Sensory Overload
Overwhelming flood of sensory input that exceeds processing capacity. Leads to shutdown, meltdown, or fight-flight response.
AutismADHDSensory Processing
Layer 2: Validated
Clinical Recognition
Extensively documented in occupational therapy and autism research. Neurological basis validated: reduced sensory gating and filtering.
Community Validation
Universal recognition in autistic and sensory-sensitive communities. Visceral, debilitating experience often invisible to observers.
Published
17 December 2025 by Team Heumans
Sensory Overload is when your nervous system receives more sensory input than it can process. Too much noise, light, touch, smell, movement—all at once or from a single intense source. The brain's filtering system fails and everything floods in at once, undifferentiated and overwhelming.
It's not "being sensitive" or "overreacting." It's a neurological traffic jam where the brain can't sort important signals from background noise. The result: shutdown (collapse, non-verbal, need to escape), meltdown (explosion of overwhelm), or fight-flight (panic, aggression).