Do you feel the wrong way round in your body?

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When I close my eyes and disassociate myself from the world around me I have always had the strange sensation that I am stood the opposite way round to my physical form. If I lay face down, I feel face up.

It's something I recall from early childhood and I even tried to discuss it with my parents when I was four or five... Lol, that was in the 1960s so you can imagine the responses I got.

When I tried cannabis it made me feel pushed to the left and is one reason I wouldn't try it again.

I wondered if others here experience any form of physical/mental location confusion and any thoughts on what may be going on.

I experience a similar thing when I'm sleepy/tired.

My sense of my mind occupying my body is pretty poor in general, and I can get a similar kind disorientation or lose the feeling that my point of view is inside my head. I can even have accidents caused by trying to move my hands in impossible ways, as if I've totally forgotten that they're joined to me by solid arms that can't pass through each other. Some stuff that was just talking a bit about on another thread seems related too...

As I said, I think my poor proprioception is strongly linked to this (that's the sense that tells you your body position when you're not looking.) I seem to have a kind of synaesthesia which is linked to this too; extreme sounds or things I see can give me the sense of my body being pushed or moved. There have been scientific experiments done where (presumably non-autistic) people are given conflicting sensory information and can lose their sense of embodiment or feel their viewpoint shift, so I imagine that autistic sensory differences in body sensations which we've always lived with probably explain at least part of it, probably combined with dissociating very easily.

That's interesting, I am always falling over things bumping them, oh and stubbing my toes.... Greef I have at least one black toe a month. And my shins are always cut and bruised so badly I won't wear shorts because I look like a leper.

I hadn't connected the sensation of feeling the wrong way round but it could be a reason.

Wow, I just googled proprioception.

I've always been clumsy, cack handed, they called me as a kid.

I've built my own home, but I make terrible mistakes and have taken a long time to get things right.

I've been turfed off jobs for upsetting containers and dropping things.

I'd never made any connection. I mean I'm just a bit cack handed, you know.

Over the last few years I have developed severe constant pains in my hands and arms, predominantly. Sometimes my legs bother me but I attribute that mostly to injury - from falls and dropping things on myself.
The quacks called it fibromyalgia which I never agreed with.

But if I've been using muscles all wrong then it would explain why I have issues now.

Thanks for that. It's all building a better picture of why I have been failing to compete and getting in a pickle.

Oh and I realise now why I couldn't do T'aiChi.

I must have looked like a puppet with wonky strings.


I thought it was because I couldn't remember the moves.

You will be a fellow hater of coffee tables, then, I guess! There are a few of us here; I think we should start a campaign to have them outlawed!!

It's interesting what you say about the aches and pains. Fifty is rapidly approaching for me, and I'm realising how much my posture and related things take a toll on me much more. My back has always been terrible from slouching over a computer keyboard since my teens. I have made many efforts to improve this, but as soon as I'm hyper-focused, I have no idea what position I'm in and don't notice any discomfort until I snap out of it. I'll do stupid things like realising that I've just watched an hour-long YouTube video, but had my hand clutching my mouse the whole time until my shoulder's starting to freeze or my hand is getting tingly, or sit with my legs wrapped tightly around each other for so long that my foot goes dead and my knees are wobbly if I try to stand up.

I wonder if my odd walking gait might affect me later in life too; it certainly seems to strain my knees and hips a bit, and I struggle on slopes to put my heels down because of years of tip-toe walking. Having said that, I have always walked a lot, often cross-country; it's my primary means of getting about, so I guess it could just be over-use.

Your comment about T'aiChi sounds much like when I was in the Boys Brigade as a lad. The marching drill instructor used to pull his hair out trying to get me to march properly. I could follow the actual orders OK, but there was something in the way I moved that he never managed to explain to me. He'd get other lads up to demonstrate for me, and I'd copy them, absolutely sure that I was doing exactly the same as them. But no, I never was. Gym teachers as school had much the same problem; I couldn't even manage to do a forward roll and come out of it facing the same direction I started in.

I find it quite paradoxical that I'm so clumsy a lot of the time, yet with things that I've repeated enough to have a "muscle memory", I can be very fluid and dextrous (I play musical instruments and have worked assembling circuit boards, for example.) It seems that I do OK until I need to use my conscious mind to concentrate on the actions at all, then it all just goes to pieces. I don't injure myself walking around half as much if my mind is so preoccupied with something else that I'm not really paying attention!

Funny that you mentioned that, I have had the sensation of being a couple of inches outside myself to the left on pot.

This so sounds a picture of my life.
That coffee table... I built one as a stool/table for the deck at our old house. When I moved here and my ex sold the house I inherited this table. The legs are wider than the top....... I'm not saying any more lol

See I've done a lot of driving, and drilling/breaking/scrabbling concrete so I totally understand that clamped posture.

And I was in the boys brigade, Padgate, Warrington. I don't remember the drill. I joined the TA 5/8 Kings but I just wandered around when we were supposed to be marching. Got on our lance Jack's tits but I never cared. I only joined to get my HGV but they chucked me out for throwing a loaded (rounds in mag not in the chamber) SLR at him then frisbeed my tin hat at colour s'ar'nt Mudd.

Find yourself a McTimony chiropractor. They keep me alive. I can't afford to go as often as I would like but at least I can get freed up periodically. It's not a cure but by god it makes a difference when you find the right one.

I turn wood, and work wood generally as a sort of paying hobby but the same thing, hours clamping a gouge against the rest and my hands swell & go numb for days. Mind you they will swell and sieze when there's a y in the day but sedentary habits are fatal. But then so can exercising. I've come back from picking mushrooms in the woods with fingers like Cumberland sausages and that's mostly walking, mushrooms don't generally offer much resistance to being picked.

That conscious mind thing rings a bell.
I can follow a beat but if I have to think about it, like wait for a stop or change then I go to pieces.
Like sawing a billet and getting perfectly zoned in to the rhythm until having to concentrate at the end of the cut and snapping the saw blade because of getting a wobble on.

I am so glad I posted this question. I had begun to think it was too random even for a diverse bunch like seem to hang out here.

Hi dom, bizarre isn't it. I wonder what it could be. And why the left?

It made me feel really edgy so I gave it a miss despite claims it could help me.

I am frequently unaware of my body. When I first learned about proprioception, some case probably of Oliver Sacks, where the woman suddenly lost all ability to move because her proprioception just disappeared. She learned to move again by having mirrors so she could visually watch her body. Before that, I had never questioned the ability to know where parts of my body were and once I knew that was possible, I became quite frightened that I would disconnect from my body. I can test myself (ie, can you close your eyes and then touch your index fingers together, or touch your nose) and I am off when I try this. In many ways I am very clumsy....last picked to be on sports teams in school. Like Trog said, for some things I developed muscle memory...the dancing....and my music. So while I don't exactly feel like the OP regarding feeling reversed, I definitely have trouble connecting with my body and what it is doing. Thanks for posting this. It expands my understanding.

I have to learn to copy my text before I post it, just lost everything again. Oh the joys of a 3G connection.

I was ruminating on the fact I was called cack handed as a kid and how it's unfortunate there's nobody I can ask from that period. As you would expect I didn't make friends and I lost touch with the only two friends from school decades ago. My parents are dead and I have a brother and sister but I haven't seen either for over thirty years.

I'm finding it fascinating that the more I dig into what has often seemed just a weird quirk about myself the more people seem to experience similar things.
In the past I just got blank replies when I asked these questions. Plus you soon learn to say nothing or risk adding to your label as the oddball.

I'm so glad I posted this.

O.. M.. G...

I just found this

https://www.sensory-processing-disorder ... ction.html

I'm looking at all the symptoms, even the ones I would regard as insignificant like needing to rest my head on my arm, and I see my whole life.

So for 55 years I have had proprioceptive dysfunction and have bashed my way through the world, collecting scars and bruises all the way.

I didn't even realise this was a thing.

Yes, I know those experiences well; people's disbelief, quizzical looks, thinking that I'm joking, asking me what drugs I've been taking, etc. I think there are a lot of us with a list in our heads of things that we never dare mention or have realised we can never explain to most people. It's quite common on forums like these for people to have "aha" moments where they first discover an explanation for unusual experiences which no-one else in their life has ever identified with. I've had many "aha" moments in the years that I've been here.


Even on autism websites, when talking about sensory sensitivities and integration problems, I think many people still only think of the classic five senses taught in basic science classes; sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But there are many more than just these, and I see no reason that they'd be any less likely to be affected by autistic perceptual differences. For example; my proprioception, interoception (sense of internal body sensations like hunger, thirst, etc.), and balance are poor, but I'm very sensitive to changes in air pressure and temperature.

You are correct. I don't know when I am hungry or thirsty either. I have been trying to learn it better recently - as in the past couple of years. Didn't occur to me that was connected to the autism. I recently got a new office and with a thermometer next to my desk, I have realized that a change in one degree F can make a difference between comfort and cold. Again, I didn't realize it was connected to autism. I thought I was just weird. Thank you Trogluddite and OP.

Well that's another one to add to the list....

I have no sense of thirst.

I had people text me at one time to remind me to drink but they got bored.
In truth I am better than I used to be because I recognise the signs of dehydration but I have had two cup of tea and a pint of water today and this has just reminded me it would be a good idea to drink more water soon.

What other revelations will I discover I wonder....

The tough bit now is writing all this up for my GP because it's hindering my ability to live so I need some help.

I've asked for help in the past but I didn't really know what I wanted help for and I don't communicate my ideas well in the 5 minute appointment window.
At least I am starting to see some sort of picture as to what is going on with my brain and how my weirdnesses are interrelated.

It's a pity I've had to struggle 55 years pretty much on my own with this. Lol