Counting everything

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I count everything and always have done: syllables when people are talking, beats in songs, steps when I'm walking up the stairs (I can still remember how many stairs there were in certain parts of my high school etc.) and I particularly like counting in fives for some reason. I can't work out whether this is a good thing or not though because sometimes it's relaxing whereas other times it's just irritating, especially in the car, driving past so many other cars and lines on the road to count... Maybe I've just got used to counting because it calms me down. Does anybody else do this?

Ive never been much of a counter, but ive always played patterns in my head, or with my hands. I think it just keeps my mind off things/calms me down as well as something to do, however boring it is.

I always have patterns in my head as well, I have to fill them in with dots. Like dominoes

Thats lessened alot for me through the years. It wasnt counting so much as the kind of thing in the movie '23', except I was into 2, 7 and 27. But I'd also check every license plate that went by and if the numbers added up to something I thought special, then Id look at the letters in the plate and try and associate words to it as if I was looking for a mystery clue. Now I realize it was just my brain on Aspergers. hahahaha

But thinking back about it now, it sounds really crazy.

Have your read "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet? If not, pick it up as I think you could relate to him.

I used to count the cracks in the sidewalk to and from school every day. Counting is rather a calming down thing. There is order in numbers.

I like counting things I see for no particular reason, but not to your degree. But what caught my eye was that you like counting in fives -- because that's my preferred method of counting as well. I can group things visually by fives without literally "1,2,3" counting them. A pile of ten pencils will "just look like" two sets of five, without having to number them sequentially one-by-one. I automatically bracket the fives, then count the brackets, and add the remainder.

But like you probably do, I do feel a certain security in knowing exactly how many things there are in any set around me. And I feel a mild insecurity from not knowing.

Last edited by Ragtime on 06 Apr 2007, 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, I've never read that before, I will do though if I can, thanks
I used to do a similar thing when I was younger as well, but instead of counting them I'd have to step on cracks. Which sometimes can look a bit strange I know other people who do the opposite as well and have to avoid the cracks. They can be very distracting when you're trying to focus on going somewhere lol No wonder I always end up getting lost

I find it easier to visualise in fives as well, that's how I learnt to count when I was younger, but when I started school they made you count on your fingers which didn't help.

First time Ive heard of someone doing the opposite. That would definately look strange as you have to follow the lines where they go.

That's why I'm glad I don't do it that much now. It's not as bad sometimes depending on the lines. When I walk over to the library at university there are fairly big sqaures so I can put my left foot on a horizontal line and my right foot on a vertical line or something. I used to hate walking anywhere where the lines were really close together though.

Daniel is a savant with AS who does calendar math and visualizes numbers with synasthesia. He's odd, but not so odd, in that he functions very well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story ... 03,00.html

I was a crack-avoider, which I'm sure gave me a strange looking walk. I also get lost often. Now, I just print maps from Mapquest so I can find a better route as I always have to take the SAME route otherwise.

I've always found constant numbers comforting, like signposts in the universe: speed of light, Avagrado's number, pi and others. They are always true.

I only get lost now by going to the wrong room for seminars or things like that. So I'm always in the right building at least. I can't get public transport on my own either so I have to get dropped off at uni every day. I'd probably get lost a lot more if I didn't because I have topographical disorientation and dysexecutive something (I'm not sure if that's related to getting lost though)
I did manage to walk up to the museum on my own though the other day for the first time. Having said that though, I did get a bit lost once I got in there...

When I was a kid, I counted everything, especially when I had nothing else to do. Steps in my house or school, words in a program before seeing a play, ceiling tiles in a restaurant (especially if I had finished counting things in the menu!), etc. For me, it's knowing how many of something there is. My dad would get soccer gear catalogs periodically, and I would sit down with a calculator and add up the prices of every item in the catalog, just to know how much it all cost put together.

I also automatically group things, but I tend to group them in anything that will make them come out even (2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 10s); so long as there aren't things left over if I can help it.

Come to think of it, I've always been fascinated by prime numbers. I can't group them; they are a group!

I don't mind having numbers left over as long as it's 3. Whereas if I had four groups of 5 and then one left over that would annoy me. That's why I don't like numbers like 11 and 21
I don't know why I like numbers so much though because I didn't like maths in school.

One, two, three, four, five!

I feel like Peter Marshall when that happens, and I'm not talking about the British host of Sale of the Century, either!

Your counting in fives comment reminds me of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordian ... w_of_Fives