When Patterns Emerge:

Finding meaning in the seemingly random: blessing, curse, or simply another way of navigating the world?

Have you ever found yourself staring at the clouds and not just seeing fluffy white shapes, but entire stories unfolding? Or perhaps you’ve experienced that moment when song lyrics seem to perfectly describe your current life situation, as if the universe is sending you a personal message? If so, you’ve experienced apophenia – the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. And if you’re neurodivergent, this experience might be especially familiar.

What Exactly Is Apophenia?

Apophenia, sometimes called “patternicity,” is our brain’s tendency to find patterns and connections in random or unrelated information. It’s a fundamental aspect of human cognition that helped our ancestors survive (“Was that rustle in the grass just wind, or a predator?”). While everyone experiences apophenia to some degree, for neurodivergent individuals, especially those with ADHD, autism, or dyslexia, this phenomenon can manifest in particularly interesting ways.

The Neurodivergent Pattern-Seeking Brain

As a neurodivergent person, I’ve always been fascinated by my brain’s ability to make connections that others miss. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered this tendency has a name, and that it’s particularly common among people whose brains are wired like mine.

For those of us with ADHD, our heightened pattern recognition abilities can feel like both a superpower and a burden. We might:

• Predict plot twists in movies long before they happen
• Make intuitive leaps between concepts that seem unrelated to others
• Notice subtle behavioral patterns in people that hint at their true feelings
• Connect disparate ideas to create innovative solutions

This enhanced pattern recognition isn’t coincidental. Research suggests that the ADHD brain has “greater synaptic connections in the part of the brain that deals with visual imagery,” making us “visual thinkers” and enhancing pattern recognition. For many of us, this manifests as an ability to find and recognize patterns with minimal information, beyond what most neurotypical people can perceive.

Similarly, autism has been linked to highly patterned perception and cognition. One researcher suggests that autism “involves increases and enhancements to pattern perception, pattern recognition, pattern maintenance, pattern generation, pattern processing, and pattern seeking.” This perspective helps explain both the social challenges and remarkable cognitive strengths that many autistic individuals experience.

When Pattern Recognition Goes Into Overdrive

While enhanced pattern recognition can be beneficial, it also has its challenges. For me, and many other neurodivergent individuals, apophenia can sometimes go into overdrive.

On difficult days, I might:

• Interpret a colleague’s brief email as evidence they’re upset with me
• See connections between unrelated events and develop anxiety about what they “mean”
• Become overwhelmed by too many patterns and stimuli in my environment
• Spend hours going down rabbit holes of connections that others don’t see or value

This isn’t just everyday overthinking. For neurodivergent minds, the pattern-seeking function can sometimes become so pronounced that “problematic apophenia that interferes with your functionality or daily life may be due to more than an active learning process”. It’s important to recognize when healthy pattern recognition crosses into territory that impacts our wellbeing.

The Connection to Rejection Sensitivity

One particularly challenging aspect of apophenia for many neurodivergent people is how it intersects with rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) – that overwhelming emotional response to perceived rejection that many with ADHD and autism experience.

When our brains are constantly seeking patterns, we might:

• Notice subtle changes in tone or expression that others miss
• Interpret these changes as evidence of rejection or disapproval
• Connect unrelated social events into a narrative of exclusion
• Become convinced that everyone around us is somehow connected in ways that exclude us

This combination of enhanced pattern recognition and heightened sensitivity to rejection can create perfect conditions for social anxiety and self-doubt. I’ve spent countless evenings replaying interactions, finding “patterns” that suggest I’ve somehow alienated everyone – only to discover later that these connections existed primarily in my mind.

Embracing the Pattern-Seeking Mind

Despite its challenges, I’ve come to view my pattern-seeking brain as one of my greatest assets. While I sometimes need to check my perceptions against reality (preferably with the help of a trusted friend), my ability to see connections that others miss has led to some of my most creative work and deepest insights.

For fellow neurodivergent pattern-seekers, I’ve found these approaches helpful:

1. Reality-checking: When you notice yourself making connections, ask “Is this pattern real, or am I creating it?” Sometimes just acknowledging the possibility of apophenia creates valuable distance.
2. Channeling the pattern-seeking: Creative writing, art, music, programming, and scientific research are all fields where pattern recognition is highly valuable. Find ways to direct your pattern-seeking mind toward productive outlets.
3. Pattern breaks: Deliberately interrupt patterns when they become overwhelming. Change your environment, activity, or sensory input to reset your pattern-seeking tendencies.
4. Pattern sharing: Discuss the patterns you perceive with trusted others. This can both validate genuine insights and help identify when apophenia is leading you astray.
5. Appreciating the gift: Remember that your ability to see connections others miss is valuable. Many scientific discoveries, artistic masterpieces, and technological innovations have come from minds that excel at pattern recognition.

Beyond Pathology: The Value of Different Ways of Seeing

While excessive apophenia can sometimes be associated with conditions like schizophrenia and OCD, it’s important to recognize that for many neurodivergent individuals, enhanced pattern recognition represents not pathology but simply a different way of processing information.

Research has found connections between openness to experience (a personality trait), positive schizotypy, and apophenia. This suggests that the same cognitive mechanisms that enable creative thinking and intellectual curiosity might also predispose us to see patterns more readily.

Rather than viewing our pattern-seeking tendencies solely as liabilities to be managed, perhaps we can recognize them as valuable cognitive differences that contribute to human diversity and innovation.

Finding Balance

The challenge for many neurodivergent individuals isn’t eliminating pattern-seeking tendencies – it’s finding a healthy balance where we can benefit from our enhanced pattern recognition without becoming overwhelmed by it.

For me, this has meant learning to appreciate the connections I see while developing the critical thinking skills to evaluate which patterns are meaningful and which might be products of my apophenia-prone mind.

Some days I’m better at this than others. But on my best days, I recognize that my pattern-seeking brain isn’t broken – it’s simply tuned to a different frequency, picking up signals and connections that might otherwise go unnoticed in the beautiful chaos of our world.

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Do you experience enhanced pattern recognition? How does it manifest in your life? Share your experiences in the comments below.

#Neurodiversity #ADHD #Autism #Apophenia #PatternRecognition #CognitiveDifferences