How to you "visualise" a year?

[desperatetostaypositive]

I was talking to dh about how I picture a year in my mind, and he doesn't do this. His year is just one month after another in a straight line.
Mine is a circle (I'll try and attach a picture)

The whole bottom edge is the summer holidays and the top Christmas. It's completely disproportionate to the timescale! I've always viewed my years in my minds eye like this.

Anyone else?

Yes mine is a circle. Sometimes I even think that we are going down the side of the year, or up the other.

Clockwise like a clock face. January is the bit between 12 and 1

@ChocAuVin

I’m reading this thread and nodding, quietly crowing to myself in a mad, cackling way.

I’ve found my people!

And I'm reading this thread thinking WTF??? 🙃

Mine is like yours but goes clockwise, with August at the bottom curve and January at the top

Another one - I find the 'names' of the years, i.e. 2020, 2019 etc gradually get more faded and tarnished as they fall into history. Once a decade is over it gets locked into a colour - e.g. the 1980s are dark purple.

What do you mean visualise?
Depending on what you are doing - drawing a graph, looking at a diary etc surely that determines how you write the info down?

BTW does anyone remember that at the millennium some people argued that the end of the millennium should really be at the end of 2000, not the start of it? On the basis that the Gregorian calendar starts at year 1, not year 0?

Well to me it was obviously at the end of 1999 and the start of 2000, because that's when you get to the top of one century column and drop down to the next one!

It also occurred to me that certain events create a bolder line in my years visualization. Some are for decades but others are for life events such as moving countries (a sort of before and after) and children’s births etc

Mine is in two halves rather than a circle. Jan - Jun on one side and then Jul at the top down to Dec on the other. Randomly the columns work from right to left. That said, I tend to also visualise in terms as well (teacher for nearly 20 years) so September is separate from August, kind of. Weird.

Jul Jan
Aug Feb
Sept Mar
Oct. Apr
Nov. May
Dec. June

Just asked DC one doesn’t visualise anything “it just is!”
DD(11) visualises it with food! October was Toffee apples surely to goodness November should be toffee apples? Where have I gone wrong?

I used to visualise it from September in short chunks when I was teaching. Now it's in blocks of months for the seasons, starting in January.

I visualise the year as a graph with a normal distribution/bell curve starting in January and ending in December.
It is slightly distorted and flattens slightly in July and August when it’s the school summer holidays.
In my mind the curve represents the lengthening and shortening of the days and also the changing weather.

I’m mad.

Mine is a circle but with spaces like a board game for each date! My Summer is at the top and Christmas at the bottom.

Actually I say circle but it’s more like a square with curved corners. The corners are March, June, September and November.
So not in proportion at all.

@Springfern

In a parallellagram, with a picture of the Welsh flag in the background

I have a vivid minds eye but I have never felt the need to visualise a year. When I do, it comes out like a calendar with pages for each month.

The anti-clockwise and backwards lines seem strange to me!

Bit like this

Opps it didn't attach

This is interesting. I don’t visualise the year, months or weeks at all in the ways being described. I have a vague ‘feeling’ of the year perhaps.

I’m not a very visual person though. I think in words and from discussion I know lots of people think in images so I wonder if that is the difference with this too.

Triangle!

December at the top vertices
June-July-August (teacher so reflects holidays) at the wide base but right to left (as in clockwise)
Other months on the other sides

Semi circle other way around

@desperatetostaypositive you know, I never even would've considered asking anyone else this as I saw it as an oddity of mine!
I visualise the year in a straight line until August then it bends in a corner to the right. The nearer we get to August the clearer I see the 'corner'.

littlefiendsusan I'm not sure how it cropped up at all. I must've made some comment regarding the circle and dh was like He definitely doesn't do it but both the kids do. Ds "sees" it in a different format but dd's is almost identical to mine, going anti clockwise, but starting at the bottom not the top of the circle

@SantasBritchesSpelleas

Another one - I find the 'names' of the years, i.e. 2020, 2019 etc gradually get more faded and tarnished as they fall into history. Once a decade is over it gets locked into a colour - e.g. the 1980s are dark purple.

What do you mean though? When you think about years gone by you visualise the number in your head automatically? This is what I don't get. If I think about 2010 or the 80s, I think about my memories of those times. There isn't a title of visible letters in my head.

Mine is in blocks. Everything before August is the first half and then August onwards is the second half for some reason! But when I see the months individually they seem different. Like March is really high up and April is quite further down so when I look at the whole year and see them next to each other it's strange. I don't know how to explain it really! My brain is odd 🤪

I think what kind of gives me the creeps about all this, is that you all seem to think in visual text. Which is really an alien concept to me. I mean, I can visualise text if I try to, but it would never happen naturally in my brain. A year to me isn't a calendar of any kind, it's what's happening now or memories or my imaginings of the future.

I wonder if this is linked to being a certain kind of person? Not that I have any idea what kind, but just if it's one of those left Vs right side of the brain type things 🤔

Oh I love this. I have always wondered how other people "see" it and things like it.

Mine attached, the months have colours too but I'm too lazy to do that