Ok, if you’re familiar with the term then well done, you’re well ahead of me!
I had never come across it before but saw it on LinkedIn the other day and I can identify with it. I have been on a family trip to Whitby in the North of England and was lucky enough to see dolphins in the wild close-up. It was special. But what’s it got to do with ADHD?
Dolphining is the act of mainly ADHDers diving into their thoughts mid-conversation and making associations quickly and then coming back to the surface and saying something seemingly random and unrelated to the subject of the ongoing conversation.
It is thought that this is due to ADHD brains being different in how they process and many are very creative and good with finding unique solutions to problems, they can also go on flights of fancy and leave others scratching their heads.
It can be a problem when others you are in conversation with assume you’re bored, not listening etc but in reality you are pedalling so hard mentally under the surface and connecting thoughts in a non-linear way. Hence the randomness.
It’s not deliberate and in my case not meant to be disrespectful but some of it is perhaps about capturing a realisation and voicing it before it leaves my head. I frequently think of doing something and if I don’t do it then I often come back to it much later randomly. It reminds me of watching Billy Connolly in concert, he is well known for going off on tangents when telling stories then eventually ‘circling back’. Unsurprisingly the ‘ Big Yin’ had said that he has ADHD as many comedians do.
It feels like a separate post to make but there are many links between comedy and neurodivergence. Comics often need others to feedback and respond with laughter which may feel like approval, many have very quick racing minds enabling them to seem sharp and witty with often original and random thoughts.
If you spot some dolphining in a future conversation be curious about it. Perhaps even (very nicely) ask the person how they went from a to b, for many it’s a straight line, for ADHDers it’s often A to z, back to Q and a little jump forwards around S-T and eventually back to B in the blink of an eye.
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