auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,570
Location: the island of defective toy santas
16 Jan 2014, 6:27 pm
16 Jan 2014, 7:00 pm
16 Jan 2014, 7:10 pm
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,570
Location: the island of defective toy santas
16 Jan 2014, 7:14 pm
17 Jan 2014, 9:57 am
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,570
Location: the island of defective toy santas
17 Jan 2014, 1:41 pm
17 Jan 2014, 1:50 pm
Long time, no post. I got in trouble at work 
I see like a zoom lens zoomed in all the way. When we were doing "gesture drawings" in art class, the instructor would strike a pose and hold it for 30 seconds while we drew him. Everybody else could do it but I couldn't. I kept getting sucked in too close and would have a drawing of part of an ear or part of a chin, while the rest of the class drew his whole body. and I have so-so depth perception. I can't parallel park except on the wrong side of the road and things seem farther away than they actually are.
17 Jan 2014, 5:39 pm
17 Jan 2014, 7:17 pm
18 Jan 2014, 1:26 pm
alexi wrote:
I too see in details as though I am too far zoomed in to view the whole. When I look at a scene or an object (no matter the scale) I see parts of it that I must physically move my eyes around to stitch together a greater scene. If I look at a door I see the right edge of the handle. I know it's a door because my brain is familiar with it, but to see the whole door I need to physically blur my eyes so that I can no longer focus on any detail.
So much of what JSBACH has said is how I would explain the way that I perceive things. I have almost no visual thinking. I too trained in a creative field (graphic design), though didn't realise until later that the way that I think and see is not like others. I could function to an extent in a heavily visual job without any visual thinking because I can very easily see when something does or doesn't look right. I believe that this compensation comes from the way that I do think (in feelings, concepts and patterns).
Unlike JSBACH I can not drive. My 'stitching together' of the details is not fast enough to form realiable scenes because, when moving, my eyes jump from detail to detail to detail and any small lingering on any detail means I'm missing what could be right in front of me. That's fine if I'm walking, but not safe if I'm driving.
I've been told that my eyes 'look anxious' when I am in public, but they are just busy jumping between hundreds of small details. If I look down a street I'm likely only seeing someones bag or a number plate or a brick. My brain stitches together the information far easier in places that I am familiar with, as though it can go to the cache. It is very hard for me to be in places that I am unfamiliar with because there is just so much to piece together and it can be very hard to navigate a space that only exists in pieces.
Your last post (beginning with the Rodin Art Museum) is almost exactly how I would describe my perception. Do you find it hard to retrieve information that you know you have stored in your mind (eg to write an essay/talk on something that you know about)? The conceptual way that I think and store information is so non-linear that it becomes near inaccessible to retrieve. For example, if I try to think about a topic that I know a lot about I can 'feel' the information as a whole, but all I can clearly grab from my mind are tiny shards of information. If I were given time I could piece together the whole very well, but retrieving it is completely nonlinear, exhausting and not conducive to writing or speaking that requires far greater clarity (stitching together of pieces) than I can achieve in a timely manner.
So much of what JSBACH has said is how I would explain the way that I perceive things. I have almost no visual thinking. I too trained in a creative field (graphic design), though didn't realise until later that the way that I think and see is not like others. I could function to an extent in a heavily visual job without any visual thinking because I can very easily see when something does or doesn't look right. I believe that this compensation comes from the way that I do think (in feelings, concepts and patterns).
Unlike JSBACH I can not drive. My 'stitching together' of the details is not fast enough to form realiable scenes because, when moving, my eyes jump from detail to detail to detail and any small lingering on any detail means I'm missing what could be right in front of me. That's fine if I'm walking, but not safe if I'm driving.
I've been told that my eyes 'look anxious' when I am in public, but they are just busy jumping between hundreds of small details. If I look down a street I'm likely only seeing someones bag or a number plate or a brick. My brain stitches together the information far easier in places that I am familiar with, as though it can go to the cache. It is very hard for me to be in places that I am unfamiliar with because there is just so much to piece together and it can be very hard to navigate a space that only exists in pieces.
Your last post (beginning with the Rodin Art Museum) is almost exactly how I would describe my perception. Do you find it hard to retrieve information that you know you have stored in your mind (eg to write an essay/talk on something that you know about)? The conceptual way that I think and store information is so non-linear that it becomes near inaccessible to retrieve. For example, if I try to think about a topic that I know a lot about I can 'feel' the information as a whole, but all I can clearly grab from my mind are tiny shards of information. If I were given time I could piece together the whole very well, but retrieving it is completely nonlinear, exhausting and not conducive to writing or speaking that requires far greater clarity (stitching together of pieces) than I can achieve in a timely manner.
Alexi: I am amazed because, from your description, we have nearly identical ways of processing information. My strengths are in pattern and concept, too, but the "linearizing" of something which in my mind is so unified and holistic becomes a major challenge. It's one reason why I have always had difficulties writing. I have the whole idea inside me, arranged conceptually down to fractals of arguments. But how to translate them into English and then to order them, and then to make them readable for the NT world amounts to a painful process of translation.
I learned this skill in college (since I had to write so much), but I am at a grave disadvantage in an academic setting, because I don't "think" in the manner proper to writing an academic paper.
But in my job where I preach every day, what I do find that works is to take a stab at that "one opening sentence," and then, like a ball of yarn, let that sentence pull and unravel the whole that is in my mind, until it's all done, and then I end my thought, and - miracle or miracles - it works out great. A four minute homily of brilliance.
But it's a scary and unpredictable process.
(I can sketch the Rodin Museum from memory only because I know the pattern of its composition. I cannot generate an image of it in my head. But I know its schema. The only vivid detailed "images" I have in my head are aural, e.g. buts of music and speech.)
I am sorry you cannot drive. I learned to drive by getting into small accidents and, in time, learning what not to look at. It took me about 15 years to get confident at driving. Come to think of it, it took me that long to get used to walking as well, since I never knew what my body was doing at any particular time.
One last bit -- about how your eyes dart around in public (and most likely how your head moves and bobbles everywhere when you are in public as you pick up details?), I have literally had to train myself not to do that. I learned the hard way because people usually will not tell you this, however, they think that's very, very weird behavior. It's a continual struggle for me. I usually find myself focused on the ground, processing one floor tile after the next....
18 Jan 2014, 3:14 pm
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,570
Location: the island of defective toy santas
18 Jan 2014, 8:58 pm
I can't count the number of times I've tripped over my own two feet or when descending stairs falling hard upon my tuckas and bouncing a few steps. 
18 Jan 2014, 9:40 pm
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,570
Location: the island of defective toy santas
18 Jan 2014, 9:51 pm
wozeree wrote:
Too bad we're not around to catch each other when we are falling!
in my tin can I have to look down with one eye and look forward with one eye to keep myself from tripping and falling.
18 Jan 2014, 9:51 pm
auntblabby wrote:
I can't count the number of times I've tripped over my own two feet or when descending stairs falling hard upon my tuckas and bouncing a few steps.
Sometimes I get that way too. Funny thing, when I am in the water swimming or skiing or biking I am also more stable a lot of the time than just walking around. When you are a ski instructor they say that you can always gauge how your student is going to do on skis by the way he walks in his ski boots. My brother says I am the exception to that rule. I can't walk worth a hill of beans in my boots but I can ski pretty well. 
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,570
Location: the island of defective toy santas
18 Jan 2014, 9:58 pm
skibum wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
I can't count the number of times I've tripped over my own two feet or when descending stairs falling hard upon my tuckas and bouncing a few steps.
Sometimes I get that way too. Funny thing, when I am in the water swimming or skiing or biking I am also more stable a lot of the time than just walking around. When you are a ski instructor they say that you can always gauge how your student is going to do on skis by the way he walks in his ski boots. My brother says I am the exception to that rule. I can't walk worth a hill of beans in my boots but I can ski pretty well. never tried skiing but I roller skate ok, better than I can run or walk. can't swim that well, never could exceed 2 miles per hour, my stroke is ungainly.
