“I call it my Wonder Woman impression.”
February 10, 2018 5:05 AM Subscribe
‘All of a sudden my world would flip’: the woman who is permanently lost [slGuardian]
Wikipedia on developmental topographical disorientation.
Scholarly articles on developmental topographical disorientation.
Patient One Sharon and Giuseppe Iaria's forum for other sufferers, Getting Lost.
Wikipedia on developmental topographical disorientation.
Scholarly articles on developmental topographical disorientation.
Patient One Sharon and Giuseppe Iaria's forum for other sufferers, Getting Lost.
I don't suffer from this; I have a pretty good sense of direction and build maps pretty easily.
But I do remember being in places with underground transit that also had underground malls and getting off at a stop and wandering through the shopping area and exiting to outside and have NO FUCKING IDEA WHERE I WAS because where I came above ground wasn't at all related to where I thought it should be.
I can take that experience and sort of imagine what life for this woman might be like. It would be very scary to have that happen all the time, even within her own house.
It's fascinating that they've done enough brain research to pin this down to specific brain regions and a lack of good communication between them.
I'm glad she's developed good coping skills, but still. That must be a very difficult life.
posted by hippybear at 7:02 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
But I do remember being in places with underground transit that also had underground malls and getting off at a stop and wandering through the shopping area and exiting to outside and have NO FUCKING IDEA WHERE I WAS because where I came above ground wasn't at all related to where I thought it should be.
I can take that experience and sort of imagine what life for this woman might be like. It would be very scary to have that happen all the time, even within her own house.
It's fascinating that they've done enough brain research to pin this down to specific brain regions and a lack of good communication between them.
I'm glad she's developed good coping skills, but still. That must be a very difficult life.
posted by hippybear at 7:02 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Fascinating! Reading the comments on the Guardian article, it seems there are several people out there with this condition, it will be interesting to follow the research on this going forward.
There was another story about navigation, an anthropologist or linguist studying a culture with a language that used only absolute and not relative direction. So instead of, "watch out there's a beetle crawling toward your left foot" they'd say the equivalent of, "watch out, there's a beetle crawling toward your north-northeast foot". The scientist said after a while of learning and using the language it was like she had a constant mini-map in a corner of her head, as with a video game, orienting her in the landscape.
I wish I could remember the professional terms for this, because it's an absolutely fascinating that people can perceive the world so differently. In the area where our family farm is, it was quite normal to orient yourself absolutely, and most of the time I can switch, but when I was a kid I was not very good at relative positions. I wouldn't say I have a map, it's more like a feeling like the gravitational pull, just much weaker. Even in a cloudy night, I mostly know where north is. Some of the research published showed that you could place some people in a closed windowless room and they'd still know north.
posted by mumimor at 7:27 AM on February 10, 2018
There was another story about navigation, an anthropologist or linguist studying a culture with a language that used only absolute and not relative direction. So instead of, "watch out there's a beetle crawling toward your left foot" they'd say the equivalent of, "watch out, there's a beetle crawling toward your north-northeast foot". The scientist said after a while of learning and using the language it was like she had a constant mini-map in a corner of her head, as with a video game, orienting her in the landscape.
I wish I could remember the professional terms for this, because it's an absolutely fascinating that people can perceive the world so differently. In the area where our family farm is, it was quite normal to orient yourself absolutely, and most of the time I can switch, but when I was a kid I was not very good at relative positions. I wouldn't say I have a map, it's more like a feeling like the gravitational pull, just much weaker. Even in a cloudy night, I mostly know where north is. Some of the research published showed that you could place some people in a closed windowless room and they'd still know north.
posted by mumimor at 7:27 AM on February 10, 2018
This was so interesting. I navigate fine, but I am very familiar with getting out on the wrong side of a subway station or exiting a shop on the opposite side from where I thought I was and getting that feeling of everything being wrong. Usually, I can realize what's up and then reassemble, but I am very familiar with the feeling.
posted by dame at 7:55 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by dame at 7:55 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
"I have what doctors call 'directional insanity. I once got lost on an escalator."
But seriously - it's so great that she finally found people who believed her, and didn't tell her she had multiple personality disorder or a tumor or was a witch! Jesus.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:22 AM on February 10, 2018 [10 favorites]
But seriously - it's so great that she finally found people who believed her, and didn't tell her she had multiple personality disorder or a tumor or was a witch! Jesus.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:22 AM on February 10, 2018 [10 favorites]
This was so interesting. I navigate fine, but I am very familiar with getting out on the wrong side of a subway station or exiting a shop on the opposite side from where I thought I was and getting that feeling of everything being wrong. Usually, I can realize what's up and then reassemble, but I am very familiar with the feeling.
That was a great metaphor for her to use. I felt like I understood her condition better immediately. It reminded me of a post I once saw by a woman with face blindness, where she demonstrated what her condition felt like by showing you a picture of a specific rock, and then a picture of the rock wall that it was part of, to show why she couldn't pick her friends' faces out of a crowd.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:25 AM on February 10, 2018 [7 favorites]
That was a great metaphor for her to use. I felt like I understood her condition better immediately. It reminded me of a post I once saw by a woman with face blindness, where she demonstrated what her condition felt like by showing you a picture of a specific rock, and then a picture of the rock wall that it was part of, to show why she couldn't pick her friends' faces out of a crowd.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:25 AM on February 10, 2018 [7 favorites]
I'm usually good with directions--however, there is one place that, if I allow myself to think about it, would make me crazy. In the parking garage at work, there is a set of elevators--if I am on the first floor of the garage, I would swear up and down that the elevators are oriented parallel to the building I work in. However, when I get out on the floor that connects to my building, the elevators are oriented perpendicular to the building. I know they aren't like Harry Potter elevators that actually turn--but I cannot "get" how that happens. So I just don't think about it too hard.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:48 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:48 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Some of the research published showed that you could place some people in a closed windowless room and they'd still know north.
I almost never get lost, and I can almost always point where north is. One of my small personal hobbies is trying to get intentionally and recreationally lost, either in cities or in forests and just taking random turns. It's actually really difficult for me to get properly lost and confused and for whatever dumb reason I find it really entertaining, because it doesn't usually last for very long. And traditionally I've had to pay some good money to get this kind of delightful confusion, so for a brief moment it's like this weird altered perception like I just had a few too many beers and got rolled down a hill in a barrel, except it's free and I don't get a hangover or an empty wallet.
I think part of the fun in getting lost for me isn't just the confusion, but the process of mentally retracing my steps and movements and visually/mentally reconstructing the space I've just translated through. In my mind's eye I can visualize wireframes of structures or even terrain maps. There's this puzzle-piecing process that tickles the same part of my brain that Tetris does, perhaps because the mental mapping process involves breaking my movements through space and structures into shapes and segments that then fit together like Lego to make a whole map.
Even weirder - and I've talked about this before on mefi - but given the freedom of movement I will eventually always end up sleeping with my head pointed north. At this point if I have the choice I refuse to set my bed up facing E-W or headboard facing south because I know I'll eventually end up with my head at the foot of the bed or trying to lay across the bed to align with north.
However, apparently I'm horrible at giving directions, likely because I'm a visual navigator and a life-long cyclist and pedestrian. So I've learned that I rely on visual cues and landmarks that don't translate well to drivers, not only because they don't see or look for these things, but because I probably see the world a lot differently than most people. (Thankfully, being able to drop a pin or just give someone an address has changed all this, and we no longer have to rely on stuff like turn by turn directions or, gasp, Thomas Guide.)
Friends used to think I must be horrible at navigating and lost all the time due to those directions. No, I was just really bad at time management and really good at wandering. Hey, it's not my fault you can't see the purple house or can't tell the difference between an alder and an aspen. And one of those three rocks is definitely much mossier than the others.
Hrm, that reminds me. My friends and I used to go out to these moontribe full moon parties that flaterik and I have talked about a few times. The directions were always infamously horrible and very complicated and visual. We're talking directions like "At the railroad crossing, reset your odometer and drive 0.9 miles down the wash. At the tall yucca tree and triple-fork in the road, bear left and reset your odometer. Drive 0.2 miles and turn right at the pile of white rocks. When you cross the arroyo reset your odometer, follow the left fork and drive 1.4 miles."
And one of the fellows (Jhymn?) in charge of mapping these directions had a jeep or something with a not very accurate odometer, so all of the mileage directions would be off like a tenth of a mile per mile and you'd have to use "Jhymn miles" and correct for it in your head the whole time. And you're usually doing this well after dark in the middle of the night, so it's not like you can see all the things he was seeing while mapping the route in the middle of the day.
Well, I'm just now remembering I was really, really good at reading and navigating those screwy directions. We never got lost or had to backtrack when I was co-piloting. The directions made perfect sense to me because it was basically all by feel and visual cues.
*ponders grabbing the bus to go get lost in cappy's trails since the sun is out for the first time in weeks*
posted by loquacious at 9:23 AM on February 10, 2018 [7 favorites]
I almost never get lost, and I can almost always point where north is. One of my small personal hobbies is trying to get intentionally and recreationally lost, either in cities or in forests and just taking random turns. It's actually really difficult for me to get properly lost and confused and for whatever dumb reason I find it really entertaining, because it doesn't usually last for very long. And traditionally I've had to pay some good money to get this kind of delightful confusion, so for a brief moment it's like this weird altered perception like I just had a few too many beers and got rolled down a hill in a barrel, except it's free and I don't get a hangover or an empty wallet.
I think part of the fun in getting lost for me isn't just the confusion, but the process of mentally retracing my steps and movements and visually/mentally reconstructing the space I've just translated through. In my mind's eye I can visualize wireframes of structures or even terrain maps. There's this puzzle-piecing process that tickles the same part of my brain that Tetris does, perhaps because the mental mapping process involves breaking my movements through space and structures into shapes and segments that then fit together like Lego to make a whole map.
Even weirder - and I've talked about this before on mefi - but given the freedom of movement I will eventually always end up sleeping with my head pointed north. At this point if I have the choice I refuse to set my bed up facing E-W or headboard facing south because I know I'll eventually end up with my head at the foot of the bed or trying to lay across the bed to align with north.
However, apparently I'm horrible at giving directions, likely because I'm a visual navigator and a life-long cyclist and pedestrian. So I've learned that I rely on visual cues and landmarks that don't translate well to drivers, not only because they don't see or look for these things, but because I probably see the world a lot differently than most people. (Thankfully, being able to drop a pin or just give someone an address has changed all this, and we no longer have to rely on stuff like turn by turn directions or, gasp, Thomas Guide.)
Friends used to think I must be horrible at navigating and lost all the time due to those directions. No, I was just really bad at time management and really good at wandering. Hey, it's not my fault you can't see the purple house or can't tell the difference between an alder and an aspen. And one of those three rocks is definitely much mossier than the others.
Hrm, that reminds me. My friends and I used to go out to these moontribe full moon parties that flaterik and I have talked about a few times. The directions were always infamously horrible and very complicated and visual. We're talking directions like "At the railroad crossing, reset your odometer and drive 0.9 miles down the wash. At the tall yucca tree and triple-fork in the road, bear left and reset your odometer. Drive 0.2 miles and turn right at the pile of white rocks. When you cross the arroyo reset your odometer, follow the left fork and drive 1.4 miles."
And one of the fellows (Jhymn?) in charge of mapping these directions had a jeep or something with a not very accurate odometer, so all of the mileage directions would be off like a tenth of a mile per mile and you'd have to use "Jhymn miles" and correct for it in your head the whole time. And you're usually doing this well after dark in the middle of the night, so it's not like you can see all the things he was seeing while mapping the route in the middle of the day.
Well, I'm just now remembering I was really, really good at reading and navigating those screwy directions. We never got lost or had to backtrack when I was co-piloting. The directions made perfect sense to me because it was basically all by feel and visual cues.
*ponders grabbing the bus to go get lost in cappy's trails since the sun is out for the first time in weeks*
posted by loquacious at 9:23 AM on February 10, 2018 [7 favorites]
I remember hearing about this on Radiolab. I think it was the episode called "Where Am I?" Poor Sharon! I hate that she was misdiagnosed so many times, and not believed by medical professionals. Clearly she loves Dr. Iaria because he actually listened to her and tried to help her!
My aunt has something close to what Sharon has--she's terrified to go anywhere new, but is okay taking her very specific routes to places in her town. She's lived there 40 years and can still get lost.
I think I have a far less severe version of this. I do have a mental map, and I can navigate familiar places fine. I can eventually find my way around a new place with a map. But I also frequently get very disoriented and panicked in new places.
Other people who travel with me have noticed I have an almost unerring ability to choose the opposite direction from the one I'm supposed to be headed in. I've often wondered if my mental map is flipped around or something. This is the same for inside buildings as well as outside on the street: I once attended a meeting at a different college I'd never been to before, and when I left the room to go to the washroom, I couldn't find my way back to the meeting room. It was literally less than 8 metres from the meeting room. I got turned around and headed the wrong way, realized I was in a mezzanine and not in the right hallway all of a sudden, and panicked. The hallways and classrooms had all looked the same, and I had simply turned right instead of left when coming out of the washroom. The next time we had a break, I made sure to go with a group of people.
Part of my problems are because new landmarks often look the same to me--the streets, the buildings...there's a lot of snow right now where I live, and I'm getting disoriented even in my own neighbourhood, because everything looks so new and different covered in snow! I also have mild face blindness and find it hard to recognize people I don't know well, so I was not surprised that the two conditions seemed to be linked in the article. Like with the snowy neighbourhood disorienting me, I find if someone changes their hair or facial hair, or glasses or headgear, I may not recognize them. A colleague whom I see daily did one of those shave your head and beard things for charity, and I literally did not recognize him until he spoke to me. I always joke that if someone wanted to disguise themselves from me all they'd need to do is put on a hat and one of those Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose combinations, and I'd never recognize them again. I'd love to know more about how face blindness and directional challenges are linked in the brain.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:04 AM on February 10, 2018 [7 favorites]
My aunt has something close to what Sharon has--she's terrified to go anywhere new, but is okay taking her very specific routes to places in her town. She's lived there 40 years and can still get lost.
I think I have a far less severe version of this. I do have a mental map, and I can navigate familiar places fine. I can eventually find my way around a new place with a map. But I also frequently get very disoriented and panicked in new places.
Other people who travel with me have noticed I have an almost unerring ability to choose the opposite direction from the one I'm supposed to be headed in. I've often wondered if my mental map is flipped around or something. This is the same for inside buildings as well as outside on the street: I once attended a meeting at a different college I'd never been to before, and when I left the room to go to the washroom, I couldn't find my way back to the meeting room. It was literally less than 8 metres from the meeting room. I got turned around and headed the wrong way, realized I was in a mezzanine and not in the right hallway all of a sudden, and panicked. The hallways and classrooms had all looked the same, and I had simply turned right instead of left when coming out of the washroom. The next time we had a break, I made sure to go with a group of people.
Part of my problems are because new landmarks often look the same to me--the streets, the buildings...there's a lot of snow right now where I live, and I'm getting disoriented even in my own neighbourhood, because everything looks so new and different covered in snow! I also have mild face blindness and find it hard to recognize people I don't know well, so I was not surprised that the two conditions seemed to be linked in the article. Like with the snowy neighbourhood disorienting me, I find if someone changes their hair or facial hair, or glasses or headgear, I may not recognize them. A colleague whom I see daily did one of those shave your head and beard things for charity, and I literally did not recognize him until he spoke to me. I always joke that if someone wanted to disguise themselves from me all they'd need to do is put on a hat and one of those Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose combinations, and I'd never recognize them again. I'd love to know more about how face blindness and directional challenges are linked in the brain.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:04 AM on February 10, 2018 [7 favorites]
Human brains are complicated and fascinating. What rotten experiences for her to have, and I can only imagine what it would feel like to find someone who got it, who wanted to comprehend her experience. Great story, thanks for posting.
posted by theora55 at 10:10 AM on February 10, 2018
posted by theora55 at 10:10 AM on February 10, 2018
There was another story about navigation, an anthropologist or linguist studying a culture with a language that used only absolute and not relative direction.
You're thinking of the Australian language Guugu Yimithirr, which is known for its feature of always using cardinal instead of relative directions (it's also the origin of the word "Kangaroo"!). There's a Radiolab podcast that talks a bit about the language called Bird's-Eye View.
Incidentally, you can also hear Sharon Roseman herself talk about being permanently lost on the Radiolab episode You Are Here!
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:11 AM on February 10, 2018 [6 favorites]
You're thinking of the Australian language Guugu Yimithirr, which is known for its feature of always using cardinal instead of relative directions (it's also the origin of the word "Kangaroo"!). There's a Radiolab podcast that talks a bit about the language called Bird's-Eye View.
Incidentally, you can also hear Sharon Roseman herself talk about being permanently lost on the Radiolab episode You Are Here!
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:11 AM on February 10, 2018 [6 favorites]
I once attended a meeting at a different college I'd never been to before, and when I left the room to go to the washroom, I couldn't find my way back to the meeting room. It was literally less than 8 metres from the meeting room. I got turned around and headed the wrong way, realized I was in a mezzanine and not in the right hallway all of a sudden, and panicked.
My wife is like this. If we're driving someplace and we turn into a parking lot for a stop she will invariably attempt to turn the wrong direction when we leave. She insists on having the phone navigate even when we're going someplace known, both to avoid this issue and to satisfy her anxiety.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:24 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
My wife is like this. If we're driving someplace and we turn into a parking lot for a stop she will invariably attempt to turn the wrong direction when we leave. She insists on having the phone navigate even when we're going someplace known, both to avoid this issue and to satisfy her anxiety.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:24 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
The question of anxiety around being lost is whole other insteresting thing, too, I think. I understand that for Sharon it is bad enough and disorienting that it is just inherently a source of great anxiety. But I am always surprised when folks from the middle of the bell curve get stressed. You get lost, you can get get found again! I don't really mind as long as it is not a question of being on time (and if it is, I build in time just in case).
But! I wonder how much of my sanguine approach is the result of how I grew up. We moved a ton, and every time, we'd get in the car and "go get lost" — just to see what was out there. Likewise, if we ever missed an exit or something, we'd just get off at the next one and either turn around or try to find our way back. That's how you find secret shortcuts, which are very useful in LA suburbia. But either way, it was always fine, so now I assume it always will be.
posted by dame at 10:35 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
But! I wonder how much of my sanguine approach is the result of how I grew up. We moved a ton, and every time, we'd get in the car and "go get lost" — just to see what was out there. Likewise, if we ever missed an exit or something, we'd just get off at the next one and either turn around or try to find our way back. That's how you find secret shortcuts, which are very useful in LA suburbia. But either way, it was always fine, so now I assume it always will be.
posted by dame at 10:35 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Lefty lucky cat, that's the one! (I had the episode name wrong--it wasn't Where Am I?, it was Lost and Found.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:49 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:49 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
an anthropologist or linguist studying a culture with a language that used only absolute and not relative direction.
This was just talked about a recent episode of the NPR Hidden Brain podcast. The episode was called "Lost In Translation."
posted by selfmedicating at 10:51 AM on February 10, 2018
This was just talked about a recent episode of the NPR Hidden Brain podcast. The episode was called "Lost In Translation."
posted by selfmedicating at 10:51 AM on February 10, 2018
> Other people who travel with me have noticed I have an almost unerring ability to choose the opposite direction from the one I'm supposed to be headed in. I've often wondered if my mental map is flipped around or something. This is the same for inside buildings as well as outside on the street
Hello! I'm the same! We should have a meetup but for obvious reasons we'd never manage to actually get together.
I'm teaching my Girl Scouts compass skills, and it's been a challenge for me -- but I think it's helpful for them, because I'm starting at the absolute basics and explaining every step, as that's what I need. I can't do any of it by instinct.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:53 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
Hello! I'm the same! We should have a meetup but for obvious reasons we'd never manage to actually get together.
I'm teaching my Girl Scouts compass skills, and it's been a challenge for me -- but I think it's helpful for them, because I'm starting at the absolute basics and explaining every step, as that's what I need. I can't do any of it by instinct.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:53 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
> found people who believed her, and didn't tell her she had multiple personality disorder or a tumor or was a witch!
The interesting thing about this is that the person who said "people will think you're a witch" was her mother. Who apparently suffered from the same exact condition and never told her husband, daughter, other family members, or friends about the condition.
I'm guessing the mother had some fairly traumatic experiences around the situation when she herself was young. Including, maybe, someone actually and seriously calling her a witch?
posted by flug at 10:53 AM on February 10, 2018 [10 favorites]
The interesting thing about this is that the person who said "people will think you're a witch" was her mother. Who apparently suffered from the same exact condition and never told her husband, daughter, other family members, or friends about the condition.
I'm guessing the mother had some fairly traumatic experiences around the situation when she herself was young. Including, maybe, someone actually and seriously calling her a witch?
posted by flug at 10:53 AM on February 10, 2018 [10 favorites]
Dame, that's an interesting point...I wonder if it does have something to do with that. But personally, I think I often have a momentary feeling of panic when I am disoriented even if I'm not seriously lost, because how I thought things were is not how they are. To me, that is separate from the (very unpleasant) mounting panic of truly being lost and being unable to find my way back for a long time.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:54 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:54 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
> You get lost, you can get get found again!
For me, the panic is when I get lost in a situation where it seems ridiculous to be lost (like, yes, inside an office building).
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:59 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
For me, the panic is when I get lost in a situation where it seems ridiculous to be lost (like, yes, inside an office building).
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:59 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I always thought I had a great sense of direction, until I moved to the northern hemisphere ... For a period of 2 months I was continually lost, 30 years later there are still parts of LA where my in-laws used to live which swing around backwards in my head if I visit.
Of course really I didn't understand how much I unconsciously used the sun to navigate and build those mental maps we all depend on.
Oh and here I am in Amsterdam, from the southern hemisphere for a week, a bit turned around but its been pretty gray, no particular directions to imprint on
posted by mbo at 11:21 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Of course really I didn't understand how much I unconsciously used the sun to navigate and build those mental maps we all depend on.
Oh and here I am in Amsterdam, from the southern hemisphere for a week, a bit turned around but its been pretty gray, no particular directions to imprint on
posted by mbo at 11:21 AM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is kind of a silly example, but the game Zelda: Twilight Princess was first released on the Gamecube. Nintendo also made a version for their new Wii console and wanted to let players use the motion controls to swing Link's sword. But Link had always been left-handed and they wanted players to be able to use their right hands.
So instead of re-modelling and re-animating a right-handed Link (and fixing all the things that would break), they simply made a mirror-image version of the entire game. The world map, the layout of the dungeons, all the characters--everything but the text and some of the interface was reversed.
Nowadays it's possible to play both versions of the game on an emulator and there are tools for converting save games from one version to the other. I did this, playing halfway through the Gamecube version and then switching to the Wii. It was very bizarre and disorienting.
But it wouldn't be too much work to set up a system where every time you saved and went back to the game, you could flip it. It would be a very challenging way to try to do some of the dungeons and might give you a little bit of a sense of what this woman's world is like.
posted by straight at 11:22 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
So instead of re-modelling and re-animating a right-handed Link (and fixing all the things that would break), they simply made a mirror-image version of the entire game. The world map, the layout of the dungeons, all the characters--everything but the text and some of the interface was reversed.
Nowadays it's possible to play both versions of the game on an emulator and there are tools for converting save games from one version to the other. I did this, playing halfway through the Gamecube version and then switching to the Wii. It was very bizarre and disorienting.
But it wouldn't be too much work to set up a system where every time you saved and went back to the game, you could flip it. It would be a very challenging way to try to do some of the dungeons and might give you a little bit of a sense of what this woman's world is like.
posted by straight at 11:22 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
I have at best mediocre navigation skills, and perhaps in compensation for that a fascination with maps and charts and way-finding techniques. Thinking about this condition made me imagine what it would be like to look up at a clear night sky and see all the constellations in the wrong places. That would be utterly terrifying.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:33 AM on February 10, 2018
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:33 AM on February 10, 2018
You get lost, you can get get found again!
the panic is also because now you have to ask someone for help and what if they want your kidneys
posted by poffin boffin at 11:52 AM on February 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
the panic is also because now you have to ask someone for help and what if they want your kidneys
posted by poffin boffin at 11:52 AM on February 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
what if they want to make small talk
posted by poffin boffin at 11:52 AM on February 10, 2018 [22 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:52 AM on February 10, 2018 [22 favorites]
I have so much empathy for this woman. I don't have an issue with things looking "wrong" and I can get around places like my apartment and buildings I've worked in, but I've been crippled by an inability to navigate even my hometown for my entire life. I would only drive on 2 roads for the most part, or routes I had memorized. DETOUR signs were my Kryptonite. I'd panic, sweat, shake, sometimes vomit, because it was very easy for me to end up lost for hours less than a mile from home. My entire world changed when GPS navigation units could be purchased for your car. Now I can go anywhere and do anything because of GPS. I don't have to spend a week having nightmares and panic attacks because I have to drive to my aunt's house, which I've been to hundreds of times, to cat sit. Just make sure my phone has juice, plug it into my mapping software, and off I go. But before that, the teasing from my family was relentless. "Don't ask xyzzy to pick up the coffee cake, the shop isn't on Rte. 57 or Rte. 31! We'll never get to eat it if she goes."
This inability to navigate also extends to video games. Without a map and/or objectives marked, I can't play the game. I get along in Minecraft because of the XYZ coordinate system available in the debug screen. Every world I play has an associated notepad.txt that has a list of coordinates.
posted by xyzzy at 12:12 PM on February 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
This inability to navigate also extends to video games. Without a map and/or objectives marked, I can't play the game. I get along in Minecraft because of the XYZ coordinate system available in the debug screen. Every world I play has an associated notepad.txt that has a list of coordinates.
posted by xyzzy at 12:12 PM on February 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
i can find my way around pretty well in new places after a few days of wandering, a skill i attribute to video games, unfortunately, but i am pants at giving irl directions. people will ask me how many blocks until some location and i'm like it's by the giant crane, you can see the crane from here, it is much bigger up close so keep walking until it is truly enormous.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:21 PM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 12:21 PM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
Of course really I didn't understand how much I unconsciously used the sun to navigate and build those mental maps we all depend on.
Yeah, if you took me, blindfolded me and dropped me off south of the equator I would also probably get seriously lost and confused. I definitely naturally use a mix of the sun, time of day and season to feel/know which way north is, and at higher latitudes it's impossible to avoid.
I would also probably be terrified if I got lost all the time. That would wear thin very quickly. Honestly, part of the fun for me for getting lost is the sudden spike in anxiety and fear of being that confused about where I am.
It's like I get to practice a room escape puzzle privately in my own head as I'm walking around in public, and there's definitely private, mental moments of "don't panic! hold it together!" as I work out where I am.
If I had to deal with that all the time it would be awful.
posted by loquacious at 12:33 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, if you took me, blindfolded me and dropped me off south of the equator I would also probably get seriously lost and confused. I definitely naturally use a mix of the sun, time of day and season to feel/know which way north is, and at higher latitudes it's impossible to avoid.
I would also probably be terrified if I got lost all the time. That would wear thin very quickly. Honestly, part of the fun for me for getting lost is the sudden spike in anxiety and fear of being that confused about where I am.
It's like I get to practice a room escape puzzle privately in my own head as I'm walking around in public, and there's definitely private, mental moments of "don't panic! hold it together!" as I work out where I am.
If I had to deal with that all the time it would be awful.
posted by loquacious at 12:33 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, for a while I had a job that often had me walking into an unfamiliar hospital to find the clinical laboratory. You quickly learn some rough rules for where hospitals tend to put laboratories, but since hospitals are often subject to many decades of unrelated expansions and remodeling they're easily the least friendly and navigable buildings on earth. Like loquacious I have excellent spacial awareness and rarely ever find myself lost, so trying to find a unknown location in an unknown building purely by context clues was intellectually interesting. More often than not I had to do the finding myself, since asking normally helpful people where the laboratory was generally just brought me to the location where people provide specimens, not where those specimens are analyzed. Because nothing makes sense in the nightmare maze of a strange hospital, these two locations are usually completely unrelated thought sometimes the people at the specimen lab know where the real lab is.
Thankfully it turns out that if you're a physically imposing white guy who looks like he knows what he's doing you can go pretty much wherever the fuck you want in a hospital without being confronted.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:21 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Thankfully it turns out that if you're a physically imposing white guy who looks like he knows what he's doing you can go pretty much wherever the fuck you want in a hospital without being confronted.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:21 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
...I think I might have a mild version of this. Or at least a version of this where I never remember correctly where some things are, which means I keep asking the reception for directions to the same doctor's office I've been in about a billion times.
posted by divabat at 2:17 PM on February 10, 2018
posted by divabat at 2:17 PM on February 10, 2018
I've experienced having the world flip over, once, in very specific circumstances. I was around 60-65 hours into an endurance record attempt (so I can state with absolute certainty that I hadn't slept for two and a half days). I spent most of the time seated at a table in a long, narrow room. I remember clearly the sensation of turning my head to the right and seeing the part of the room that ought to lie to my left, and vice versa. I played around with it for a while, and it was interesting, but since I didn't have to go anywhere and I knew that I was likely to start hallucinating around this point, it wasn't worrying.
posted by Hogshead at 3:43 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Hogshead at 3:43 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was driving at night once in a part of Phoenix that I wasn't familiar with. The streets are all on a grid, though, so it shouldn't have really mattered; I just needed to go north a bit and then west a bit. Problem was, one of the streets I was on had a very gentle curve that I hadn't noticed, so I had gotten rotated 90 degrees from what I was expecting. I drove around in circles for a good long while, mystified that "north" wasn't taking me where I was supposed to go. I only managed to figure out where I was when I saw the tall buildings of downtown (which were in the opposite direction of where I thought they should be at that time, but I went with it and got home eventually). I couldn't imagine having that happen all the time...
posted by Weeping_angel at 4:08 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Weeping_angel at 4:08 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Boston is terrible for that, many streets are not-quite-parallel.
I also have an atrocious sense of direction, made fun of by my family and friends, have to ask how to get out of the office after doctor’s appointments (lest I wander into someone else’s exam room), turn the wrong way out of elevators, etc. I view my gps as an assistive device and am very glad I live in a world that has them. I kind of assumed my sense of direction was sort of maximally bad and couldn’t get worse.
Then I went north of the arctic circle in June. Turns out I do use the sun a bit for navigation, because having it just go around the sky in a circle was massively disorienting, I had trouble navigating the grid-based streets in the town of five thousand I was in. Everything indeed felt terribly wrong and out of place (as opposed to my normal “I don’t know how this room aligns with the outside world”).
So, I don’t think I am as bad off as these folk. But I wonder, would they not get more disoriented? As in, take one of them to a different hemisphere, or above the Arctic circle— would they be just as normal for them?
posted by nat at 5:41 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I also have an atrocious sense of direction, made fun of by my family and friends, have to ask how to get out of the office after doctor’s appointments (lest I wander into someone else’s exam room), turn the wrong way out of elevators, etc. I view my gps as an assistive device and am very glad I live in a world that has them. I kind of assumed my sense of direction was sort of maximally bad and couldn’t get worse.
Then I went north of the arctic circle in June. Turns out I do use the sun a bit for navigation, because having it just go around the sky in a circle was massively disorienting, I had trouble navigating the grid-based streets in the town of five thousand I was in. Everything indeed felt terribly wrong and out of place (as opposed to my normal “I don’t know how this room aligns with the outside world”).
So, I don’t think I am as bad off as these folk. But I wonder, would they not get more disoriented? As in, take one of them to a different hemisphere, or above the Arctic circle— would they be just as normal for them?
posted by nat at 5:41 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can imagine maps and read maps and find my place on a map. I’m not bad at orienteering.
But I can certainly relate the familiar becoming suddenly unfamiliar. I get lost riding bikes in the small village where I live; my son rolls his eyes and calls after me to turn around. I have lived in this speck of a hamlet for 14 years.
It’s not that I don’t know where I am exactly — it’s that where I am doesn’t look/feel like itself.
There has been speculation that this is connected to my face blindess, as suggested in the article. It’s definitely about (failure to) recognize what should be easy to recognize, and was recognizable yesterday but not today.
There is some amount of social anxiety attached, of course, because I look like a cartoon idiot all the time — leaving rooms by walking into closets, getting lost on the way to the washroom, wandering the parking lot forlornly searching the rows for my car, using GPS to get to familiar destinations.
Oddly: the place I am least likely to get lost is outside, hiking in a forest with or without a trail. I can retrace my steps and recognize where I have been, even though the landmarks are “fuzzier” than street signs and shops. Never the less, put me in a developed area and I’m a bumbling fool immediately.
posted by Construction Concern at 5:46 PM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
But I can certainly relate the familiar becoming suddenly unfamiliar. I get lost riding bikes in the small village where I live; my son rolls his eyes and calls after me to turn around. I have lived in this speck of a hamlet for 14 years.
It’s not that I don’t know where I am exactly — it’s that where I am doesn’t look/feel like itself.
There has been speculation that this is connected to my face blindess, as suggested in the article. It’s definitely about (failure to) recognize what should be easy to recognize, and was recognizable yesterday but not today.
There is some amount of social anxiety attached, of course, because I look like a cartoon idiot all the time — leaving rooms by walking into closets, getting lost on the way to the washroom, wandering the parking lot forlornly searching the rows for my car, using GPS to get to familiar destinations.
Oddly: the place I am least likely to get lost is outside, hiking in a forest with or without a trail. I can retrace my steps and recognize where I have been, even though the landmarks are “fuzzier” than street signs and shops. Never the less, put me in a developed area and I’m a bumbling fool immediately.
posted by Construction Concern at 5:46 PM on February 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
But! I wonder how much of my sanguine approach is the result of how I grew up. We moved a ton, and every time, we'd get in the car and "go get lost" — just to see what was out there
I think the same thing - I was a navy brat, and my parents had a game where theyd drive around the new town and ask us kids to point where home was. (There was a similar one with our phone number). I have an almost uncanny sense of direction. And I believe that is why.
Dont get me wrong - I do get twisted up sometimes - mostly trying to orient one place I know well to another that I know well. But largely, I just know where I parked my truck.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 6:34 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
There was another story about navigation, an anthropologist or linguist studying a culture with a language that used only absolute and not relative direction.
You're thinking of the Australian language Guugu Yimithirr, which is known for its feature of always using cardinal instead of relative directions
Well, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. Almost all Australian languages work like this, and many other languages around the world besides. It's not that uncommon. What's pretty cool is that studies with kids who are native monolingual English speakers and the children of monolingual English speakers, but who had grandparents or whatever who spoke one of these cardinal direction languages often still use cardinal directions more, just mapped onto English words. And if you do an experiment where you line up a set of objects, get the kid to face them, and ask them to replicate the line-up, English speaking kids from anglo cultures do a mirror-image line-up while kids from these cultures - even if they are monolingual English speaking - more often do a reversed line-up. So the idea of talking about things using cardinal directions seems to hang around culturally even once the language is lost.
Another common strategy for directions is to use absolute directions that relate to some prominent feature of the landscape (e.g. on volcanic islands you often get 'landwards' and 'seawards' - e.g. "My landwards ear is itchy".)
Also, it's funny, most popular mentions of Australian languages and cardinal directions make it sound like Indigenous Australians just naturally get good at knowing them, but it's something that is deliberately taught a lot. If your language requires you to know north and south, you'd better bet parents are constantly telling their kids what direction is where and testing them on it. I was recently hanging out in the middle of Australia with a Warlpiri woman and a bunch of kids and she played a game with them where she would say, "Which way's Sydney?" and they'd all point, and then "Which way's Darwin?" and they'd all point. (This was in a hall with no windows, by the way). The littler kids would get it wrong more often than not and they'd get laughed at by the others, and gently corrected by the Auntie.
Presumably in the English speaking families where cardinal directions have persisted, parents are still teaching them like this.
posted by lollusc at 6:43 PM on February 10, 2018 [16 favorites]
You're thinking of the Australian language Guugu Yimithirr, which is known for its feature of always using cardinal instead of relative directions
Well, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. Almost all Australian languages work like this, and many other languages around the world besides. It's not that uncommon. What's pretty cool is that studies with kids who are native monolingual English speakers and the children of monolingual English speakers, but who had grandparents or whatever who spoke one of these cardinal direction languages often still use cardinal directions more, just mapped onto English words. And if you do an experiment where you line up a set of objects, get the kid to face them, and ask them to replicate the line-up, English speaking kids from anglo cultures do a mirror-image line-up while kids from these cultures - even if they are monolingual English speaking - more often do a reversed line-up. So the idea of talking about things using cardinal directions seems to hang around culturally even once the language is lost.
Another common strategy for directions is to use absolute directions that relate to some prominent feature of the landscape (e.g. on volcanic islands you often get 'landwards' and 'seawards' - e.g. "My landwards ear is itchy".)
Also, it's funny, most popular mentions of Australian languages and cardinal directions make it sound like Indigenous Australians just naturally get good at knowing them, but it's something that is deliberately taught a lot. If your language requires you to know north and south, you'd better bet parents are constantly telling their kids what direction is where and testing them on it. I was recently hanging out in the middle of Australia with a Warlpiri woman and a bunch of kids and she played a game with them where she would say, "Which way's Sydney?" and they'd all point, and then "Which way's Darwin?" and they'd all point. (This was in a hall with no windows, by the way). The littler kids would get it wrong more often than not and they'd get laughed at by the others, and gently corrected by the Auntie.
Presumably in the English speaking families where cardinal directions have persisted, parents are still teaching them like this.
posted by lollusc at 6:43 PM on February 10, 2018 [16 favorites]
I've experienced this laying in the dark, or when I've just woken up. I know which way I'm laying on the bed, and I know my side table is on my right, so I should think it's on my right, but for some reason my mental map is "flipped" and I think it's on my left. I get really disoriented and it takes a minute or two to reorient myself. It's not that I can't see it or am confused about which way I'm laying. I just feel like everything is in the wrong place for a minute or two. (I also have chronically bad directional sense.)
I can't imagine experiencing that my whole life. This woman is incredible.
posted by brook horse at 7:40 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can't imagine experiencing that my whole life. This woman is incredible.
posted by brook horse at 7:40 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Like loquacious I've got that ability, somewhat, to 'sense' North. It's not un-erring, but most of the time I'll be pretty close.
One other experience that has always seemed related to that sense in my mind was traveling in the far Southern hemisphere, on the water, and having the strong sensation which lasted for many days that the surface of the water was sloping down to the South 5 or 10 degrees, and tilted more the more South we went.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 11:53 PM on February 10, 2018
One other experience that has always seemed related to that sense in my mind was traveling in the far Southern hemisphere, on the water, and having the strong sensation which lasted for many days that the surface of the water was sloping down to the South 5 or 10 degrees, and tilted more the more South we went.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 11:53 PM on February 10, 2018
I was recently hanging out in the middle of Australia with a Warlpiri woman and a bunch of kids and she played a game with them where she would say, "Which way's Sydney?" and they'd all point, and then "Which way's Darwin?" and they'd all point. (This was in a hall with no windows, by the way).
This is amazing and I wish my parents had done it with me. Whenever I go to a new place, Google Maps is what keeps me from falling into ditches or wandering into the next county, and it takes months if reinforcement (that still sometimes fails me!) to hammer out a mental map beyond a 1km-ish radius.
posted by saysthis at 4:43 AM on February 11, 2018
This is amazing and I wish my parents had done it with me. Whenever I go to a new place, Google Maps is what keeps me from falling into ditches or wandering into the next county, and it takes months if reinforcement (that still sometimes fails me!) to hammer out a mental map beyond a 1km-ish radius.
posted by saysthis at 4:43 AM on February 11, 2018
And of course we have to drill "left" and "right" to kids a lot too. The "which hand makes an L" mnemonic saved my bacon in elementary school.
posted by en forme de poire at 10:50 AM on February 11, 2018
posted by en forme de poire at 10:50 AM on February 11, 2018
Almost all Australian languages work like this, and many other languages around the world besides.
The first one I'd heard of was Malagasy (Madagascar) and apparently a lot of other Austronesian languages besides. The book I linked to has an interesting discussion (page down, and down, and down) about the relationship to marine navigation for the cardinal directions (for example, some languages/cultures differentiate between upstream/downstream, prevailing winds, monsoon winds, etc.)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 5:07 PM on February 11, 2018
The first one I'd heard of was Malagasy (Madagascar) and apparently a lot of other Austronesian languages besides. The book I linked to has an interesting discussion (page down, and down, and down) about the relationship to marine navigation for the cardinal directions (for example, some languages/cultures differentiate between upstream/downstream, prevailing winds, monsoon winds, etc.)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 5:07 PM on February 11, 2018
My adult life has been in Montreal and Toronto, two cities in which water is roughly south and mostly downhill. Workin in Vancouver for a brief stint, I could NOT shake that instinct even though I KNEW the pacific was West. Very unsettling. What a difficult life, to have that happen all the time everywhere.
I am another Bad Navigator, heavily dependent on GPS to the point that my 6 year old teases me about it. I’d like one of those directional magnetic belts. Why isn’t there a kickstarter yet?
posted by lizifer at 6:02 PM on February 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am another Bad Navigator, heavily dependent on GPS to the point that my 6 year old teases me about it. I’d like one of those directional magnetic belts. Why isn’t there a kickstarter yet?
posted by lizifer at 6:02 PM on February 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
I grew up in the Wasatch Front, where we always had the very tall and obvious mountain ridge to the east. So I, and everyone else I knew, oriented towards the east as the sort of cardinal direction.
Everywhere else I have lived--now more than half the years of my life--I've oriented with north as the cardinal direction since that is how maps do it and there are not any other really major geographic landmarks to suggest any different way of doing it.
I still can't really reconcile these two things. Like in my mind, the direction "north" in the house where I am sitting now corresponds exactly to "east" in the house I grew up in. And that is just the way it is.
When I, for instance, drive back to visit relatives who still live in the Wasatch Front, at some magical point in the journey my entire universe just rotates by 90 degrees and that's it.
posted by flug at 9:12 PM on February 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Everywhere else I have lived--now more than half the years of my life--I've oriented with north as the cardinal direction since that is how maps do it and there are not any other really major geographic landmarks to suggest any different way of doing it.
I still can't really reconcile these two things. Like in my mind, the direction "north" in the house where I am sitting now corresponds exactly to "east" in the house I grew up in. And that is just the way it is.
When I, for instance, drive back to visit relatives who still live in the Wasatch Front, at some magical point in the journey my entire universe just rotates by 90 degrees and that's it.
posted by flug at 9:12 PM on February 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
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There was another story about navigation, an anthropologist or linguist studying a culture with a language that used only absolute and not relative direction. So instead of, "watch out there's a beetle crawling toward your left foot" they'd say the equivalent of, "watch out, there's a beetle crawling toward your north-northeast foot". The scientist said after a while of learning and using the language it was like she had a constant mini-map in a corner of her head, as with a video game, orienting her in the landscape.
Anyway, that was super interesting and I want to read the author's whole book now. Thanks for posting!
posted by Diablevert at 6:47 AM on February 10, 2018 [15 favorites]