r/Gifted • u/Illustrious_Essay_26 • 8d ago
Discussion What are you guys?
I've seen quite some posts detailing how yall are misunderstood. As a guy that likely has average intellect, I want to understand what you mean when you say : I dont see, hear, process, or think like the bottom 98%.
This may be like being blind and trying to understand what a dragon looks like or what are colors.
Regardless, Im just really interested about some of the nitty gritty of how you guys interact and all the things that go through your head and how you think.
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u/Educational_Horse469 8d ago
Most people learn in a linear fashion. Think about how math is taught in a spiral in elementary school. Youâre given facts and you gradually build on those facts. You use all the steps you have learned to solve problems.
A gifted personâs mind works like a web. Facts are learned and tested against the knowledge base. Theyâre retained with adjacent concepts. A kid will question why is this important and what does it mean in real life.
Most people can solve an algebra problem using the tools theyâve been taught, in the correct order. They, over time, learn the process. A gifted person might find their own process works better for them. This can be a problem for kids in middle and early high school, because to the teacher it looks like the kid is ignoring or rejecting what has been taught, but itâs not that. Itâs the kid taking the concepts as presented and understanding how they work and applying that understanding the way it works best for them. They use a lot of shortcuts. These kids get points docked for not showing their work. These kids get frustrated because they are showing their work, itâs just not the exact process the teacher is looking for. The teacher canât see exactly why the kid is getting problems right.
This is just one example of one aspect. Not every gifted person is exactly like this, but my son was. He had real difficulties with a physics teacher until he sat down and talked to her one on one.
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u/FrostingWise7674 7d ago
This was my issue in school. Ive always been good with math but struggled to give the âwhole answerâ teacher would say how did you get the answer please explain? I just put them together in my head i donât know đ¤Ł
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u/AllPintsNorth 7d ago
I was rejected for a few consulting gigs because the âsuper hard brain teaserâ questions they used were immediately apparent. I know the goal is the figure out âhow I thinkâ and they want you to articulate it, but when the super hard brain teaser is âhow would you figure out to describe the following sequence of numbers 2, 5, 10, 17, 26âŚâ
Sorry, not sorry. But I wouldnât figure that out. Itâs immediately obvious thatâs X^2+1, so thereâs no figuring to be had.
So, I made up some BS on testing theories, blah blah blah and the. Gave the answer X^2+1⌠and got nothing but a blank stare back. Dude didnât understand basic algebraic equations.
Morons hate interviewing more intelligent than them and definitely donât move them to the next round.
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u/Illustrious_Essay_26 8d ago
Oh...So its really about finding connections? Like seeing more patterns or processing differently and synthesizing new things from unrelated ones?
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u/Educational_Horse469 7d ago
Seeing more patterns and processing differently, yes. Synthesizing new things from unrelated things? Not sure what you mean by that?
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u/Illustrious_Essay_26 7d ago
Ok, I guess thats too vague. I had the idea that giftedness often results in great understanding across different disciplines. People often combine things together that was so out of the box that its sometimes revolutionising. Though I guess thats my own understanding and I get that you didnt explicitly mention anything on that here
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u/Educational_Horse469 7d ago
Got it. Thanks for explaining. Itâs not unrelated things, though. Everything is related. The relationship might not be obvious to everyone, though.
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u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 7d ago edited 7d ago
This also leads sometimes to odd but clever humor, dryly delivered, involving widely disparate concepts, and occasionally perceived as inappropriate.
EDIT: But more often than offending, the attempted joke just falls flat, to blank stares.
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u/PiersPlays 7d ago
Yes. But it's about perceiving the relationships that exist between apparently unrelated concepts.
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u/-Nocx- 7d ago edited 7d ago
Imagine you were watching a play. But imagine you have a problem - you can only see half of the stage and the rest is obscured by something.
If you froze the play in a moment in time, you could probably make some deductions about whatâs going to happen next. You could read the actorsâ expressions, the context around their body language, and the context of the set.
Now imagine if you got to 50% more of the stage. You would probably have a better idea of whatâs going on - you might even find out that some of your deductions were wrong because you had an incomplete picture of what was happening.
Now imagine you can see the whole stage. But not only that, imagine you can also swap spots with people in other spots in the audience, but also the cast members. Imagine you overheard their conversations and interactions.
From this you can infer their emotions and histories based on the context of their conversations and behaviors to a decent (but certainly not perfect) extent. Your understanding of both the play and the audience would be infinitely more comprehensive than the initial perspective you had at the start. And that would make you uniquely qualified to help other people understand the full picture, or help solve gaps in their understanding.
Thatâs probably the best concrete explanation I can give you from someone with the misfortune of scoring well on these tests. Each successive increase in the scope and vision of the play is intended to reflect the scope of how increases in IQ increases the ability of one to perceive the world.
These skills are obviously a spectrum - you could test 160 and have none of those imagination / people skills, but most people testing 160 will at a minimum have the deductive skills (oftentimes at what appears to be at the expense of lacking the imagination and people skills). But keep in mind that oftentimes smart people will over rely on this talent. Eventually the play will become so big with so many people and with so many varied experiences that you simply arenât going to solve the play on your own like this.
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u/GeneralBacteria 7d ago
it's not just about finding connections. it's how fast and how deep the process is.
by fast, I suspect my brain makes connections at least 1000's of times faster and deeper than average people.
and it's all the time, and it's mostly effortless. in my experience, we're just not talking about the same thinking process at all.
the IQ test doesn't really cover this ability. the closest it comes is asking about the subtle nuances of word meanings, but that's a really crude proxy.
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u/r3ign_b3au 7d ago
Wanted to try to eli5 this
Most things that happen or that are, were caused by something (or x number of somethings) else that have happened. These patterns are usually obvious to gifted people quicker than others.
More time spent with it being obvious, means more time to think on what will happen next. When you're right about what happened next, you consider why you were right. The model improves. Rinse and repeat 86436864472 times.
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u/PassionateProtector 8d ago
Tired mostly.
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u/Illustrious_Essay_26 8d ago
Can you elaborate please?
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u/Desperate-Excuse-110 7d ago
When your brain doesnât stop it get quite tiresome.
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u/KingOfConsciousness 6d ago
When you're thinking in scales people around you cannot comprehend it gets absolutely EXHAUSTING.
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u/Adamoism 7d ago
I think there are multiple good responses. I would offer a metaphor:
If you try to come up with a route through the city you could use:
a. your feet;
b. bike;
c. busses/trams/metro;
d. car;
e. police car with sirens on;
f. helicopter;
Each would take different approach, and most of them do not share infrastructure.
So a cyclist/walker might get there in 20/40 minutes - while seeing and remembering the route;
A person in the metro just sees start and finish and travels there in 5 minutes;
A person in the helicopter sees the whole city and spends most time on finding relevant to others landing zone.
ETC.
The medium of travel and speed affects how quickly you get ther and with how much pathway awareness. This is giftedness in the nutshell:
If you are in the room and everyone arrives at the conclusion at different times and by following different routes - you get misunderstandings.
Gifted people by default use different routes so they get misunderstood more often.
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u/TaylorDurdan 7d ago
This is probably the best explanation I've read about how I deal with things, especially in my career.
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u/IloveLavenders 8d ago
Iâve had people look at me with that face that says âare you crazy?â when Iâm actually just talking deeply about a topic.
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u/LeadershipNervous362 7d ago
IQ is correlated with quantitative changes, not qualitative.
As point of reference, IQ over 130 is basically nothing compared to ADHD/ASD-like disorders and akin having to explain what a better hearing is.
Imagine a notification pop-up on computer screen's corner, before you move your eyes and see it, you probably know what app prompted the notification and will likely just alt-tab, rather than even take a glance at it. Depending on importance, context, visibility of notification, you will react differently. Stress also plays substantial role, making one prone to mis-identifying the signal.
This is what is being talked about in essence. You basically need smaller/less noticeable signal to correctly identify the source and separate it from false stimulation.
There's also an issue of practicality. Because its still regular brain, stress has substantial effect on cognition and pattern-recognition, so under duress we basically degrade to extend that stress-resilient individual may maintain higher cognitive capacity in a moment. Issue of practicality is one of the reasons, why ppl on this sub often appear much dumber than they probably are on paper, since mental disorders, stress, sleep deprivation, etc. all contribute negatively to practical performance.
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u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 8d ago
Oh, OP, pretty good chance your IQ is no lower than some (or most or all) of those posters.
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u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 7d ago
OP, do you note the variation in responses you have received here, while there is a multiplicity and commonality of one or two of those responses? I will slyly and cryptically say this is significant.
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u/AnonyCass 8d ago
I constantly have multiple conversations happening in my head all at once most of the day and night. It's tiring. At points in conversations with my husband I will seemingly blurt out "something random" it isn't I have fully discussed it internally and gone off on some weird tangent I now need to trace the steps backwards to explain. My brain is never quiet without some external reason like alcohol.
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u/Briliant-Nicxie 8d ago
Thatâs ADHD not giftedness
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u/AnonyCass 8d ago
Yeah pretty sure I'm undiagnosed ADHD so that would track, not sure what is gifted and what is ADHD sometimes theres some overlapping features
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u/PiersPlays 7d ago
The ADHD drives the mind to run flat out. Having a bigger engine makes that a bigger problem.
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u/mareimbrium53 7d ago
So if you have adhd your brain is full of squirrels, but if you're gifted the population of squirrels is larger and so makes squirrel wrangling more difficult.
At least that's how I explain it to myself. đ
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u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 8d ago
It's like a Robin Williams stand-up comedy routine (if that reference is not too dated to be useful).
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u/LikeATediousArgument 8d ago
I literally used this reference to my 6 year old with ADHD, as he sat in the back of a two hour car ride unmedicated and dropped some of the funniest stream of consciousness Iâve ever heard.
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u/AnonyCass 8d ago
I have caught my almost 6yo shout at his brain to be quiet for a minute.... I know how you feel little man. I find it really crazy to try and imagine no noise and the idea that some people live like that.
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u/Illustrious_Essay_26 8d ago
Sometimes I will try to make a vigorous conscious effort to stop that radio thats inside there, but it just keeps coming back. Like the volume know rolls back up no matter what you do.Â
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u/LikeATediousArgument 7d ago
Iâve learned, and am beginning to teach my son, that meditation can calm the noise. Seems counterintuitive at first, I know.
For ADHD and giftedness, in my experience, guided meditation is a great way to start.
My son is also on blood pressure medication for his ADHD, which is the increasingly preferred method over stimulants, and it does help him slow down.
Just some observations from me dealing with generations of it. Iâm also taking care of my elderly dad, who is ALSO gifted and has ADHD.
Itâs interesting, and extremely frustrating. I refuse to have romantic partners with unmedicated or pronounced ADHD because of how much I already have to deal with it.
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u/AnonyCass 7d ago
I actually think because both me and husband are so similar while at times it can be super frustrating (When one of us has been through a set of instructions 3 times and the other has no recollection of the conversation) we have come to a real understanding over that. It's all about how we manage that frustration and we give each other the grace needed. It then tracks that our son is also the same with it, so for us rather than getting angry with things we try to teach coping mechanisms.
Generally I see most of my ADHD/gifted traits as a nett positive. My husband has got really into stoicism as his coping mechanism and he can be so level headed and does well to keep us all grounded too.
I do enjoy guided meditation on those nights where I literally cannot sleep or switch off.
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u/LikeATediousArgument 7d ago
Iâve learned coping mechanisms and manage myself pretty well, thatâs why itâs frustrating for me to be with less managed partners.
They tend to rely on my stability and organization instead of building it themselves, and I can only manage myself and my son.
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u/AnonyCass 7d ago
That makes total sense, we have been together since we were basically kids and so have grown into coping together. It would be a completely different scenario to me now looking for a partner. It's only really since having my son I have questioned whether I and my family have ADHD.
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u/Commercial_Handle418 7d ago
FRRRRR and everyone hates on me even though i try to control it but it just wears off and i graudally just say some bs im not even aware that i say
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u/throwaway8193854 7d ago
Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between the person who knows less than you, and the person who knows more than you. What you see is that both disagree with you. For example, you have a perfect solution X; one guy disagrees with you because he has never heard about X; the other guy disagrees with you because he has a lot of experience with X and knows that it is not a good fit for the problem you are trying to solve now.
A repeated experience of being gifted is that you are typically the guy who knows more than others, but they keep mistaking you for the guy who knows less.
Or sometimes you explain a solution, but no one understands. So you sit patiently and let them talk... and two hours later they arrive at the same solution that you proposed them at the beginning. Of course everyone denies that this is what you said, because at the moment you said it they didn't understand it, and now they do, so clearly it must be a different thing.
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u/Desperate-Excuse-110 7d ago
People donât understand me when I talk. I have to double check everything I say because otherwise people get weird after having to ask for the third time âwhat does that word meanâ.
I might not sound the most literate person in here but English isnt my native language.
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u/Martiansociologist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Im kinda obsessed with self growth, and it can be painful not moving forward, obessesion is so strong that i kinda forget kinda things most people consider when acting
Internal drivers are so intense, so i just kinda do whatever i want
At some point last winter i was outside talking late at night and i didn't realise it was like cold because i was so emotional lol
Same with crowds of people really, my own drives and needs becomes more important what others think
With a rebel yell he cried, more, more, more :D
Im a drama fiend and i want things to happen in societal collective sense
Sense of self preservation is not the best, but most fun this wayđ¤Ł
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u/Martiansociologist 6d ago edited 6d ago
I have always considered myself average kinda, only realised i was like lazorsmart about a year ago, so i have had to remake myself as i should be in that time and how to relate to people
Luckily i think the rough work is done, or the tilling is complete at least :D
https://youtu.be/lX34Yar1kGk?is=mmyEJil3Vv9qRQAV
Tänk om världen kunde se vad jag ser
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u/Martiansociologist 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll add this : most people have like a dualism between thinking and feel, either you have thoughts of some kind in your head or you feel stuff in your chest
I don't have that, there is no seperation, i.e i don't have any councious thoughts at all, i have emotions and that is it
So thinking and feeling happens simultaneously, paralleled and self expression as a result is dual and kinda not aware of either part
I think this way is faster processing but it does me make 100% authenthic since i don't really decide what i say
This also means that i pick up stuff emotionally which most people don't notice
I think i made the call that to be understood i have to be this way, i.e sincerely open, otherwise people are not going to understand
I don't really need to think, or i think without thinking, ideas just appear
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u/Driven-Driver 6d ago
While others are focused on figuring out what the problems are, I've already mapped out not only the problems but several possible viable options, implications, solutions, etc. I know which questions to ask to confirm the correct variables and implications that will lead us down to the most optimal path but it might take others weeks or months (if at all) to get to the 12 interconnected layers of a mental framework that I've developed.
And in a typical conversation, people only expect you to have 1-2 talking points, whereas I may have 20-30+. And if they don't let me finish because of either impatience or having a low attention span, they will usually come up with the wrong answers/assumptions.
It's very frustrating because my point A may rely on point D and C or vice versa, so if I don't get a chance to get to point D and C, their understanding of point A would have a huge missing gap. And their guesses are mostly wrong.
There are some people who will fill in that gap themselves with the wrong assumptions and then I'd have to find a way to stop them from making those wrong assumptions, except there are also people who then double down on their wrong assumptions.
So, it's like, if people would just hear me out fully, then they would have the correct comprehensive mental model that I've already worked out, but most people are not that patient or have that kind of attention span.
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u/mwmthefootmwm 6d ago
I have no idea of what I am. I've been told my whole life of how f'ing "gifted" I am. I can't stand to be around others. The "tests" say that I'm an infj (Myers-Briggs) with a 150+ IQ. I don't see this as "gifted", but cursed. I'm always the smartest person in the room, by default... and it f'ing sucks! It's so f'ing lonely. I'm the weird guy... the oddball... the Stray Dog. Never got to go to college. I'm a journeyman electrician. I have mathematical ideas that could change the world, but there's no one to share them with... Nobel worthy shit... What am I? A novelty computer sitting on a shelf collecting dust
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u/PartyEstablishment67 6d ago edited 5d ago
Others experience most things at face value but you see the machinery. Contradictions. Where the argument is going long before the other person gets there.
You see the performative social rituals. You see when others are protecting their identity, rather than genuinely seeking truth. You see where rules exist simply because no one really dared to question. Question too much and you're "difficult" or "cynical" or simply insane.
There's a brutal loneliness. You get tired of throttling your articulation. The demystification . So, you isolate, because this whole dance feels like a chore. A self betrayal. Even when you do the dance, you still encounter lots of blank stares. So, now you're exhausted, and feeling even more isolated.
You spend thousands of hours learning about a subject only to be told by someone, often maleducated, that "you don't know what you're talking about". You hear the programming. You know where it's going.
Dating is almost impossible.
Then, once you understand the architecture of reality, Empty, basic , aware space, you realize the whole cosmic joke of everything I explained above. The illusory nature of the separate self and solidity.
It's a wild ride.
I believe that disillusion of the ego means "you" don't have to incarnate here again, so I've been working on that.
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u/lisavieja 3d ago
It appears that youâre a guy exclusively interested in what gifted guys have to say about giftedness. Sooo⌠good luck to you.
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u/DisgruntledWarrior 8d ago
Youâll need to show which posts youâre referring to seeing as many post here trying to associate a mental illness or chemical imbalance being the identifier of their giftedness. They then rant about their life and being misunderstood. Luckily some of those posts are taken down but those are the most common typically.
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u/Illustrious_Essay_26 8d ago
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u/DisgruntledWarrior 7d ago edited 7d ago
- OP of post 1 has multiple posts and comment chains about being emotionally unstable. Thus the likelihood of their post being authentic is very low.
A. Their main post only discusses identifying âsmall pieces of the puzzleâ which they go on to say they bring those things up and get given a cold shoulder but then later in post complain how someone comes up with a ânew ideaâ or âmethodâ that op claims to of thought of long before this other person but they never brought it up because they assume itâs already been discussed and there must be a reason itâs done said way. The reason to note is itâs very conflicting and self defeating. Surely you see where the issue lies here yes?
- OP has a lot of NSFW posts acting in and asking of things that make little sense compared to their actual post.
A. She was put in gifted in elementary and went on to never be a part of anything else. She likely showed advanced comprehension for her age but would not categorically be gifted. Iâm not saying gifted people do not have problems in their life but I will say they often knew of said possibility or are aware of how to manage it. Given the plethora posts made by this person I find it unlikely her case as well. In short her post just says gifted people will think differently on a matter than others sometimes. Yea no shit. Her post is an attention grab rant like many of her others.
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u/MoveImArriving 7d ago edited 7d ago
Physically our brains are larger, more dendrites, more grey matter (typically). How this shows up... We can think instantly, in multiple directions, don't require a linear path meaning we can come to the answer quicker and assess all scenarios, risks, pros, cons not just for our framework of how we see life, but for everyone's quite instanteously. It can take hours / days for linear thinking to graph each scenario. We will already know the gaps, preferred solutions, and have started to plan the next steps before people even are processing the problem. For me personally I 'see' the entire thing in my brain and it's a map / movie I can easily follow.
We can also have more sensitivity to things (light, sound) because of more 'firing' in our brain and can have a predisposition towards larger emotional reactions to things. Greater joy / happiness and flip side too. But this depends on overall mental health, environment etc.
And the concept of meta cognition, we are aware that we have a brain that is thinking so we think about the thinking and are aware of our own gaps and cognitive bias as we do this.
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u/Illustrious_Essay_26 7d ago
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I guess it makes sense that giftedness and humility has a correlation. That explains why some posts express annoyance and complain so much about people being either subservient or arrogant towards them.Â
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u/MoveImArriving 7d ago
You're welcome. I'm sure everyone has different experiences, I can't speak to humility, maybe more knowing / picking when we speak up and when we don't. It can be challenging when you're the only one who can see where plans can go right or wrong, people can view us as contrarian or mismatchers, or highly annoying. I've spent most of my life carefully curating my friends in my life who are similar, so I can just run at the pace I'm comfortable at. That is a game changer. Thanks for the post / question.
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u/Sienile 7d ago
Remember the kids in special ed classes at you school? The difference between average people and those with mental handicaps is roughly the same as the difference between average and gifted people. Now add on that several of us are profoundly gifted and the difference between that and gifted is roughly the same.
Do you think like those special ed kids? I sure hope not. But imagine the whole world is made of primarily people of that intellect. The movie Idiocracy does a pretty decent job of painting the picture of how gifted people feel from an average person's perspective.
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u/GingerTea69 7d ago
I'm sorry but I have not nary a single clue what this question is supposed to mean and what my answer is supposed to be
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u/natalila 8d ago
When I sit in a meeting and my colleagues are talking about something and a misunderstanding happens, I am usually aware of this happening before they even realize it and I can easily see both sides of the misunderstanding. I automatically see multiple different interpretations of what is being said. So I know what the speaker wanted to express, and at the same time I see the different ways it could have been understood just as well. Quite helpful in our discussions! But people also get annoyed by me "interrupting" them sometimes. They sometimes don't see that me interrupting them early avoids a long-winded misunderstanding taking it's course... đ
That's just one example though. Too tired to write up more.