Through the looking glass.

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I am not frightened by mirrors. I understand the optical physics of how they work, and I understand perfectly well that when I see my reflection in the mirror, that's roughly what other folk see when they look at me (unlucky them!) I have worked in engineering drawing and CAD, so I'm also pretty good at mentally rotating shapes and perspective.

But I really struggle to use mirrors. I look like I've done battle with a velociraptor after trying to have a wet shave, because watching the reflection of my hand and face just doesn't seem to help me find the spot that I missed. I quite often have to feel around with the other hand to find the whiskers. When I had driving lessons, I was often caught out by my instructor when I had checked the mirrors but not really figured out where the other cars were ("Behind me, right?") Going much further back, I had quite a few accidents involving mirrors as a kid, too, including playing "chicken" with my own reflection (I never hurt myself really badly, but my reflection definitely won!)

I am a little dyspraxic, my proprioception is a bit wonky, and I do have a lot of trouble following when people demonstrate things by showing me ("Why are you showing me with your hands, when I'm going to have to use my hands?") It also brings to mind the idea of "mirror neurons" (thinking about the muscle movements of my reflection as if watching another person.) All of those things seem like they might be factors, but whatever it is, there is definitely something specifically perplexing about mirrors that I just can't seem to get the hang of.

It's not something that's a big deal or ruining my life or anything, in fact, I find the little tricks that mirrors play on me quite amusing very often. I just have a fascination with sensory perception and this particular quirk of my brain, so I'm curious to see what comments anyone might have.

Mirrors usually make me look 10 pounds heavier than my actual weight.....

I'm perfectly fine using mirrors to shave but if I was to use two mirrors so I could shave the back of my head it is extremely difficult for me to work out the placement of razor. The same if I use an dentist inspection mirror in my mouth and try to use a plaque scraper.

I always look like such a dork when I can see myself lol. Maybe I look like that all the time. Seeing myself on TV is the worst. Also hearing my voice on a tape recorder. It sounds so wrong lol.

doing stuff in a mirror mightily taxes most brains.

I have an atypical reaction to mirrors - I know that the reflection is me, and I use a mirror to see if I'm presentable before leaving the house. But they spook me somewhat. I react to my own image as if it could be another person about to do who-knows-what. I've got a good foundation in the sciences and tend to be analytical in my thought, but I have something of a primitive reaction to my reflection that I have to suppress when using a mirror.

^^ That's interesting. I don't think I've ever had an scary feeling about mirrors, though I may just have forgotten it, but I understand the feeling that what I see in the mirror doesn't seem totally "connected" to what's in front of it. This is why the childhood accidents intrigue me, as it seems that I was slow to make the connection between reflection and self, persisting well into school age.

When I'm looking at myself in the mirror, the sensation is quite similar to when I have been hyper-focused. When I am totally "in the zone", I can be completely unaware of what most of my body is doing, or that parts of it are even there. When I come out of it, my sense of proprioception is always slowest to come back to me, so it's as if it takes me a little while to become "embodied" again. For example, if I have been reading with a blanket over my legs, I might catch sight of my slippers poking out of the bottom, and have no idea whether my feet are in the slippers, or whether my legs are crossed. Watching my reflection has the same uncanny kind of feeling of being able to see my body, but being unsure if I'm "inhabiting" it or not.

that sounds like what little I've read about "depersonalization."

Yes, I have wondered about that, auntblabby. I do often feel that my mind-body connection comes a bit unstuck. As with mirrors, it never frightens me, as it never causes the rational part of my mind to start doubting the reality - the "uncanny" sensation and the rational explanation seem quite happy to co-exist without ever feeling like there is a conflict going on in my head.

do you ever get the sensation that your spirit, rather than inhabiting your body, merely floats along with it in parallel?

I honestly can't say where I feel my "self" is located when I'm hyper-focused. Where "I" am in relation to my body would be almost a nonsensical concept; it's as if I've forgotten I ever had a body. This doesn't necessarily imply that I'm catatonic or inert, I can play music, read, type or even walk a fair distance while focused so long as the movements don't require any conscious decision making.

that is, as spock might say, "fascinating..." I am thinking you have a powerful automatic part of your brain that automates much of what you do. I am the opposite, I don't seem to have much automatic stuff going on aside from brain stem stuff [vital signs and reflexes], so I have to apply boatloads of a relatively reluctant frontal lobe energy to mundane tasks such as walking and avoiding obstacles. and playing musical instruments means I generally have to borrow energy from elsewhere, in order to have enough brainpower to accomplish such.

^^also fascinating, because directing my focus to something can make me feel the way you just described.

Concentrating my attention on something can very often make me more clumsy, more likely to bump into things, and prevaricate far too much about things that I would otherwise find trivial. As if the conscious thoughts multiply too quickly, and are just getting in the way.

A good example is when I'm out walking. I seem to sail effortlessly along country footpaths when I am cogitating about something or absorbed in the wildlife, and I don't generally get wet feet from stepping in puddles. But if I make a conscious effort to watch where I'm putting my feet, I often stall when I encounter a puddle, completely unable to work out whether or not I can easily stride across. After a little while wobbling around on one leg, I'll eventually decide to go for it, only to find that I could easily have stepped two or three times as far. Because I can do it successfully when not concentrating, there must be some part of my brain capable of accurately judging the distance and my stride, despite any visual/proprioception quirks that I might have.

The same with catching - if someone throws me something, warning me first seems to make it less likely that I'll make the catch. If there's no warning first, so long as I'm looking in roughly the right direction, I'll quite often make a "reflex" catch with what seems like astonishing dexterity compared to my usual flailing at thin air.

Maybe that's an element of my mirror troubles. Having to reverse the image etc. might be making me concentrate too hard on what I'm doing!

^^^you sound like you have a finely functioning automatic brain part in your motor cortex at least.

^^ You know, it's bizarre. Ever since I found out I was autistic, I keep recalling the ways I have described myself to people in the past (often mocking myself). The phrase that I've long used for the walking thing is "having clockwork legs", and in relation to "zoning out", I've often described it as "having some parts of my brain awake and others asleep". Maybe I wasn't being as metaphorical as I've always thought?

Thankyou for your insights, BTW I'm starting to see that some of the explanations I have for my "quirks" are those that I accepted for decades before my autism diagnosis. This thread, and a couple of others recently, are making me see that I may have some long held assumptions that need questioning. "Fascinating" how that can come out of a thread that started out as light-hearted ramblings about what I think of as a minor quirk!

prego I am reminded of a quote of dr. wernher von braun who said, "research is what I'm doing when I don't know what i'm doing."