Literally no sense of direction... at all

OP, I'm with you.

I have the sense of direction of an autumn leaf. Every journey I make is a new and exciting adventure. I'm constantly amazed. "Ooh! Look! How did we get here?"

This is a syndrome of some sort. I can't hold a 3D map of the world in my head. Also, with an actual map, I can only travel up it. Can't do down - so I'm incapable of going south, and east and west are very challenging. It doesn't help that I can't tell left from right. When my elder daughter's in the car, she has to say 'Next road your side.' She's good at directions. My younger daughter, like me, is hopeless.

I should add that I'm not ND, as far as I know, and there are things that I'm really good at that would indicate that I'm not stupid either. I just have difficulty with three-dimensional space.

I've got a really good sense of direction (unless I'm in Leeds) but my DH's is terrible. He absolutely relies on sat nav in the car, which is ok until he gets to a new road or roundabout that's not on his sat nav software yet, then it all goes to shit. He'll blindly follow the sat nav instead of reading the road signs.

Suggest Google Maps on your phone and a good old AA map in the car.

I still have no sense of direction though. I don't think it grows back.

I have it too. I used to have to do a physical recce before going somewhere unfamiliar and take note of the names of pubs and buildings. I had one job that involved driving to several different venues. I went to the wrong one more than once.

DH will say things like ‘You need to be on the A243’. That means nothing to me. I need road names, not numbers.

I get lost coming out of toilets in hotels and restaurants too. I couldn’t find my way round one school I worked, for ages. Had to style it out in front of the teenagers.

This is a zombie thread ! ..

I’m no good with directions and I don’t drive now as I find too stressful even if I know where I’m going with a sat nav ( when I did drive) I’ve been lost so many times it’s embarrassing really. I feel like a lost cause myself most of the time!

I sympathise as I can get lost in the local park. I love driving, but I only drive where I am familiar with the local area...For example, I could not drive to Brent X. I have been driven there dozens of times, but I could not do this on my own; I just don't seem to take anything in. When my boss said I would need to drive from Bushey to Potters Bar to drop off documents, I nearly died. I got my partner to sit with me so I could do a dummy run, 3 dummy runs later, I still could not grasp it. I ended up shouting at my partner, who was annoyed with me for not reading the signs. I wanted to throw him out of the car, but I didn't dare as I would never get back home. On the day I had to drive to Potters Bar, I phoned in sick. When I returned to work the next day, one of the girls said she had to go to Potters Bar and said, "It's a lovely little drive there. Yeah right!

I'm hopeless too. I get lost in buildings so will avoid using toilets in big places such as airports in case I can't find DH again! Also weirdly I consider north to always be straight ahead no matter where I'm facing. Obviously I know it's not but I can't picture it being anywhere else!!!

*what I'm in willing to bet

Agree completely MoonCup! It's been an interesting and useful thread.

I'm just trying to convey, somehow, what I'm in willing to bet a fair few people with difficulties like mine have experienced, which is people who are great at this stuff Just Not Getting that there's some kind of… fundamental difference that means that very often, the tips that work great for others don't seem to translate, and it's not for lack of trying

@FrankensteinIsTheMonster

Me, a human being with no discernible navigation abilities at all, trying to get tips from someone with a fantastic sense of direction who has all these great techniques that just work when they do them, is a bit like me, a once-hyperlexic who thinks in text, trying to give tips to someone with severe dyslexia. It's just not gonna work

So it's not an absence of ability as much as it's a difference in processing information. Nobody needs to feel like they're a bit thick (I paraphrase slightly), nobody feels they're superior (I certainly don't when I'm faced with huge blocks of text and die a little inside because I've got to painstakingly go through it to extract the useful information from a wall of waffle, as I see it, when somebody else gets it immediately).

Your comments make it easier for somebody like me to give somebody like you directions that you will understand and be able to follow - I have to convert my super-duper 3D overlays into words. Very, very detailed words.

I think that's a pretty useful outcome from the thread, really?

@Scarby9 that’s how I’d know I was going the wrong way. But that instinct to turn the wrong way is hard wired in!

A certain amount of it, for me, is not paying attention, and that’s the bit I can do something about. But being able to visualise images and carry a map in my head is well beyond me. The fact that in a 50:50 situation I’m not getting it right 50% of the time suggests that there’s some kind of instinct at play.

Me, a human being with no discernible navigation abilities at all, trying to get tips from someone with a fantastic sense of direction who has all these great techniques that just work when they do them, is a bit like me, a once-hyperlexic who thinks in text, trying to give tips to someone with severe dyslexia. It's just not gonna work

@thelegohooverer
Do you remember that you have already been in eg. Waterstones? Does that not remind you if you do turn the wrong way?

@scarby9 that’s exactly what I do. In fact if I’d not sure and my instincts are saying “turn right”, I’ll turn left instead and mostly that’s where I should go.

No, I have a pretty good sense of direction, but I have a system that helps. As others have said, looking out for landmarks/features that stand out, eg particular buildings, billboards, brightly coloured front doors, unusual trees, etc. I concentrate on my surroundings rather than walk around daydreaming, or looking at my phone, or focusing purely on the sat nav. You have to be engaged in something to form memories. Another tip is to look behind you regularly as things look totally different the other way round.

Some places are trickier than others, such as hotel corridors where it's uniform in appearance, with the same doors, same carpet, same walls. I've done the walk out of the room and head the wrong way because of it 😆

[quote castemary]@NeverDropYourMoonCup sorry it does not help. I am good at paying attention and can recognise places, but I can't get it in my head how places link up. So I can be, oh yes I recognise that house, but I have no idea when I go past it which way I go next.[/quote]
That sounds like a static image with a linear progression to me, whereas the images in my head are 3D, so I can pan in and out/up for a map view and various projections and then know I move [that way] to reach the next fuller detailed section, if you see what I mean?

Actually, that does make me think of something. Do people who struggle with navigation tend to remember things as lists or words, compared to images or movements? So a big white house just means a generic big white house, not the image of the big white house that's on the route you need to get to the little brown house?

I have a very intelligent and capable friend in every other way who also has absolutely no sense of direction.
She can't map read, doesn't kknow left from right and doesn't remember a direction. For example, back in the days when we would go for a mooch round the shops, we would be coming up through town, turn into a shop on our right then when we came out she would turn left back down the street.
It's obviously a very specific part of the brain.

So who would you ask for directions? DH is always being stopped and asked for directions, it even happens when we are away from our home city. Fortunately asking him is a very good move as he has excellent local knowledge. The question is, what is it about him that prompts absolute strangers to choose him in particular?

As another poster mentioned I too if I don't scope out where I'm sitting in a restaurant can get lost coming back from the toilet and have often embarrassingly found myself wondering around like a lemon. Same thing happened on a cruise years ago. We all went and found a table big enough for us all and left our stuff there. All went up to the buffet but could I hell as like find my way back. After ages of walking round and around I ended up just sitting at some random empty table to eat my dinner whilst the rest of family came to find me.

I could have written this. Harvesters are the worst, with their dead ends and split levels

The more and more I learn about myself, I think I might be have a type of dyspraxia. I struggle with multitasking too, can’t type while someone is talking to me for example.

This has been me all my life. I have no sensr of direction whatsoever. My worst incident, and I have had a few was parking at Warwick Uni when I went for interview. I parked in multistory carpark. I had a banana yellow Metro, which was very easy to spot. I wrote down on floor 3. Went off to interview and given your. I was ready to go home. I saw multistory and made my way to floor 3. No car. Even though I had written down floor 3 I walked right up to top of carpark. Still no car. I saw security man. I reported my car as stolen. I was in tears by this time as only had car 1 month and gift from my Dad. Police called. Eventually they asked if I was sure I had parked at that multistory. I did not know there was more than one. They took me to another and there was my car just where I had left it. I felt so very stupid. To top it all I got list getting back home as before sat navs. I arrived home almost 3 hours late and my Dad had gone out looks Ng for me. I am old so before I had a mobile.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup sorry it does not help. I am good at paying attention and can recognise places, but I can't get it in my head how places link up. So I can be, oh yes I recognise that house, but I have no idea when I go past it which way I go next.

I am like this and have very poor face recognition. Landmarking only helps if landmarks are VERY distinctive. Sometimes I think I know the way because I see a Sainsburys for example, then realise it must be a different Sainsburys as I do not recognise anything else. I can not visualise any journey longer than about a quarter of a mile.
I purposely try not to use GPS except for long journeys to improve my spacial recognition. I still get lost a lot in the city I have lived in for 30 years.

I'm the same, it's a form of dyspraxia and has a name.
I can't even turn right direction out of the toilets at work.
It's truly debilitating. 😟