History Main / NeurodiversityIsSupernatural

** The sixth season had [[spoiler:Sam missing his soul]], which was treated as sociopathy. Dean's reference to ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' in describing him implies that there are natural sociopaths, though.

* ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'' is a subversion: Mio feels intense regret due to feeling like she abandoned Midori, [[spoiler:an imaginary friend that lasted well into late childhood and which adults believed she was hallucinating]], until she suddenly appears as a supernatural presence within her route. However, the final route of the game confirms that [[spoiler:all magical things existing within the routes are due them occurring within the dream world. The dream world was able to manifest Midori as a physical presence through magic, but her hallucinations as a middle schooler were entirely mundane]].

Contrast and compare TheMadnessPlace, where the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus hyperfocus]] common to autistic people conveys incredible scientific talent, as well as ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder.

* ''Literature/AriaTheScarletAmmo'': Hysteria Savant Syndrome is a genetic trait that the main and other characters can use which activates 30 times more neural transmitters than the average person. This means that logical thinking, judgment, and reflexes are risen greater than an average human. It also be based on the real-world medical condition of savant syndrome.

* ''Manga/TouhouIbarakasenWildAndHornedHermit'': While it's well known that possession by certain types of youkai can cause personality changes, in Chapter 35 when Marisa theorizes that Reimu's sudden lethargy is possibly due to something possessing her (Though she finds it unlikely that Reimu could get possessed.), Kasen states that mental conditions are perfectly capable of happening without possession being involved.

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* In ''Film/TheDeadCenter'', the doctor initially thinks the mysterious John Doe is suffering from kind of trauma-induced catatonia and dissociative amnesia. Turns out these are symptoms of [[spoiler: DemonicPossession.]]

* In ''Film/TheOmen2006'' remake, Damien shows signs of having some sort of developmental disorder, and it's bizarre how his modern, 2006 mother automatically subscribes to this trope instead of having him tested. The fact she's right doesn't lessen the unrealistic oddness of her reactions.
* [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] and [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''Film/TrickRTreat''. Rhonda has a better grasp of the film's supernatural elements than most of the other characters as a result of her autism, but not for any supernatural reason. It's just that her special interest is the folklore and superstition surrounding Halloween.

!!!'''By Author:'''
* While it's nigh-impossible to be sure of ''anything'' in a Creator/PhilipKDick story, some of them imply an extraterrestrial or sci-fi origin for schizophrenia and psychosis (and autism in ''Literature/MartianTimeSlip'', which is explained as a child being out of sync with time). However, he has NWordPrivileges here -- he had a full-blown schizophrenic breakdown in the late 70s, and the warning signs were there starting from about the time ''Literature/TimeOutOfJoint'' came out.
!!!'''By Work:'''

* ''Literature/TheCosmere'': Played with. Having a cracked soul is a necessary prerequisite for most of the magic systems, and one of the side effects of having a cracked soul is that you are more receptive to influence from the Cognitive Realm, meaning that these people often hear voices from ghosts and planar travelers. However, people with schizophrenia cannot tell the difference between real voices from the Cognitive Realm and hallucinations. It should be noted that schizophrenia is not the only thing that causes a cracked soul, things like depression and PTSD can also crack the soul.

* In ''Literature/DexterInTheDark'', all sociopaths are possessed by beings implied to be the children of {{Satan}}.
* In ''Literature/{{Dreamcatcher}}'', Duddits (the kid with Down Syndrome that is a friend of the main characters) [[InexplicablyAwesome just happens to be a powerful psychic]], who has foreseen some of the twists long ago during their childhood and provided them all with a mental link. Of course, many of Stephen King's works include [[CreatorThumbprint inexplicably psychic children]], most of which are neurotypical, so maybe he just won the lottery.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': In the short story "Zoo Day", the "creeps" are demonic entities that [[WouldHurtAChild attack]], possess, and [[InvisibleToAdults can only be seen by children]]. When one of the protagonists (young [[spoiler:Maggie Dresden]]) fights back against them, their psychic attacks are described in a way similar to clinical depression (i.e., internal intrusive voices continually mocking you and encouraging you to kill yourself), and it's implied that many young children suffering from depression are in fact possessed by creeps.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', the Dementors are evil creatures connected with depression, and it's implied that they cause it in Muggles, who don't see magical things and attribute it to scientific causes.

* In ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', it's implied that a lot of Elphaba's oddities are a result of her being a [[spoiler:"child of both worlds", which also comes with immense natural magical talent.]]
* ''Literature/YoungWizards'': In ''A Wizard Alone'', Darryl becomes autistic [[spoiler:in an attempt to withdraw from the sensations of being malignantly observed by the [[BigBad Lone Power]]]]. It's portrayed very differently from the experiences of real-world autistics, though it looks similar from the outside. The New Millennium edition averts this completely however: Darryl is just autistic and a wizard, and while his autism influences his wizardry it wasn't caused by it.
* In ''Literature/DaystarAndShadow'', autistics are [[GoalOrientedEvolution the next stage of evolution]], with superpowers like mind-reading and telepathy.
* In ''Literature/TwelveDays'', Madame Gupta tells Olympia that her autistic son Hannibal is an "indigo child" whose disability is caused by a kundalini trap - a blockage of his energy - and that she wants to work with him to help him release the trap and access his incredible potential. [[spoiler:She actually wants to use his powers to kill people in SympatheticMagic rituals, because he's the first person she's ever met who's powerful enough to kill people without killing himself. In the end he turns his powers on Madame Gupta and all her accomplices in order to save his family.]]
* ''Literature/MoojagAndTheAuticodeSecret'': In addition to the twenty-one senses that most people have, autistics have a twenty-second sense that allows them to read others' emotions and predict future events, but most have buried it because they either weren't aware of it or couldn't control it. When the people running the world learned about the super sense, they were afraid of what autistics might be able to do, so around the time of the Surge, the Conqip took a large number of autistic children underground so they can use the problem-solving abilities enabled by the twenty-second sense to design technology that will allow the Conqip to live in luxury. The Auts form an underclass whom the Conqip feel free to insult and mistreat, even though their lifestyle depends on them.
* In Creator/LawrenceWattEvans' short story "One of the Boy", [[SupermanSubstitute Captain Cosmos]], [[RaisedByHumans an alien who raised by humans]], has trouble with social cues in a way that resembles autism. The implication seems to be [[BizarreAlienPsychology this is normal for his species]].

* All ''Series/{{Alphas}}'' have some kind of [[DisabilitySuperpower mental or physical disability]] to accompany their abilities. Gary for instance is autistic and able to sense and translate radio waves, he's also immune to Nina's CompellingVoice because his brain is too "rigid". One episode gets pretty explicit about it, with a manifesto video by the Alpha terrorist group Red Flag talking about "the recognition of true neurodiversity."
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
** Both shows generally portray soullessness as being sociopathy, to the extent that an early ''Angel'' episode implies normal human sociopaths are people born without souls.
** In ''Buffy'', season 5 BigBad Glory feeds off people's sanity and makes them insane. The terms are kept vague, but the results resemble schizophrenia.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E10VincentAndTheDoctor "Vincent and the Doctor"]]: There appears to be a link between Vincent van Gogh's madness/depression, and his ability to see invisible aliens. Which one causes which is somewhat unclear, though.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E10InTheForestOfTheNight "In the Forest of the Night"]] features the cute-as-a-button little girl Maebh, who can hear voices that turn out to be some kind of sci-fi fairies.

* In ''Series/{{Eureka}}'', Kevin's autism is the result of a mysterious supernatural force never quite explained. [[spoiler:Kevin is eventually able to cure his autism by figuring out how to time travel and changing events so that the force never affects him.]]

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' has Jojen Reed, a teenager who can see the future, but has bouts of what can be clearly identified as epilepsy to a modern audience. According to his sister, his epilepsy is a direct effect of his powers.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' presents synesthesia as a superpower. Though the power is later shown to be more of an ability to manipulate sound, its introduction has it as simply sound-to-color synesthesia.
* ''Series/Legion2017'': Played with. David Leeds has believed for his entire life that he was schizophrenic. He was finally admitted to a psych hospital after he trashed his girlfriend's kitchen. A few years later, there was another incident at the hospital, where several people died. This brought him to the attention of the Division, who realized that he is a powerful psychic and try to control him. A group of mutants rescue him and begin helping him untangle the damage the well-meaning doctors did. While doing so, they discover that while he is even more powerful than they thought, he's also schizophrenic, with disturbing visions, extremely distorted memories, and serious emotional issues, all of which make controlling his powers a challenging prospect at best. And ''then'' [[spoiler:it turns out that the "visions" are of a very real psychic parasite which has edited his memories to remove any sign of itself. And then it manages to take control of his body and his powers...]]

* Creator/StephenKing committed this trope in his screenplay for the miniseries ''Series/RoseRed''. Annie Wheaton is an autistic with extreme telekinetic powers, and her ArtInitiatesLife -- when she does pictures of rocks falling on a neighbor's home, they do.[[note]]King also used rocks falling on a house in ''Carrie'', inspired by an incident in Creator/ShirleyJackson's ''Literature/TheHauntingOfHillHouse''. ''Rose Red'' was originally supposed to be a modern takeoff on Jackson's work, and King thought it failed primarily because it was a collaboration with Creator/StevenSpielberg and his insistence on more unsubtle action sequences.[[/note]] Many of the supposed ghostly activities in the house are actually Annie's doing. They also find out that she's telepathic and communicates perfectly well that way.
* An episode of ''Series/Sanctuary2007'' plays with and subverts this when it features an autistic boy with a supernatural power and at the end brings in his neurotypical brother with the same power, showing that the power is unconnected to his autism.

** Also in Season 4, Jimmy Novak starts hearing the voices of an angel through the tv, sticks his hand in boiling water as a test of faith and feels no pain and later [[spoiler: beats the hell out of his best friend claiming the man is possessed by a demon]]. His wife Amelia, quite naturally, thinks her husband has had a terrifying psychotic break, but the truth is everything Jimmy has seen and heard is real. When Amelia learns the truth, Jimmy tells her that her skepticism was totally normal.
** The sixth season had [[spoiler:Sam missing his soul]], which was treated as sociopathy. Dean's reference to ''{{Series/Dexter}}'' in describing him implies there are natural sociopaths, though.

* ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'': If a human child fails to become a wereraven (because their magical spirit egg was stolen before their first transformation) they tend to become autistic suddenly (despite autism spectrum disorders being congenital in real life).
* ''TabletopGame/{{KULT}}'': Schizophrenia is actually the ability to see behind the veil covering mundane reality. Mental illness in general is one of two roads to supernatural mojo (sainthood is the other one, but power-wise they're mutually exclusive).
** In the ''Divinity Lost'' reboot, it's explicitly said all mental illnesses are people seeing through the illusion- OCD is a subconscious attempt to perform magical rituals without the knowledge of how they work, personality disorders are attempts to suppress the knowledge of the illusion, depression is the soul being overwhelmed by confinement, etc.
* ''TabletopGame/MutantCityBlues'': A number of Mutant powers cause a mental derangement as a side-effect: as an example, mutants with force field powers have a significant chance of developing adult-onset autism. Notably, this trope was removed from the setting in the second edition of the game.

* ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'' is a subversion: Mio feels intense regret due to feeling like she abandoned Midori, [[spoiler:an imaginary friend that lasted well into late childhood and which adults believed she was hallucinating]], until she suddenly appears as a supernatural presence within her route. However, the final route of the game confirms that [[spoiler:all magical things existing within the routes are due them occurring within the dream world. The dream world was able to manifest Midori as a physical presence through magic, but her hallucinations as a middle schooler were entirely mundane.]]
* In ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods'', it's implied that Mae's dissociative episodes are caused, or at the very least made worse, by the presence of [[spoiler:the "Black Goat" that the cult worships. And that's assuming [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane the Black Goat is real]], and Mae's breakdown in the mines wasn't caused by stress or hallucinogenic mine gas.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', [[GreenRocks psitanium]]'s psychoreactive properties mean that prolonged exposure can result in the development or amplification of psychic powers, mental illness, or both. In addition, ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'' introduces the power of Mental Connection, which a particularly talented psychic can use to rewire someone's mental schemas and semantic network. Both psychics shown to use it--Razputin Aquato and Hollis Forsythe--have accidentally induced severe psychological disorders while carelessly trying to change someone's mind on a small matter.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' has a place on the soul spectrum for Light Children, who are born with just a little more / less soul than the average person (Sterlings). It's not that this causes things like Autism or Schizophrenia -- rather, they happen because the Light Child hasn't been trained properly (compared to the Celeste) to deal with their new powers and sensory abilities. It's implied that with proper training, these individuals can leap right into DisabilitySuperpower territory.
** One of the pages is even titled [[http://www.lastres0rt.com/2007/11/among-the-blind-the-one-eyed-man-is-insane/ "Among the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is Insane."]]

* ''WebComic/StandStillStaySilent'' downplays this with Lalli. He's both a mage and the member of the cast with an ambiguous disorder. The ISeeDeadPeople aspect of his powers can account for his [[AnOddPlaceToSleep strange choices of sleeping places]] (a preference for small spaces and having other people around), while his cat-like mannerisms may have something to do with his luonto being a lynx. However, there are two other mages in the story. Lalli's older and more experienced as a mage cousin Onni has an overblown and quite possibly justified BigBrotherInstinct (he got a PromotionToParent at some point in the past), but other than that acts perfectly normal. Budding mage Reynir lacks Lalli's quirks as well, but also has been a mage for too little a time for any possible long term effects on behaviour to kick in. In addition, the author herself has hinted that Lalli could be having some kind of neural issues that exist independently of his powers.

* In ''WesternAnimation/GodTheDevilAndBob'' crazy people can see {{God}}, just like [[PalsWithJesus Bob]] and [[ChildrenAreInnocent innocent]] [[InvisibleToAdults children]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RubyGloom'' universe, until a ghost gets its first scare it is invisible to everyone except "cats, psychics and that nutty guy on the street corner."
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Played with in "Sexual Healing", where the government blames sex addiction on a wizard alien living in Independence Hall. But what the government calls "sex addiction" isn't really sex addiction; it's just successful men taking advantage of their positions to fulfill normal urges like cheating on a partner. And the wizard alien story is bullshit on all levels, made up so people wouldn't have to admit to themselves that the urges that the sexual urges of men like Tiger Woods and Bill Clinton are normal.

* All ''Series/{{Alphas}}'' have some kind of [[DisabilitySuperpower mental or physical disability]] to accompany their abilities. Gary for instance is autistic and able to sense and translate radio waves, he's also immune to Nina's CompellingVoice because his brain is too "rigid".
** One episode gets pretty explicit about it, with a manifesto video by the Alpha terrorist group Red Flag talking about "the recognition of true neurodiversity."

* Creator/StephenKing committed this trope in his screenplay for the miniseries ''Series/RoseRed''. Annie Wheaton is an autistic with extreme telekinetic powers, and her ArtInitiatesLife -- when she does pictures of rocks falling on a neighbor's home, they do. [[note]]King also used rocks falling on a house in ''Carrie'', inspired by an incident in Creator/ShirleyJackson's ''Literature/TheHauntingOfHillHouse''. ''Rose Red'' was originally supposed to be a modern takeoff on Jackson's work, and King thought it failed primarily because it was a collaboration with Creator/StevenSpielberg and his insistence on more unsubtle action sequences.[[/note]] Many of the supposed ghostly activities in the house are actually Annie's doing. They also find out that she's telepathic and communicates perfectly well that way.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' plays with and subverts this when it features an autistic boy with a supernatural power and at the end brings in his neurotypical brother with the same power, showing that the power is unconnected to his autism.

* The title character of ''[[Manga/{{Akira}} AKIRA]]'' is a nine-year-old autistic child whose psychic awakening triggered a miniature Big Bang, annihilating Tokyo and triggering World War III.

* Many of the symptoms of [[DemonicPossession Possession]] in ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings'' and its sequel resemble those of certain real-world mental illnesses like schizophrenia, meaning that it's possible many of these instances are simply [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane dysfunctional people in a world that views them through a supernatural lens]].
* In ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods'', it's implied that Mae's dissociative episodes are caused, or at the very least made worse, by the presence of [[spoiler: the "Black Goat" that the cult worships. And that's assuming [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane the Black Goat is real]], and Mae's breakdown in the mines wasn't caused by stress or hallucinogenic mine gas.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', [[GreenRocks psitanium]]'s psychoreactive properties mean that prolonged exposure can result in the development or amplification of psychic powers, mental illness, or both. In addition, ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts 2}}'' introduces the power of Mental Connection, which a particularly talented psychic can use to rewire someone's mental schemas and semantic network. Both psychics shown to use it--Razputin Aquato and Hollis Forsythe--have accidentally induced severe psychological disorders while carelessly trying to change someone's mind on a small matter.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'' is a subversion: Mio feels intense regret due to feeling like she abandoned Midori, [[spoiler:an imaginary friend that lasted well into late childhood and which adults believed she was hallucinating]], until she suddenly appears as a supernatural presence within her route. However, the final route of the game confirms that [[spoiler:all magical things existing within the routes are due them occurring within the dream world. The dream world was able to manifest Midori as a physical presence through magic, but her hallucinations as a middle schooler were entirely mundane.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

For much of human history, up until the rise of psychiatry, mental conditions were commonly understood as related to the supernatural -- usually DemonicPossession, occasionally {{Changeling|Tale}}s, {{Mad Oracle}}s and the like. ScienceMarchesOn and the idea is not considered true in the West anymore. This could have been a TropeBreaker, but it wasn't. The idea still interests people and so the trope can still be found in fiction.

For much of human history, up until the rise of psychiatry, mental conditions were commonly understood as related to the supernatural -- DemonicPossession, {{Changeling|Tale}}s, MadOracle and the like. ScienceMarchesOn and the idea is not considered true in the West anymore. This could have been a TropeBreaker, but it wasn't. The idea still interests people and so the trope can still be found in fiction.

For much of human history, up until the rise of psychiatry, mental conditions were commonly understood as related to the supernatural -- DemonicPossession, {{Changeling|Tale}}s, MadOracle and the like. ScienceMarchesOn and the idea is not considered true in the West anymore. But the idea hasn't passed out of the public imagination, and can still be found in fiction.