this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
107 points (98.2% liked)

Asklemmy

42489 readers
2019 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I have no sense of direction. None.

I work in construction. If I show up to a site that is completely built, I get lost. If the floor is symmetrical in layout, I am totally screwed. It took me two full days on site once to get adjusted.

When assigned to a new site, if there are more than a few turns in a commute, I'm using the GPS to get there for a couple of weeks.

Also, I had no idea half of the people on this planet couldn't whistle.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I have no sense of direction. None.

Sounds like you are a real-life Ryoga Hibiki.

Just curious: do you also lack the ability to visualize things in your mind? For example, I am able to bring up a road map of my city in my mind, figure out the most effective route between two points, and rotate that map in all three dimensions to β€œlook” at it from all angles. My familiarity with the city layout and geography is the determining factor on how easily I can visualize that map. I can also do the same thing with large buildings and their internal layouts.

My wife, on the other hand, has a somewhat similar (but nowhere near as bad) sense of direction as you, and a commensurate inability to visualize objects in her mind. So while she can mentally visualize a soccer ball as a spherical object, she cannot even visualize the hexagonal pattern of pieces, much less (on a traditional soccer ball) how some are white and others black. She doesn’t technically have aphantasia, as she is still able to visualize to a small degree, but I have always suspected her inability to visualize effectively was directly connected to her inability to navigate effectively. She also relies heavily on GPS and maps when navigating anywhere else other than the town she was born in.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

For what it's worth, I can't visualize either, but have excellent directional sense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

So maybe it is not related, then. Or maybe only causally related, or under certain more specific visualization deficits.

Β―\_(ツ)_/Β―

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Not OP but I can visualize great, still have no sense of direction.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

You'll probably have your answer when I tell you that when you brought three dimensions into the map analogy, my brain kind of melted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Sounds like you're describing my wife for real

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

My husband bought me a Garmin when they very first came out, not because we were flashy people, but he wanted to know I could get somewhere by myself if I needed to . You are not alone my friend