Autism/Cerebral Palsy and psychic abilities.

Hello, just in terms of being autistic and psychic abilities i think i can relate to this. Im 53F officially diagnosed 6 months ago. My whole life i think I think i know how other people feel about me without them actually telling me. I can pick up on an atmosphere in a room within a second of walking into it. I also got reiki and once tge person doing it said they could pick up i was like this. It feels like couple of things going on for me- being autistic means picking up on so much information that others give out non verbally  every single minute detail. Then there's the trauma response which I think someone mentioned below, being on high alert to threats 100% of the time also means I pick up on tiny details that others wouldn't see. For me, most of the stuff I pick up on is when it's negative about me, like my brain is hard wired for that, a survival strategy. 

I got this from Google about what psychic means-I thought the OP might have a different perception of what they term as those abilites and so I wanted to read it from them.

A psychic is-

“someone believed to have extrasensory perception (ESP), using special mental abilities like telepathy (mind-reading), clairvoyance (seeing events), or precognition (seeing the future) to know things beyond normal senses, often communicating with spirits or receiving spiritual insights. While psychics offer readings using tools like tarot or crystals, scientific research into these claims has shown no conclusive evidence for psychic powers, with some abilities attributed to cold reading or interpretation, but many people still seek guidance from them"

I don't want to make this about me-but I am sensory-tested level 2 with ADOS and probably can reach level 3 at times. I feel things and react to things of a sensory nature. I will say I have a faith what pyschic terms as clairvoyance or precognition my faith will see this as possible through the Holy Spirit through baptism and see this as a vision or message from Christ's ministry. It has to be in line with what he teaches. I have seen visions whilst serving in the church after being blessed with one of those of the Holy Spirit. As a child I thought I saw something ghostly at under 10 around and me and my brother freaked. Whatever that was it is like it has been harnessed through my faith and it doesn't happen anymore. I see the supernatural as being the invisible world that my faith talks about things of the spirits, angels, demons, heaven and mysteries, God's spirit, that is unseen to most eyes and may be those that are not very sensory.

This is it in my faith mentioned-Romans 1:20-

From Google-

I don't think that psychic and the supernatural are the same, I'm not even sure I believe in the "supernatural", how can something be outside of nature? But I do think that what we call psychic abilities are innate in all of us and are evolutionary but atrophied in many people.

One of the things I've noticed over the years of talking to people about being psychic, is that they've all had some level of childhood trauma, or a big dose of trauma as an adult, like being in a war zone. We know the autistic brain is different to an NT one, we know that ND children often struggle with school and often bullied, I think this leads to our psychic abilities remaining open, as we need that early warning system. I think it closes off in many people, on the whole compared to our early ancestors our world is relatively safe, we don't have to worry large predators etc, we also tell children what magical beings and experiences to believe in, Father Xmas is OK as is the Tooth Fairy, but only up to a certain age. I think we deliberately shut down our psychicness and lable people who still have it as mad or deluded, but definately not normal.

Yet remain open it does, for many people, they sense things, sometimes things that are more on the "supernatural" end of the scale, like awareness of people who've died, sudden feelings of sorrow in certain places only to find out that something bad happened in that place. I've never known a time when I wasn't for want of a better word psychic, or when I'd not been aware of things not usually accepted in the everyday world. To me it's entirely natural and normal and even everyday. I know some people want hard evidence and lots of it, and I can't give it to them, oddly those who don't experience these things are much more exercised by my experience than I am by their lack of them.

Interesting, I don''t kknow what you see your psychic abilities to be, is this supernatural or something different?

I don't know if this could come from your cerebral palsy or autism but some research has shown that people with autism are more sensitive to supernatural events than neurotypicals..perhaps is this is due sensory sensitivity or something else...

Research by Ingela Visuri in 2018 found that autistics have increased somasensory perceptions which lead to increased supernatural experiences. See below for basically in a nutshell was they argued-
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2153599X.2018.1548374

“non-autistic group participants, and current research suggests that unusual somatosensory experiences are prevalent in the autistic population. Attribution of invisible agency is understood as a sense-making coping strategy, and it is argued that esoteric content in fantasy literature, movies and computer games explain why these young adults prefer to attribute agency to ghosts, spirits and demons, rather than god(s). The study thereby extends and challenges the study of autism and religiosity by exploring the intersection between autistic embodiment and encultured cognition”.

More research later in Autism and Religion in 2023 found the below-
“We dispute the assumption that individuals with ASD are inherently less religious and spiritual than the neurotypical population. Religiosity is possibly expressed differently in ASD with unique spiritual experiences and beliefs (“gifted, visionary, and truth-seeker”).
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10453845/

......

I am a very sensory person but not pyschic. i have worked with though with the Holy Spirit in my faith which was probably enchanced by being sensory sensitive.

I hadn't heard about this so thanks. Interesting. 

I found this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/13/it-can-break-you-life-for-parents-of-autistic-children-can-be-exhausting-one-podcast-is-offering-hope-is-it-real

I do believe I have these abilities although AI on Google attributes it to pattern recognition, sensory process and intuition etc.

Oh I just remembered why I made this post because I was walking a video about telepathy between non-verbal autistic children. Which I can do too with my psychic abilities.