Highly Sensitive People

A collaboration of efforts have seemed to make these qualities a general benchmark for describing one as HSP. A particular HSP may not have all of these qualities due to natural differences in people, upbringing, or other inclinations. And because we haven't [yet?] the means to quantify HSP-ness, it's up to each individual to determine for her/himself.

• Needing about 5 hours alone time to every 2 hours spent out in "the world."
• Emotionally drained or exhausted when a friend becomes troubled.
• Inability to express to my satisfaction to another person how I'm feeling.
• Wondering how other people could *take everything in stride.*
• Introspective. Deeply reflective.
• Easy feelings of something is about to happen though no indicators.
• Feeling another person's energy.
• Very sensitive to electricity, energy, vibrations.
• Acute hearing.
• Absorbing others' moods, feelings, energy.
• Trouble with relating myself to others.
• Intensely troubled and sensitive to others' suffering.
• Used alcohol or other inappropriate means to deaden the feelings.
• Spiritually wrestling almost since a small child.
• Feeling very different and wondering always what was the secret I was missing

I have to equate being an HSP to an IQ Test. My IQ is 0 [or 100 or 5000], for example, if I am the only person in the world because I, alone, determine the curve. Like an IQ is not any absolute number but based in relationship to others, so too is the litmus for the HSP. In other words, there is no magic number and no definitive stand alone measure. As such with the HSP, the only reason we are HSP is because most others are not.

Have you been told you are "too sensitive?" Have you been known to cry at another person's pain? Are you quite fond of animals/children - more so seemingly than adult human people? Have you ever had a hard time wondering how it is that most people seem to "fit" and how you "don't"? Have people or has a person ever said anything to the effect like "You're chosen" or "God has plans for you" and you somehow knew what they meant? Have you ever had dreams of prophecy or astral projection [out of body experience] issues? When it comes to you and electricity, would you prefer for it to be off? Have you ever gone into "emotional overload" with too many people, or too many electrical appliances? Have you ever felt as if you've known the condition of a person's soul or spirit? Do you reject organized religion because you know it's not telling the whole story? When it comes to the paranormal and people make jokes, do you cringe? Have you seen "energy," "aura," or what perhaps others describe as paranormal experiences? Do you feel better suited to NOT be in the workplace but vesting your talents and energy into creative or lone projects?

If any of the above are normal for you, you're probably an HSP.

View & vote on [fun?] replies [retorts?] to "You're too sensitive!"

I do not know if this is every HSP. From the study A Neurobiology of Sensitivity? , Michael Jawer equivocates paranormal happenings with those who consider themselves HSP. The reason I had been recalcitrant in addressing these other "paranormal" qualities when I first set out to discuss HSP-ness is because though I have had extreme paranormal occurrences in my life, and because the paranormal is still rather taboo in "earth circles", I did not know -and still do not - if this is an HSP particularity trait or something else.

In conversations with other HSP's one on one, it continually finally becomes addressed that they, too, have had extra-normal occurrences happen and have resorted to treating them almost as part of regular life. [I know I do.] I think this acceptance is in large part due to how readily they have known they were different or how early the paranormal occurrences began occurring for them.

Below is the reprint of my article, "Seeing the Paranormal in Everyday."

My recent article on Astral Projection and Dark Presence as well as the experience itself, has had my thinking of my HSP-ness with more depth recently.

HSP: HSP is an acronym for "Highly Sensitive Person." In addition to being Sensitive to noise, tastes, smells, sounds, and even feelings, pain, or medicine, the HSP has a special light. Some people believe - as I do, after extensive interviews, research and a general watching and identification with others - that HSP's are very "special" people indeed.

The major problems with being HSP can be, perhaps, obvious. Ordinary noise can be extra-sensory overload. Needing more quiet time than most other people could have social implications. Thinking and feeling more deeply than the other 88% of the population may have them wanting to commit you to your closest psych institution. Much fondness and identification for and with animals causes extensive heartbreak at their loss. Disillusionment with society at large, based in others' misperceptions of us could prohibit our "good work." Feeling always somehow different as we watch the other so-called *normal* people function with relative ease; Where their left foot right foot day to day leaves us maybe in bewildered states of awe. "How do they do that?"

Well, now for the next phase of discovering our HSP-ness. Once we understand or can identify this as what we are, particularly with others like us, our social need is fulfilled. Our need for social understanding among our peers begins to take hold. Remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [Diagram]? Okay so then we move into esteem/ego area. We're now feeling more okay with ourselves. Finally, at long last we are understood and accepted. We seem to now have a bedrock of grounding that propels us into "independence." We are now secure enough to move into the "I am."

Continued

Now what does our HSP really mean? We're done with needing "to fit in" because we do. We're done with "learning how to cope" because we have the benefit and experience of our peers to help us. We no longer feel the need to be isolated with the "who we really are" and so now where are we? Who are we? What is our potential as human beings?

I believe HSP's are "Light-Workers," "Indigo," "Gifted," "Chosen," "Psychic," "Intuitive," "Empathic," "Enlightened," "Called"... I believe that a culmination of terms could be used to describe the true gifts or qualities of the HSP.

If you think you may be HSP here are some *non-material-plane* qualities of myself and my friends that I have compiled. Ask yourself if you have ever had experience with any of the following:

• Dreams. Vivid dreams. Astral projection. Lucid dreaming. Prophetic Dreams. Highly symbolic. And of course you dream in color! (When the scientists said that people dreamed in black and white you knew this to be untrue for you and were baffled.)
• Paranormal sight. Seeing things that could be described as paranormal. Have you ever seriously "seen a ghost" or "energy" or "aura?" Have you seen things move with no provocation? (Do you cringe when you hear people talk smarmily about "ghost sightings?" Do you hardly ever relay your own experiences?)
• Paranormal auditory. [Clairaudience] Have you heard things that could not be explained? For example, laughter in the other room when no one was in there. The jingle of a cat collar behind you in the kitchen but you have no cats. [Yet you suspect it was your cat who passed away.] Your dad calling your name from downstairs but he wasn't home.
• Paranormal feeling. [Clairsentience] Have you ever met someone and known right then the condition of their spirit, mood, or life? Have you known a person's ulterior motive yet their mouth was speaking differently than you were feeling? Contrary to maybe a group of people's idea, did you know the idea to be different than what was being sold? Were any of your feelings later validated? [Yet you refused to say "I knew it!"]
• Thought reading. [Telepathy.] Particularly saying something that someone would confess "I was just thinking that." [I think everyone has. Among HSP's we tend to exchange energy more freely with each other and perhaps occurs more frequently.]

Continued below : 4. Seeing the Paranormal in Everyday.

• Influence. [Telekinesis] Have you ever for example had your television go out and then with a "Oh stop" it came back? Have you ever (probably inadvertantly) thought-suggested something and then your friend brings it up? (With my dog it was a game. I'd think, "Want to go outside?" And there she was. Head perked and tail wagging.)
• Visions. Past, future or unexplained? Maybe you've had a dream, or a dream series that would later present itself. [Article of my biggest life-changing dream series.] When I say "past" I mean to say that once - in twilight sleep, a hypnogogic state - I had a vision of me and my beloved in Egypt. We were Egyptians and we were saying goodbye to each other. Just a thought? A vision? Don't know.
• Seeker. Seeker/Fighter. Always searching for the higher spiritual calling. Have you understood, since you've been a small child that there was a special connection between you and the Divine? Have you particularly rebelled at this for whatever reason? Have you allowed alcohol, drugs, or other human distractions to numb you from this calling?

• Coincidence. [Synchronicity] Have you been prone to noticing the ease with which certain things occur for you? Can you notice when the Divine has you on a certain path or mission? Do these coincidences seemingly happen to you more so than other people to the extent that you don't bother explaining when a casual friend is in awe that something you absolutely needed to happen happened?
• Empathic. Giving and Receiving Energy, Spirit, or Emotions. Do animals, children and certain people seem drawn to you? Are there people you know who have physically made you sick or very tired? Have you often felt so open that anxiety attacks seemed only seconds away? Do certain situations seem to be okay with other people, yet you're feeling like "What the heck?"; Have you been depressed for no apparent reason to discover a loved one was in pain? Do you have friends "on your radar?"

Conclusion below

Watching The Celestine Prophecy two nights ago - which was based on the like-named book - brought this all together for me as yet another validation that there is a higher calling for the HSP gifted. I could not believe that my life was there in that movie; my beliefs, my seeking, my philosophy on spirituality. It propelled me to add books for the HSP-inclined to the "Samsara bookstore" over and beyond the discovery phase of "dealing with being Highly Sensitive."

Being a Highly Sensitive Person, I believe, is a gift. Once I overcame the distinction of feeling unusual and odd, I was able to embrace the gifts.

Reproduced from original HSP: Seeing the Paranormal in Everyday 

Above Contents Copyright 2007, Samsara for Living Within Samsara

See below for the Celestine Prophecy trailer.

I began my HSP undertaking [adopting the name, researching, looking for causality and characteristics] in the summer of 2005. In 2006 I went looking for "others" and found them. Now I'm going deeper with other HSP cooperation. So I want to say Thanks. Thanks for reading & visiting.