Sense of direction

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How is your sense of direction?
Mine is just terrible!
I seem to have an extreme lack in the ability to organize spatial thought in the city. I get disoriented and turned around very easily, and can't seem to properly learn how to navigage myself as others do.
I can tell you what fabrics people on the bus have been wearing for the past two weeks, and what the inside of the bus looks like completely, but not where the bus goes and the directions it travels in.
This may have to do with sensory overload... I seem to do better when I am trying to find my way around at night, or in a natural environment such as a forest.
But on buses... busy city streets... and huge labrynth-like malls...
I'm completely lost. I feel disoriented very easily, and can't seem to connect what I see in front of me, with the larger picture of the city in my mind. When theres too many people around...flashing lights...signs...smells...noise...I get absorbed in the surroundings, and can't seperate them from the abstract idea of DIRECTION.
I can eventually learn to find my way around... but not confidently, and not without some kind of effort, and it takes a REALLY long time.
I have bought a map book and I'm trying to memorize the layout of the city so that it's easier for me, but even so... in a busy street I get turned around in the wrong direction so easily!

i wonder if this is a spatial thing rather than an aspie thing?

men are said to have a better spatial sense than women, generally. i have a very kineasthetic memory, so i have to know where things are in relation to me.

i worked out a way of giving directions to a particular place, based on the Myers-Briggs four functions of intelligence (MBTI):

thinkers - give them written/oral directions, names of streets, etc..

sensates - give them a map or directions and say "3rd on the left, 2nd on the right" sort of directions.

empaths - give them directions involving people they know (it works, cos i was giving the directions to an empath, but don't ask me how!).

intuits - give them a map and they "know" how to do it (see above comment).

erm... this sounds like piffle, now i write it down. i'll try and think of a better way to explain it...

I have a weird thing going on with sense of direction. I never get lost moving around in the world (have a natural sense of the 4 directions of the compass based on where the sun is and also a good spatial awareness going through mazes etc...) but CAN NOT tell my left from right. If anyone says left or right, I have to stop and really think about it. And forget which is left or right on a person standing across from me, its twice as hard.

I get made fun of alot for the left/right thing, but it ROCKS when I can tell someone where we are, and where we need to go!

I always memorize directions and ways, if I don't do so, I'm lost, even in my home city.

What I find strange: I don't have this problem in FPS games, 1 or 2 rounds and I know how to move in the map quite well, don't know why.

And yes, I do go out frequently, and my city is very small.

that would be me, which given my map fixation may not surprise anyone..... because I do it intuitively, I give lousy directions though, which only people with a similar cast of mind seem to be able to interpret...

dunc

I get lost quite easily. My sense of direction is pretty much nonexistent. I often walk into a room from one direction and then end up leaving in the same direction, which means that instead of going back the way I came, I end up continuing the way I had been originally walking. I can overcome this with visual cues, like a window at one end of the hall but not the other, for example, but there is absolutely no intuitive sense of direction.

Oddly enough, when I am walking in the woods I will often be "pulled" in the right direction to turn home. This is not a fail-safe mechanism, however . I once got hopelessly lost on some camp grounds and a woman and her family was kind enough to drop me off near my site. I had been walking around in circles for hours!

SassafrasTea, I'm curious. Are you left handed? The reason I'm curious is I ALSO have to think about which is left or right. I am left handed and I wonder if my left hand/right brain dominance is the reason I also have problems with directional movement as everything else in life has always seemed backwards to me.

I just recently mentioned to a family member that I have never learned left/right to the point where it is instinctive (I'm 47 years old) and he teases me about it every chance he gets *sigh*

When I'm driving somewhere I'm unfamiliar with (direction-wise) and I come to a fork in the road, if my instinct tells me to go right....I'll turn left every time. This way I know I'll be going the right way....this unusual technique hasn't failed me yet

I have the same problem as SassafrasTea, but I am right-handed. I still can't tell my left from right, and even doing the "L" shape with my fingers takes me a while to figure out.

I rarely get lost and can see instantly where to go on a map.

What I cannot do is listen to or give directions.

Also I hate it when people try to tell you stories that rely on you knowing where they mean and they insist on trying to tell you where until you say you've got it. I can never get where they mean and listening just makes me stressed.

Most times when I start out on a journey I can only think of the first part (I can't see the whole journey in my mind) ~ Then as I progress the next part comes to me and so on but I have to be 'doing it' ~ I could never describe the whole journey to someone!!

I have been known to get lost walking in a straight line!

That's me - if I've tried to use a map!! I have to remind myself that I write with my right hand to tell the difference. If I'm not flustered, and I concentrate on the direction of the sun and I can build a mental map from experience, I seem to be ok, but if I'm in a panic and I pull out the big printed map, I invariably go in the opposite direction and turn the wrong way each time. Fortunately my son has an excellent visual memory, so he tells me when we've been past places twice... Sometimes I wonder how I get to the shops!

Monastic,

Hi...I'm right handed.
Not sure why I have this left/right confusion, but I do know I've had it all my life. In fact, I remember when I was little, about 5 or 6, the only way I could remember right and left was to face the Santa Cruz mountain range from my home in the Bay area, California. I knew north (towards San Fran) was my right, and south was left (towards LA). To this day I still picture right and left as directions on a map relative to facing west.
I wrote on another thread about my son's map obsession, guess I should'nt have been surprised, as I had one too. Maybe that's why I ended up wired like this?
Maybe that's a clue about what's going on? Do you think you process left/right differently than most people? It would be interesting to see what parts of the brain are responsible for these different functions.

SassafrasTea thanks for the reply. Between you and Civet though you have blown my "left-hand/right-hand" theory oh well, it's all very interesting though. I have no problems reading maps either but when I have to figure my left hand from my right hand, I feel for a little callus on my left hand (from writing) and that's how I know which is which (sad but true).

Are we all females? (feeling another theory brewing) Are there any autistic males out there that have this problem of remembering which hand is which?

To add to the confusion, I'm left-handed, and I can tell my right hand from my left hand without problems

I dunno about your theory being blown, I think this might be a processing thing, and maybe works differently for different people?
Wish I had the callus thing, gee, that would be handy LOL. I have a feeling its a lot quicker than figuring north/south when facing west.

And yes, I'm a female, and probably wired more like a male in this respect. I think my DH is wired opposite to me, as he always gets lost, can't read a map and laughs REALLY loud when I forget left/right. At least when we're together we can get somewhere!

I have a lousy sense of direction. I hate driving because of it. It takes me a long time to become familiar with a particular route, and heaven help me if I deviate from that path! Getting lost really stresses me. When I have to use a map, I have to turn it so the road on the map are going the same direction as the one I am driving on.

This morning my husband dropped his truck at a service center in the next town. I was supposed to pick him up when he called -- unfamiliar roads. He told me to go past a certain shopping mall and turn left at the next light. Well, there was no left turn there! I had to go 7 miles out of my way on an interstate to get back to him... all the while he is standing outside the store giving me step-by-step direction via my cell phone (yes, I was on the phone while driving! bad girl) It was a very stressful morning. He drove home once I finally got to where he was.

He's a professional truck driver. He loves to drive. More power to him.