this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
107 points (98.2% liked)
Asklemmy
43816 readers
1053 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Was surprised I started mixing up left and right after I broke my right-hand wrist while biking.
Turns out I subconsciously associated "right" for the direction my stronger hand was on, and once my left hand started feeling like the more dominant one during recovery - my brain would automatically choose that "right" should be on my left-hand side instead, until I actively thought about which direction is which.
This gradually decreased out as my right hand recovered and got back to being the dominant one over the next few years, but was eye-opening what shortcuts my brain uses for such basic things.
Wait, are you saying you didn't have to actively think about which is right or left before? I've always had to think about it, only for a second, but it's definitely an active thought thing for me.
Really?
Yeah, definitely. I didn't know people didn't have to think about it for a second.
You're not the only one, it takes me a second or two. Sometimes I make an L shape with my hands to see which way is left. Then again, sometimes I forget my age and name haha.
I always look for my ring, then I know which hand is left.
My wife has trouble with this as well. She's also not very good with spatial reasoning, I wonder if those are linked
I am pretty alright with spatial reasoning but have a hard time with left and right. Especially in multitasking scenarios. When driving during complicated situations and in unknown environments for example. I always get my guide to point or have a look at the nav.
Do you have to herd her around the supermarket? I'm forever guiding my mrs out of the way of other shoppers. No spatial awareness bless her.
Lmao it's not that bad. Or rather, it manifests at a larger scale : she'll wonder how we came to face this way by taking that route, or how we're able to see our home from some vantage point. She isn't very agile but I wouldn't say she's dyspraxic either.
Is it ever an issue for you both ?
No it's not an issue. It's probably more a me thing than a her thing. I'm probably hyperaware of avoiding the personal space of others.
This is wild and I genuinely can't wrap my head around it.
So say, if you were blindfolded and run, if I give you command a la those rally drivers you will have a noticeable lag to my cue ? Like not instant ?
I mean, it's a split second, but yeah, I gotta think about it. I don't think there would be noticeable lag, but it's definitely a conscious thought. I just thought everyone had to have the thought go through their head, it's not just like an instinct or anything.
I guess the brain is just weird like that. This is also news to me, I thought "doesn't know left from right" is just a figure of speech.
And now I'm down into the rabbit hole.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230112-why-some-people-cant-tell-left-from-right
Now that you mention it, it's odd that some people (like myself) have to think about it. Like I wouldn't have to hardly think about what you meant if you said "up" or "down."
Think of it like telling someone the directions like "twelve o'clock" versus "six o'clock" or "three o'clock" - you probably have to take a tic (heh) to picture it.
Yeah, the BBC article I posted above also mentions that.
At first I thought it would be like if someone told me to touch my nose and I have to consider which part of my face it is, because for me my body is split in the middle the left and right feel distinctly different I can't confuse one with the other. Fascinating.
Are you ambidextrous by any chance?
I keep trying, but no, not ambidextrous
I guess I just felt that "right" is my stronger hand direction, "left" is my weaker hand one. Now, after several years of recovery I feel it almost the same way as before, so my mind makes the same shortcut instead of thinking for a second about it. But if I ever feel the balance of my stronger-weaker side tipped (e.g. right hand has fallen asleep) I guess it's thinking time again.
Funny enough, I stopped mixing up my left and right after I broke my arm roller blading (on another occasion I broke my arm while biking). I didn't have a way to mentally keep track until the doctor set the arm slightly off with the bone bowing out a bit - it feels slightly different now, but visually you can't tell.
That's really interesting. There are probably more people like you, but who will never know if nothing happens to their dominant hand.