to road connecting music from my phone. I used the in ear headphones that came with my very first phone. The sound quality wasn’t the best but I found that okay. I got some help from my stepdad to download some music to my phone that makes connections to roads.

Music making connections to roads has lasted me a few years as I could still hear the engine noise outside my headphones. I got very excited on days I have heard that we were going on a road that we don’t go on very often. The music always connected very well to those roads. When I became very obsessed with road connecting music I decided that I wanted to get over that obsession. It always had to be the correct piece of music to the correct road and It had to last all the way through that road. I felt that I couldn’t go in the van without music. I took lots of trials in the van without listening to music to see if that worked.

When I first discovered noise cancelling technology I had a thought that it will be beneficial in helping myself get over my obsession with connecting music. I decided that I didn’t want to pay the very high price for the two headphones brands Bose and Sony. I went for the cheaper options to get a decent set of those type of headphones.

Everything that I did really helped me to get over of the obsession with connecting music. Now when I go on car rides I just listen to a random piece of music at any time without it making any connections to roads.