Neurodiversity refers to the fact that brains naturally occur in a diverse range of operating systems.
Neurodivergent (ND) is an adjective that refers to those brains that “diverge” in operation from what dominant society has decided is “normal”; for example, Autistic, ADHD, etc., as opposed to neurotypical (NT).
One night, I was researching a stand-up comedian I’d come across, who, in my opinion, gave off very Autistic energy. (More on him later!) According to his Wikipedia page, his work is considered “surreal humor.” That gave me pause. I thought it was a strange label, since his work seemed strictly observational to me.
My brain began to pull up its files on Autistic/neurodivergent creators and surrealism. And I started to wonder.
Is there a connection between the ND experience and surrealism? Do ND perspectives appear surrealist to NTs? Is all ND art surrealist? Or maybe this is a double-empathy situation where NT folks don’t understand NDs and label our stuff as surrealist or weird.
Fall with me down the surreal-neurodivergent rabbit hole…
What is surrealism?
According to Merriam Webster, surrealism is defined as:
the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surrealism
Wikipedia gives a little more context:
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality”, or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism
On its face, surrealism doesn’t connect directly to neurodivergence. Or does it?
Let’s continue down the rabbit hole and look at some artists who are known to be surrealist, ND, or both, and see what we can see…
WARNING AND A GREAT BIG CAVEAT: I am going to be speculating on the Autistic/ND status of people I don’t know. I know this isn’t best practice. I know I may be wrong. But also: when I say something “is” or someone “seems” Autistic/ND, that is a neutral statement. And, because of my bias toward Autistic/ND people (I am one myself ), it may even be a compliment. There exists a knee-jerk reaction against speculative labeling like this, in part because of the assumption that it is an insult to call someone Autistic/ND. It is not, and I reject that assumption as a product of unexamined ableism. I reserve the right to speculate as a kind of Autistic/ND peer review, knowing I may be wrong, but also that it is dangerous to be “out” as an Autistic/ND person, especially in the entertainment industry, and that biases against and misunderstandings of Autism/ND may prohibit people from being assessed in the first place. We’re doing the best we can with what we have and trying to build a better world by having conversations exactly like this.
Mitch Hedberg
Mitch Hedberg is the aforementioned stand-up comedian who first got me thinking about surrealism and neurodivergence. Hedberg was a stand-up comedian who rose to fame in the 1990s and early 2000s before his death by accidental overdose.
Now, I can’t say with certainty that Hedberg was Autistic. I can’t assess him from the grave, and as far as I know, he was never formally assessed. However, after watching his 20-minute set for Comedy Central, I am ready to peer-review him into the Neurodivergent Club.
There’s a certain tuning-fork sensation I feel when an artist or a work speaks to me in a very particular way. Through trial and error, I’ve learned to pay attention to it and to trust it. It’s usually a sign that the creator is operating with a neurodivergent system. I don’t know how to explain it more than that. I could compare it to gaydar, I suppose, but on a cellular or vibrational level.
And with Mitch…boy, I feel it.
His body language combined with his granular, rapid-fire method of joke telling, the literalism, deadpan tone, practiced and perfected cadence, as well as his own off-stage accounts of his childhood and adolescence make me about 90% sure.
I became instantly obsessed, of course, because on top of the tuning-fork tell, he’s really hilarious. It was on my first internet deep dive that I found that he was known for his “surreal” humor.
That label didn’t make sense (I think the concept of stand-up is surreal in general), until I also researched surrealism and took into account the part of surrealism that is concerned with juxtaposition. Hedberg’s jokes were mostly one or two sentences long, and he moved from one to the next with no apparent order or connection. It’s a different style than what’s popular now, for example, stand-up John Mulaney, whose work involves long-form narration. It’s different, too, from openly Autistic stand-up Hannah Gadsby, whose material is intricately interconnected. Her special Douglas in particular comes to mind.
My point is, the connected narrative styles of Mulaney and Gadsby stand in stark contrast to Hedberg, and they would never be labeled as surrealist. (It is interesting to note that Gadsby, Autistic, doesn’t fall into the surrealist camp. All Autistic people are different, and, evidently, being Autistic doesn’t make one a surrealist.)
David Lynch
David Lynch might be the most well-known modern surrealist on this list. I can’t say whether Lynch is neurodivergent. He does seem very blunt in interviews, and has a particular way of speaking that isn’t strictly neurotypical-aligned.
Though Lynch’s work can be extremely obscure, it seems to have found a foothold in mainstream media, the feature film Mulholland Drive and the television series Twin Peaks being perhaps the most popular.
Last year, I watched the full Twin Peaks saga (seasons 1 and 2, the prequel film Fire: Walk with Me, and season 3 “The Return”) for the first time. I was struck by the degree to which I identified with the bizarro world of Twin Peaks, Washington. I’m going to take as an example one of the most obviously surreal scenes in the film Fire: Walk with Me.
Two FBI agents are sitting in Hap’s Diner late at night. The underlying music is weird and dreamy. (One of Lynch’s signatures is the ability to reproduce the uncanny sensation of being in a dream; I’ve never seen more accurate representations of the experience.) There’s a collection of strange people, among them a woman who speaks only in French. There’s dialogue, and the questions and answers don’t line up. At least one question is repeated. People do things that don’t make sense. The scene doesn’t amount to anything obvious.
There’s an unspoken question here, maybe something about social convention, something like, “Isn’t all of this odd?”
My experience of being ND in NT-dominant social spaces feels very much the way that scene made me feel as a viewer. I found myself laughing with delight as I watched: Lynch gets it! He understands how it feels to be in the world. Bizarre, unexplained, and jarring.
Madeleine Ryan
Madeleine Ryan is an Australian novelist who realized she was Autistic in the middle of writing her debut novel A Room Called Earth. The protagonist is identified as Autistic on the back cover, but the word “Autistic” is not mentioned in the book itself.
I have never identified so strongly with a character on the page. In fact, reading this book helped me realize the mental gymnastics I had been performing all my life in order to identify with characters in books who had absolutely nothing in common with me. Reading this protagonist was like slipping on a worn, comfy glove.
I haven’t seen anyone describing it as “surrealist,” there’s an argument to be made that it is.
The book takes place in a less-than-24-hour period, largely in the narrator’s head. She drifts freely in stream of consciousness. This allows for a stretching of time and space, for rumination on crystals, dating, cats, parties, and how one chooses what to wear to a party, all in the same paragraph. Juxtaposition galore, as well as a sense of hyper-reality. The narrator’s inner world overflows with a rich, technicolor array of sensations, until external world intrudes. The realities of social anxiety and misunderstanding cut harshly in–another juxtaposition.
This novel may get closest to demonstrating the inner workings of an Autistic mind, and why NTs sort it as surrealist. But more on this later.
Daniel Kwan
Daniel Kwan, one of the co-writers and -directors of the award-winning, mind-blowing film Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAAO), is ADHD. He co-created Evelyn, the main character, as an undiagnosed ADHD woman, and discovered his own neurodivergence in the research process.
EEAAO is an obviously surrealist romp that delights in the chaos of juxtaposition. Compared to Lynch’s work, this is much more accessible. Though it does delve into serious topics, it does so with a clarity, lightness, humor, and joy I’d hazard Lynch is not interested in.
The mechanism of the multiverse in EEAAO feels very similar to the inner workings of my thought processes. If x then y, but if x was z, then a, etc., etc., an infinite extrapolation of variables, possibilities, examining how my emotions would change, how my life would play out differently, and so forth. The abrupt changes and the random events needed to activate characters’ “super powers” feel related to attention shifts.
And that may be another clue to the ND-surrealist connection! With brains that struggle with dopamine production and directing our own attention, we are more able to tune in, pay attention, when there is variety. When we are asked to make connections, to follow fast worldbuilding in the middle of hand-to-hand combat in an IRS office with fishbowls and fanny packs and Jamie Lee Curtis hurtling through the air right at the camera–
EEAAO was the first movie in years where I wasn’t tempted once to pause or check my phone. I was locked in. It’s almost like an ND creator knows how to hold ND attention… And, maybe, to ND brains, surrealism is just more interesting. I wonder if it’s because it more closely mimics our inner landscape and brain processing, or whether it is just more able to hold our attention. Maybe both…
Nathan Fielder
Nathan Fielder is a Canadian actor, comedian, director, etc. Some of his well-known TV programs are Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. He also had a new scripted comedy show out with Emma Stone, The Curse, which I haven’t gotten to yet.
I’m going to focus on The Rehearsal, because, even just on a conceptual level, it is outrageously Autistic. Nathan Fielder’s presence within it also screams Autism.
It is difficult to tell how much, if any, of The Rehearsal or of Nathan Fielder’s persona is scripted vs. real. This seems to be one of Fielder’s calling cards–and a strong element of surrealism in itself, bending reality. But if we take The Rehearsal at face value, it’s perhaps the perfect example of the alliance between surrealism and neurodivergence.
In the series–a blend of reality television, comedy, and surprisingly heartfelt documentary–Fielder works with clients to help them practice hard conversations or experiences ahead of time, creating elaborately realistic sets and numerous potential dialogue trees to facilitate every conceivable outcome.
Almost every client Fielder worked with seemed Autistic. This shouldn’t really be surprising: it’s logical that folks who’d be most interested in participating in this show would be Autistic or ND. We do this type of rehearsing in our heads every day.
Most Autistic or ND people endorse that they plan out, or rehearse, social interactions before they happen. The Rehearsal as a social experiment plays out this mental preparation in a 3D space.
Honestly, I was jealous. I would love to be able to practice situations like this!
Fielder comes across Autistic: flat affect, flat tone, minimal facial expression, self-endorsed difficulty reading people…and his own desire to rehearse big moments (like parenting) is very Autistic.
The imagery of the show is very surrealist: a city bar perfectly recreated inside a massive warehouse, Nathan dressed up as other people in reenactments of future or past events, shots of a cozy family home interrupted when the child actor’s legal work hours are up and he is spirited from the home by set production.
When elements in the social experiment don’t go the way he anticipates, Fielder backtracks, spending time and a ridiculous amount of production resources, retroactively creating situations from the past to try to gain understanding.
Autistic folks often describe themselves as aliens studying the neurotypical human race. And if that’s not Fielder, and if that’s not The Rehearsal, I don’t know what is.
What does any of this have in common?
Even though these artists don’t fall under the same neurodivergent umbrella (that we know of), and even though they aren’t all self-proclaimed surrealists, their work has commonality.
- Many small parts making up a less-obvious whole. Pastische. An unwillingness to explain itself. Unconventional storytelling methods or structures. Greater-than-average complexity. This may relate to what some call bottom-up processing: a need or tendency to recognize details first before an overall concept can be realized. Bottom-up processing is associated with ND thought patterns. I think this is really a key concept to pulling all of this together.
- An “unconventional” emotional affect. Deadpan humor. A kind of satire that reads as flat or emotionless on the surface. Unexpected delivery. As with Mitch Hedberg, his cadence (which feels extremely rehearsed) is a huge part of why his jokes land. Bluntness. Matter-of-fact to the point of pain or vulnerability. Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks and the narrator of A Room Called Earth are emotionally open, sharing their thought processes, passions, and interests with almost reckless abandon.
- Non-verbal symbolism. This applies specifically to Lynch and Kwan. Surrealism in film is privileged in that it can convey a breadth of ideas without using words. Lynch’s The Return is sometimes entirely non-verbal, to the point of confounding the audience. I found this to be fascinating, whether I ever understood his intent or not (my money’s on “not”). Lots of visual symbols in EEAAO aren’t specifically explained, though most of it can be intuited via context; the circle/bagel is a big one, as are the googly eyes stuck incongruously on everything.
My Two Cents
My own experience, of course, informs everything about what I’ve written here. And, per my experience, I would argue: being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world feels surreal. I think ND folks, artists and art viewers alike, gravitate toward surrealism because it creates an experience they relate to.
The dreamscape of confusing social interactions. The chaotic sensory minefield of going into a store packed with products, the bottom-up brain prioritizing each individual item before being able to make sense of the store as a comprehensive whole. The inability to block out a smell or a sound. The out-of-body experience of knowing no one else is experiencing this moment like you are. The dissociation when overwhelm threatens.
All of that (and more) produce a feeling of unnatural juxtaposition. A fragmentation of sensory experience. Feeling out of place is the sensation of surrealism. Feeling out of place is the sensation of ND experience.
Having to constantly dissect and analyze, to figure out the world working only from context clues, produces brains that play at finding connections. Lynch’s work challenges even the strongest connection-finding minds–and a challenge is exciting in a world of media that is formulaic as all hell. Hedberg’s work confounds connection-making, which is a delight: there’s no chance of getting bored. If you don’t like a joke, he’s already on the next one. EEAAO is a beautiful balance of connection-finding and boredom-busting: with fast pacing, intricate interconnectedness, and dense worldbuilding, it’s impossible to get bored or look away.
In Conclusion?
I’m not sure I have a final conclusion or end point. I think the connection between neurodivergence and surrealism goes deeper than I’ve been able to get at. There’s a good chance I’ll come back to this idea. But for now, this is what I’ve got. This is what I’ve been thinking about.
I’m sure there are things to be gleaned in other art media I haven’t yet looked into, too, like visual art and music.
Let me know what you think! Have I missed any crucial ND creators and/or surrealist work? If you are ND, does this align with your experience?
Allison Wall 