Photo by Derick McKinney on Unsplash

Did you know that Leonardo Da Vinci only slept a total of two hours a day? That Albert Einstein considered himself a loner, and not a people person? That Charles Darwin absolutely adored music?

Intelligent, gifted, and creative people have been traditionally associated with off-kilter personality traits. It’s resulted in some pretty strong stereotypes, when we think about what a ‘smart person’ looks like.

You know the stereotypes I’m talking about – The ‘mad’ scientist. The introverted, bookish nerd. The ditsy artist. The eccentric, billionaire genius. The flamboyant stage performer. The morose, alcoholic writer.

Kazimierz Dabrowski, a Polish psychologist, believed certain individuals were more likely to develop a unique personality than their peers. He called out “Overexcitability” (or OE for short) as a key factor in personality development. OE is often found in creative and gifted individuals (although not all gifted and creative people have OE).

Overexcitability is a heightened ability to receive, and respond to, stimuli. In short, everything coming in from the outside world, and everything going on inside your head has the ‘volume turned up’. Dabrowski called OE a ‘tragic gift’. It is an intense experience of life, where you view the world, and respond to the world, in a different way.

So, there’s a group of intelligent, gifted and creative people out there, exhibiting some different behaviours to the rest of society.

Here are ten weird things which gifted or creative people might do if they have overexcitabilities…

Not Sleep

It seems incredible, but weird or shortened sleep patterns could be a sign of a gifted brain. A normal solid eight hours seems like an unreachable fantasy for them (even Elon Musk can only do six), and sometimes their sleep patterns can change wildly depending on their level of mental activity. If someone is always going to bed late and getting up early, without suffering physically from the lack of sleep, they could have OE.

Devil’s Advocate

We expect highly intelligent people to be knowledgeable, but they can also be argumentative. Rebellious, always questioning things, and insatiably curious, they can have an extremely strong sense of justice, and have no problem in upsetting the status quo to see the right thing done. ‘The truth will out’, even if it’s blunt and entirely tactless…

Clothing irritations

They hate clothing tags with a passion, and detest the seams in socks (spending hours trying to straighten them). They recoil visibly at the sight of wool, or other scratchy fabrics. Tactile sensitivity can be a sign of OE, and can lead people to pick, fiddle, scratch, and continually readjust clothes. They cling to comfortable clothing until it’s worn down to a thread, and obsessively cut the tags out of everything.

Daydreaming

Do you know someone who is a little like the Nutty Professor – forgetting about important appointments, while they invent, imagine, and create? People with OE can have powerful imaginations. While this comes in handy for long boring commutes, and extended waits in the doctor’s office, it can also have it’s down sides. When someone is lost in their own world, gets bored quickly, or is easily distracted, they can drop the ball in their daily life.

Indulging the senses

Sensory OE can mean a person’s senses – touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste – are highly sensitive, and they want to appreciate the good things in life! They love food, art, music, and being surrounded by the beauty of nature. They may have favourite smells, foods, fabrics, and colours, and get great pleasure from indulging in them. Unfortunately, they might also have tendency to overindulge. This may lead to difficulties with food, poor drinking habits, or even substance abuse.

Impatience

When a gifted person is always thinking fast, they can sometimes forget other people don’t live life at the same speed. If their co-workers are taking too long to arrive at a logical conclusion, they can be short and impatient. They frequently zone out of conversations at social engagements, because they lose interest quickly if the talk doesn’t go deep enough, so they can come off as aloof or condescending. And for them, the traffic / movie / book / lecture is always moving too damned slow.

Alone time

Do you know someone who is confident and outgoing, but needs a lot of alone time? Do they get social anxiety when surrounded by a lot of people, or need large amounts of personal space? Are they always complaining that they just don’t fit in, or feel odd around other humans? Perhaps they have weird hobbies, and shut themselves away for long periods? Whatever the reason, they are alone quite frequently.

Always moving

They cannot sit still for long periods. When their brain gets moving, the body wants to move too. Sometimes it happens when they get nervous or agitated. Sometimes it happens when they’re excited about a new idea they’ve just had. They love to re-organise and tidy things, but when they can’t find something constructive to do, they pace, fidget, or else continually play with something in their hands (like a pen, or jewellery). If someone is jiggling their leg under the kitchen table, or tapping on something, they are your prime suspect.

Mood swings

A lot of people don’t always associate emotions with intelligence (I blame Mr. Spock), but it can be a sign of emotional OE. They feel intense, extreme emotions, often complaining of feeling many emotions at the same time. As a result, they can shift between emotions quite quickly and fluidly, giving the appearance of rapid mood swings. They might cry frequently, both out of sorrow and joy. And if they talk about past traumatic experiences, it seems to grip them with a terrifying level of vividness. But it’s not all bad news, because they experience joy and happiness at ecstatic levels, making others laugh, and seem to have strong empathy for those around them.

Creative

It’s probably no surprise that many great creative artists through history had brilliant minds. Creative minds do have a downside: worst-case-scenarios and paranoia can spring from a fertile imagination, just as easily as art. But on the plus side, they will enjoy and appreciate anything creative. They may be a big fan of poetry, theatre, linguistics, or fantasy fiction (including movies and comics). Or they may be an artist themselves, writing creatively, making visual art, be a creative chef, or be innovative and inventive.

Do you know someone who has some of these unusual habits?

If they are a bit of a clever-clogs, or an artsy soul, they might have overexcitabilities. But they might not know they have overexcitabilities. They may not realise their strange quirks could be a sign that they have more extraordinary mind than they first thought.

More importantly, they may not know they are not alone! They might feel out of place in a world that seems very intense from their perspective. They might be struggling under the belief it’s just them – they’re just odd. They might have felt that way their whole life.

So, share this blog with them, and I bet one of two things will happen:

1.       They might not agree with you, but will be flattered you think they have a brilliant mind.

2.       This might resonate with them, and it may be the start of a wonderful journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance (in which you just played a starring role!)

And if you share this blog on your social media? Shout the message from the rooftop? Encourage others to share it?…

Well, you might just unearth more wonderful, quirky and intense minds, and share the magic of self-discovery and self-acceptance with them too. What a brilliant gift that could be!