Why does all my attention go to one place?

What it feels like

You are working on something and the world disappears. You do not hear the doorbell, you do not see the message, you do not feel hungry. Then someone calls your name, and it feels like being yanked out: the thread snaps, you need a few minutes to gather yourself, and the simple question you were asked feels, for a moment, like far too much. In the evening you realise you have not had a drink of water all day.

Many autistic people describe something similar:

• attention does not split, it goes all to one place, and everything else passes by^2,3;
• an interruption is not a small annoyance but a rupture that takes time to recalibrate from⁴;
• moving from one activity to another, even to a pleasant one, costs energy^2,5;
• hunger, thirst or tiredness only reach you after you come out of what you were doing⁴;
• and when your attention is on something you love, there is a calm and a joy that are hard to find anywhere else⁴.

Seen from the outside, some of these look like stubbornness, lack of interest or overreaction. Lived from the inside, they have a simple logic: your attention works differently.

What monotropism is

The idea was put forward by the autistic researcher Dinah Murray, together with Mike Lesser and Wenn Lawson, and was published at length in 2005 in the journal Autism¹. The name came from a friend of Dinah Murray's, Jeanette Buirski⁵. The word comes from Greek and means, roughly, "a single turn"².

The starting point is simple: attention is a limited resource, and every brain chooses how to share it out³. Some people spread it across several things at once and can write an email while also hearing the doorbell. They are called polytropic. Others bring almost all of it to one thing. They are monotropic: either they do not hear the doorbell, or the doorbell breaks the thread of the email completely³. Dinah Murray's son, Fergus Murray, sums it up like this: autistic people have their attention taken up, at any moment, by a small number of interests^2,14. Pete Wharmby, an autistic writer, uses an image: a laser beam, not a car's wide headlights².

Two things are worth saying from the start. First: monotropism was proposed by autistic people, as an answer to theories that described autism only by what was missing³. Second: it is not a ranking. Neither kind of mind is better than the other; what matters is understanding the differences⁴. Dinah Murray put interests at the centre of the theory, meaning the things that matter to you and that change when you learn something new⁶.

What it explains

Monotropism is used because it ties together things that otherwise seem unrelated^2,3:

• Interruptions. Murray and her colleagues described an unexpected interruption, for someone in an "attention tunnel", as a sudden break from a safe state, which can happen many times a day^1,4. That is why the reaction looks far too big from the outside.
• Transitions. Wharmby compares changing direction to the difference between a car turning on the spot and a large ship, which needs time and space to turn². It is not a lack of willpower but the real cost of moving attention.
• The senses. What is outside the tunnel can go unnoticed, and what is inside can become very intense. When a single unpleasant stimulus takes up all your attention, a flickering light for instance, overload and shutting down become a logical response^2,3.
• The body. When attention is all in one place, signals of hunger, thirst or tiredness do not reach it. Many autistic people notice them suddenly, only after they come out of what they were doing^2,4.
• Relationships. Sedgewick and Douglas show that monotropism offers a different explanation from "lack of social interest": not that people do not matter, but that other things catch attention more strongly at that moment³.
• Thoughts that go round. The same attention that goes deep into an interest can also go deep into a worry or a break-up, and some autistic adults describe rumination as part of the same style³.

What research says

Monotropism started as a theory written from autistic experience, and research that tests it directly is still young. A few landmarks:

• A monotropism questionnaire, written together with autistic adults and completed by more than a thousand people, gave clearly higher scores for autistic participants, and the scores are closely linked to autistic traits measured in other ways. The study is still a preprint, meaning it has not yet gone through a journal's review⁷.
• Recent qualitative studies with autistic adults describe from the inside what it is like to be immersed in an activity¹⁰, and also inertia, the difficulty of starting and, just as often, of stopping^11,12.
• Several researchers argue that flow states, the moments when you are completely absorbed in something, matter for autistic wellbeing and should not be seen only as "repetitive behaviour"^7,8,9. A 2026 study applies the idea directly to therapy, to how we move into and out of flow¹⁶.
• Not all results point the same way. A 2025 lab study found that what people say about their own hyperfocus does not match well with what lab tests measure¹⁵. And Anna Stenning, an autistic researcher, notes that monotropism is one of several models that start from perception and that it does not explain every difficulty on its own¹⁸.

In short: it is an influential framework that came from the autistic community, with growing evidence that is still early. Used as a way of understanding yourself rather than as a verdict, it is often very helpful.

What happens in an interruption, step by step

An interruption has several moments, and what helps changes from one to the next.

1. BeforeIn the tunnel

   All your attention is on one thing. The rest of the world, including your body, moves into the background. The state can feel very pleasant and calming.

   What helps here: A signal agreed in advance with the people around you: headphones on or the door closed means "ask me first". And a gentle alarm for water and food.

2. The momentThe rupture

   Someone calls you or something unexpected happens. The thread snaps suddenly, and the reaction can be irritation, panic or a sudden emptiness.

   What helps here: The right to ask for a minute: "I hear you, give me a moment to finish this sentence." It is not rude; it is how your attention moves.

3. AfterRecalibrating

   You need to come back to the sounds around you, to your body and to what you feel. Only then can you really answer.

   What helps here: A short pause, with no new questions. Water, a long breath, a few steps. For some people it takes seconds, for others a few minutes.

4. LaterGoing back

   Returning to what you were doing can be as hard as leaving it. Sometimes the thread does not catch again at all that day.

   What helps here: A note left before the interruption, with exactly where you stopped, so you do not start from zero.

What helps

Below are a few things to try. You do not need to do all of them, or any one in particular: you can read them now and keep them for another time. Some suit some people and not others.

A warning in advance

The simplest change lies with the people around you: not starting straight away, but announcing first. Niamh Garvey, an autistic writer, describes how her husband learned to say "I need to talk to you. Can you tell me when you are ready?", which gives her time to take her attention out of what she is doing⁴. She estimates a few minutes for herself to come out of deep concentration, and a few seconds from a light one⁴. Other options she suggests: a wordless signal agreed in advance, a timer, a sticky note on the desk that means "you have five minutes to finish", headphones or a closed door as a sign that now is not a good moment⁴. A useful question for the person who wants to talk: "Is it a small chat or a big chat?"⁴

Transitions, treated as a step of their own

If moving from one activity to another costs something, it is worth making room for it in your day rather than hoping it happens by itself. The therapist Nyck Walsh notes that many neurodivergent people need more time than others to move their attention, and suggests clients plan to leave a quarter or half an hour earlier than they think they need⁵. It also helps to announce the ending in advance ("ten more minutes, then I close this"), to note where you stopped, and to leave the first step of the next task in view. There is more on this in the guide on ADHD paralysis and executive function.

The body, which does not make it into the tunnel

If hunger and thirst only reach you afterwards, do not rely on them to remind you. Put them outside the tunnel: a bottle of water in sight, an alarm for meals, a short break at a fixed interval, taken even if you do not feel you need it^4,5. It is not a lack of care for yourself, but the natural result of attention that goes all to one place.

Interests, as a resource

Intense interests are often treated as something to limit. Many autistic authors say the opposite. Wharmby writes plainly that an autistic person's access to their interests should never be cut back, because interests help them carry stress². Sharon Kaye O'Connor calls them "the stuff of life" and offers monotropism as an alternative to the old phrase "restricted interests"¹⁷. In schools, the researcher Rebecca Wood has shown that interests can support learning rather than distract from it¹³. Walsh encourages clients to build rituals of time devoted to their passions⁵.

A small experiment, only if you feel like it: this week, put an hour for an interest in your calendar, with the same respect you would give an appointment. Notice how you feel afterwards.

When you get stuck

Sometimes attention does not move at all: you cannot start, or you cannot stop. Autistic adults describe this inertia as a stuckness that often only a push from outside gets them out of¹², and a 2024 study shows that it works in both directions, as starting and as stopping¹¹. What can help: an external signal (an alarm, a message, someone saying "come on"), a first step so small that it no longer needs a big start, and less guilt. Inertia grows with stress; it does not shrink under pressure¹².

When the tunnel narrows

In hard periods, monotropism can turn against you. O'Connor notes that in autistic burnout attention can also get caught on emotions, and what you feel right now can come to seem like the only thing there is¹⁷. Kieran Rose, an autistic researcher, describes the other side: in an environment that feels unsafe, sensorily or emotionally, you need even deeper focus to keep unpleasant sensations at bay¹⁹. It is worth knowing, because then retreating into an interest is not running away but self-regulation. If the tunnel has narrowed around a worry and will not open again, that is a good sign to ask for support.

More material is in the video library, under monotropism and interests. monotropism.org, run by Fergus Murray and collaborators, brings together the explanations, the history of the idea and the full text of the 2005 paper¹⁴.

For AuDHD people

Many authors consider ADHD attention to be monotropic in its own way too: also an interest-based system, also needing time for transitions^4,5. Wharmby goes as far as seeing monotropism as a possible shared explanation for autism and ADHD². The Monotropism Questionnaire confirms part of this: both ADHD and autism go with higher scores. AuDHD people score highest on average, but not as high as the two added together⁷.

In daily life, the combination can feel like a tension: the ADHD side looks for novelty and jumps towards whatever is interesting, while the autistic side, once it has landed somewhere, stays there. The result can be a day in which you are sometimes too scattered to start and sometimes too absorbed to stop. It is not a contradiction, but two mechanisms working at the same time.

For the people around you

If you live or work with someone monotropic, a few small things make a big difference:

• give notice before starting a conversation and leave them a moment to come out of what they are doing⁴;
• say whether it is something urgent or something that can wait;
• do not take the lack of an immediate answer as a lack of interest in you³;
• respect agreed signals: headphones, a closed door, a particular word⁴;
• do not use interests as a reward or a punishment; for many autistic people they are a source of calm².

Damian Milton named the "double empathy problem" the misunderstanding that arises between people who perceive the world differently²⁰. Monotropism is a good example: neither side is wrong; their attention simply works differently.

When support makes sense

A guide can give you a name and a few tools, but it cannot take the place of a relationship in which someone knows you. Support makes most sense if:

• interruptions and transitions use up more energy every day than you have;
• you have come close to burnout trying to function as if your attention were polytropic;
• you get stuck in the same thoughts and cannot get out on your own;
• you do not yet know whether what you live with is autism, ADHD, both or something else.

In therapy we can find out together how your attention works and how to arrange your day around it, rather than fighting it. I work online, on Google Meet, in English and Romanian. You can read more about therapy for autistic adults.

Questions people ask

Is monotropism a diagnosis?

No. Monotropism is a theory about how attention works, put forward by autistic researchers, not a category in the diagnostic manuals. Many people find it useful because it ties together things that otherwise seem unrelated: interruptions that hurt, hard transitions, intense interests, hunger only noticed in the evening.

Do people with ADHD have monotropic attention too?

Many authors say yes, and the Monotropism Questionnaire gives higher scores for ADHD adults as well. AuDHD people score highest on average, but not as high as the two added together. The practical difference: in ADHD attention jumps more easily towards what is new, while in autistic monotropism it tends to stay longer wherever it has landed.

Is it the same as hyperfocus?

Hyperfocus is a moment; monotropism is a style. Hyperfocus describes a period of very deep attention on one thing; monotropism tries to explain why your attention tends to work like that most of the time, with the joys and costs that come with it.

How do I explain it to the people around me?

A simple comparison often helps: your attention is like a torch with a narrow beam, not a bulb that lights the whole room. Then a concrete request: “If you see I am caught up in something, ask me when I can talk instead of starting straight away.” And one sentence for them: it is not a lack of interest in them, it is how attention moves for you.

Read next

• Why is saying “no” so hard?Why saying no is hard when you are autistic or have ADHD, how masking plays into it, and how to set a clear boundary with phrases prepared in advance.
• Why can criticism hurt so much?Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) in ADHD and autism: why criticism can hurt so much, what the wave looks like and what helps in the moment and after.

Sources

1. Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156.
2. Wharmby, P. (2023). Untypical. Mudlark (HarperCollins), ebook edition, PDF pp. 75, 87–90, 95.
3. Sedgewick, F., & Douglas, S. (2023). Understanding Autistic Relationships Across the Lifespan: Family, Friends, Lovers and Others. Routledge, pp. 8–9, 155.
4. Garvey, N. (2025). The Autistic Guide to Communicating and Connecting. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, ebook edition, PDF pp. 51–54, 164.
5. Walsh, N. (2026). Neurodivergent Somatics in Therapy (foreword by M. Giwa Onaiwu). W. W. Norton, ebook edition, PDF pp. 33–34, 168, 255.
6. Murray, D. (2020). Dimensions of difference. In D. Milton, S. Ridout, R. Mills, N. Martin & D. Murray (Eds.), The Neurodiversity Reader (ch. 3). Pavilion, ebook edition, PDF pp. 43, 49–50.
7. Garau, V., Murray, A. L., Woods, R., Chown, N., Hallett, S., Murray, F., Wood, R., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2023). Development and validation of a novel self-report measure of monotropism in autistic and non-autistic people: The Monotropism Questionnaire. OSF Preprints (not yet published in a journal), pp. 3, 8.
8. McDonnell, A., & Milton, D. (2014). Going with the flow: Reconsidering “repetitive behaviour” through the concept of “flow states”. In G. Jones & E. Hurley (Eds.), Good Autism Practice: Autism, Happiness and Wellbeing (pp. 38–47). BILD.
9. Heasman, B., Williams, G., Charura, D., Hamilton, L. G., Milton, D., & Murray, F. (2024). Towards autistic flow theory: A non-pathologising conceptual approach. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 54(4), 469–497.
10. Rapaport, H., Clapham, H., Adams, J., Lawson, W., Porayska-Pomsta, K., & Pellicano, E. (2024). “In a state of flow”: A qualitative examination of autistic adults' phenomenological experiences of task immersion. Autism in Adulthood, 6(3), 362–373.
11. Rapaport, H., Clapham, H., Adams, J., Lawson, W., Porayska-Pomsta, K., & Pellicano, E. (2024). “I live in extremes”: A qualitative investigation of Autistic adults' experiences of inertial rest and motion. Autism, 28(5), 1305–1315.
12. Buckle, K. L., Leadbitter, K., Poliakoff, E., & Gowen, E. (2021). “No way out except from external intervention”: First-hand accounts of autistic inertia. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 631596.
13. Wood, R. (2021). Autism, intense interests and support in school: From wasted efforts to shared understandings. Educational Review, 73(1), 34–54.
14. Murray, F. (2018). Me and monotropism: A unified theory of autism. The Psychologist (British Psychological Society), online article, 30 November 2018.
15. Dwyer, P., Sillas, A., Saron, C. D., & Rivera, S. M. (2025). Investigating autistic hyperfocus and monotropism: Limited convergence of event-related potentials, laboratory tasks, and questionnaire responses. Research in Autism, 127, 202683.
16. Wain, D., Williams, G., Charura, D., Hamilton, L. G., Milton, D., Wortman, D., & Heasman, B. (2026). Transitioning in and out of autistic flow: A qualitative study presenting a non-pathologising approach to autistic well-being and conceptualising autistic ways of being in clinical and therapeutic settings. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 26(1), e70073.
17. O'Connor, S. K. (2026). Healing Autistic Burnout. New Harbinger, ebook edition, PDF pp. 50, 125.
18. Stenning, A. (2024). Narrating the Many Autisms: Identity, Agency, Mattering. Routledge (open access), pp. 71–75.
19. Rose, K. (2022). Monotropism. monotropism.org/explanations (quoted in Garvey, 2025, PDF p. 55).
20. Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the “double empathy problem”. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.