I had "north sense" for most of my life, but it abruptly turned off while driving one day in my 30s. It was extremely disorienting and distressing. It was gone for a couple years, suddenly came back one day, which was an incredible feeling, like regaining an entire limb I had lost.
It went away again the next day, and for the next month I got occasional flashes of it, then it was gone for good. It's been a decade now and the world still feels wrong. There's places I go to that don't seem like the same place because my earlier memories include the directional layout, so now it feels uncanny-valley off.
In my dreams, I still have my directional sense, just like any other sense. I imagine it's like anyone else with a lost sense, your dreams hallucinate your perception of the world to properly match your prior experience.
Holy frijoles, that's so scary! I have called myself a homing pigeon my whole life because of my innate sense of direction - so having this happens sounds utterly awful. I can only imagine how wrong everything must feel.
As I'm now approaching my 30-somethings, I have a new and extremely niche fear unlocked, haha
It still strikes me at odd times while driving that I have no idea which direction I'm actually going. During the first few years of adjustment I actually managed to get going the wrong way on the freeway and didn't immediately realize it. I had to get a GPS specifically for that reason. Not to plan my route, but just to remind me where I am and where I'm going.
I cope pretty well now. I had to develop habits that were entirely unnecessary before, like memorizing turns to make sure I'm going the right way when I leave a place I've gone to for the first time.
It's a little hard to answer for me as this gets into some weird stuff.
To begin, I am almost never the main character of my dreams. Either I am embodying some random person, or it's like watching a movie/ third person mode for some random.
Secondly, I suppose, is that my dreams don't often involve needing to figure out how to get places? Usually we just... go.
And lastly, I'm thinking my sense of direction is so innate to me that it doesn't feel like it's a sense I lose in a dream. It would be like dreaming about losing my sense of smell or touch. That's just... N/not really something that happens as far as I'm aware or remember.
Unknown, i almost cant see dreams at all and the handful per year i do see are forgotten within minutes after waking up.
So i cant guess how good my sense of direction is in something i almost cant see.
It really depends on the type of dream, because there are definitely stress dreams where all of the conflict comes from me being hopelessly lost in a world which seems to shape shift, and all of the maps are wrong and I can't use my phone, and my crush was like "hey my parents aren't going to be home for a few hours" but I can't get to their house even though I've been like 1000 times before, and then I wake up in a cold sweat wondering why the primary plot device is not age appropriate.
9 Comments
mrsemi@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 112d
I had "north sense" for most of my life, but it abruptly turned off while driving one day in my 30s. It was extremely disorienting and distressing. It was gone for a couple years, suddenly came back one day, which was an incredible feeling, like regaining an entire limb I had lost. It went away again the next day, and for the next month I got occasional flashes of it, then it was gone for good. It's been a decade now and the world still feels wrong. There's places I go to that don't seem like the same place because my earlier memories include the directional layout, so now it feels uncanny-valley off.
In my dreams, I still have my directional sense, just like any other sense. I imagine it's like anyone else with a lost sense, your dreams hallucinate your perception of the world to properly match your prior experience.
Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 112d
Holy frijoles, that's so scary! I have called myself a homing pigeon my whole life because of my innate sense of direction - so having this happens sounds utterly awful. I can only imagine how wrong everything must feel.
As I'm now approaching my 30-somethings, I have a new and extremely niche fear unlocked, haha
mrsemi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 112d
It fucking SUCKED, and still does.
It still strikes me at odd times while driving that I have no idea which direction I'm actually going. During the first few years of adjustment I actually managed to get going the wrong way on the freeway and didn't immediately realize it. I had to get a GPS specifically for that reason. Not to plan my route, but just to remind me where I am and where I'm going.
I cope pretty well now. I had to develop habits that were entirely unnecessary before, like memorizing turns to make sure I'm going the right way when I leave a place I've gone to for the first time.
Nemo@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 112d
That sounds awful. But you still can tell relative directions, yeah? Your right from left, up from down?
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 112d
It's never really come up, but I'd expect the non-euclidean nature of my dreams would win in the end.
Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 112d
It's a little hard to answer for me as this gets into some weird stuff.
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 4 pts · 112d
Unknown, i almost cant see dreams at all and the handful per year i do see are forgotten within minutes after waking up. So i cant guess how good my sense of direction is in something i almost cant see.
socsa@piefed.social · 3 pts · 112d
It really depends on the type of dream, because there are definitely stress dreams where all of the conflict comes from me being hopelessly lost in a world which seems to shape shift, and all of the maps are wrong and I can't use my phone, and my crush was like "hey my parents aren't going to be home for a few hours" but I can't get to their house even though I've been like 1000 times before, and then I wake up in a cold sweat wondering why the primary plot device is not age appropriate.
arin@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 112d
Dreams are too random for directions