This label describes me, to a T. I'd never heard of this until I saw your post. Weird.

I'm generally opposed to the creation of new pop-psych labels for vague collections of symptoms/characteristics - I think these labels exist partly because they sell books.

The salient point - that some people's nervous systems are more easily aroused than others', and that it is a physiological characteristic and not just some sort of character flaw - is one that needs to be made. The world can be pretty unfair to sensitive people. Sensitivity is often regarded negatively, and sensitive people often get accused of being overdramatic and trying to attract attention (there are people like that, of course, but that's a whole different can of worms).

Basically, I guess I'm saying I'm a bit seduced by this label (this explains a lot of stuff! And there are others like me!), but I'm skeptical.

The stories you tell yourself shape who you are, so I think it's wise to be careful when you are tempted to put yourself into some sort of psychological pigeonhole, even though it may be comforting and seem to explain things sometimes.

It can be as easy as saying "I am an introvert". Popular culture has painted introverted people to be psychopaths or automatically autistic.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  You like snuggling up with a good book (or a warm laptop) and because of your love of relaxing and controlled enviroments. The rest of the world looks, sounds and smells like utter chaos.

Introversion is not a disease. You do not need to be cured of it.

But!  Just as extroverts need to learn to cope with being lonely sometimes, we have to learn to live with the outside world.

Be proud of your sensitive nature.  You notice a million things that others don't.  And if the price for that is needing time alone to collect your thoughts?  Well, that probably makes you smarter than the people who have tuned out everything except the sounds of their own boisterous conversations.

I'm definitely a highly sensitive person, but I think the label is total bullshit. It sounds like many of those categories that are developed so that the pharma companies can market a drug to cure the "problem".

I think people are more or less sensitive based on a huge number of factors, the biggest being that they take themselves to seriously. Once you realize that you aren't that important (which I insist on not recognizing) then you also realize that:

1. People aren't really out to get you. At most you are collateral damage to someones mood.

2. It doesn't matter if your feelings are hurt. They won't be in a few minutes/hours/days and then they will be again in a few minutes/hours/days.

So any kind of technical basis for it based on physiological descriptions seems like BS to me.

Agree or no?

I saw a movie about a guy with this condition.

Well, it seems clear by the votes in this thread that at least one person just HATES all the answers provided, no matter how good they are. So hey, fuck it, l'll throw in my 2 cents.

This sounds like scammy bullshit to me. l fit some of the criteria too, most notably that l am also very observant and aware of my surroundings and those around me, so while l don't get overwhelmed like l used to and have learned to deal with it, l am very tuned in to the events and emotions around me. This is usually a blessing when l can cue into someone who's having a rough day, or see trouble brewing before others do, things like that. And l'm sure that being this way for most of my life probably earned the label 'intense' to some, though l'm a big old extravert and nobody would ever consider me shy or timid.

But do l believe in the HSP? No. l would generally call these traits 'human'. Someone years ago once directed me to a site about lndigo children, who are described by Wikipedia (and various other sites) as such:

"Descriptions of indigo children include the belief that they are empathetic, curious, strong-willed, independent, and often perceived by friends and family as being strange; possess a clear sense of self-definition and purpose; and also exhibit a strong inclination towards spiritual matters from early childhood. Indigo children have also been described as having a strong feeling of entitlement, or "deserving to be here." Other alleged traits include a high intelligence quotient, an inherent intuitive ability, and resistance to authority.[4][6] According to Tober and Carroll, indigo children function poorly in conventional schools due to their rejection of authority, being smarter than their teachers, and a lack of response to guilt-, fear- or manipulation-based discipline.[7]"

Almost every adjective and descriptive here applies (or applied as a child) to me to some degree.  However, after reading more on the topic, it just started sounding cultish and weird after a while, and if nothing else, seemed to have no purpose other than to sell books to parents who thought their kids were special or needed some sort of validation that they weren't shitty parents.  The whole HSP seems this way to me.  Not to mention that there are other disorders (Aspergers comes immediately to mind) that mirror many of these same traits/characteristics, so why wouldn't the HSP 'diagnosis' fit one of those other social disorders first?  And why are they writing separate books for all of this when they could just stick it all together and be done with it?  l'll tell ya - money.  

Yeah, this just sounds fishy to me.

Not even spectrum, just trait. This whole trying to put life forms into strict boxlike categories is pretty much fail. I'm not sensitive, don't care about people's feelings even though I do know how to manipulate them, but I also don't like being around people at all in real life. I like the barrier of bits telecommunications offers. I do have a very sensitive nervous system as well, perfumes knock me on my ass all the time, I smoke because that dulls my sense of smell more than anything else does. But trying to classify people with this trait into a "they will also ...." will always fail.

Sigh, time to put on the mean again...
Back in my day we had "highly sensitive" people, we called them things like "babies", "whiners", "neurotics", "pussies", "scrots", and "gluten-free".
I'm not a violent person but this makes me want to kick Elaine Aron in the throat, I never actually would because I am aware that such an action would cause great pain to another sentient being, not because I am HS but because I posses the normal human trait of empathy.

OK so I guess here's my thing about HS, this is an obvious attempt to sell books by repackaging "neurosis" and as a "special" ability, only neurosis doesn't exist and has been discarded as a diagnosis by the DSM.
I might buy the idea if there were people who were all "hey do you hear that beautiful sound? shhh? ahhhh", "OH.MY.GOD! you must smell this right now!", "Hey can I get you a chair? so tell me what's going on in your life, no really" etc. All the time.
But I've never run into one of those people. I have, though, run into way too many people who are constantly all "oh this music is too loud for me", "am I going to smell like this when we leave?", "there's too much going on here, this scene is too loud and abrasive, this is stupid, and all these hipsters are sooo judgemental, I want to leave".

Spending a lot of time immersed in self reflection in a complex inner world and worrying what other people think about you is not at all the same as being "aware of other's emotions" and there is a huge difference between having a refined pallet and being picky.

Love and Sharing vs. Fear and Loathing.

Obviously my somewhat violent reaction to the "HSP" is a reflection of my own inner struggle, I can own that, I do struggle to be an open and loving person and sometimes it does seem like it's just too much. But dude, don't take the cop out route of made-up, recycled, turn-of-the-last-century bullshit flipped into something you can own.
If you have elevated monoamine transmitter levels (usually caused by chronic stress) than yes, you will probably be abnormally sensitive to external stimuli, you can say "fuck it, i'm some kind of magical being 'you (normal) people' just don't get me and I'm going to hide where you can't bother me!", or you can figure out why you're so stressed. Maybe you have PTSD from something? Maybe you can figure out what that is? (I hear MDMA and therapy work wonders for this)
Maybe it is just the way you are, in that case lady, if it works for you, great! If not and there's no underlying problem then the only real solution is to force yourself into "uncomfortable" situations. There's a reason why dancing, fine food, museums, fashion, jazz, heavy metal, raves, drugs, booze, and x-treme sports exist.

So I guess, sure, you can call yourself HS if you want. Or you can get to the root of the problem (if there is one, no judgey), or you can blast it away with awesome. Whichever way you go, just try to be boldly and honestly loving.