Lots of different 'maps' in my head....

[LNY1986]

Having an interesting conversation at work this morning.....

I asked people what their time 'maps' looked like? As in how they 'see' the months of the year, the days of the week etc, in their own heads? My 'map' of the year is like a big anti clockwise daisy chain loop, and each month within that large chain as its own mini chain, I can see clearly where we are today, Sept 28th, I am at the 9pm position heading down toward 6pm, which is New Year, where the chain starts again. The chain is blueish white in winter months, and golden coloured in the summer, presumable due to the seasons.
I can also shrink this year right down so it becomes part of an even larger loop, which symbolises this century. It starts at the bottom left in 2000, and finishes up at the top right with 2100.
When I think of myself in 2050 I can see clearly where this is, strangely though this bigger century chain goes in the opposite direction (clockwise!)

I have similar chain for days of the week.

These maps have been with me forever, I cannot ever remember NOT thinking like this, even as a tiny child.

I have ALWAYS just assumed everybody thinks like this.

Yet... EVERY single colleague (6 of us) all laughed at me and thought I was totally nuts!! And they all said they just look at a calendar and they don't need to 'see' where they are in time? Omg, I was blown away, Like, how do people 'see' where they are haha?!! And where they are going in the future?

And now I am sat back at home and suddenly now feel like I am either really weird and freakish, or super intelligent?

My question is this, am I alone in having time space maps in my head, or does anyone else completely get me?

(2 of my colleagues I know are avid MN users, so they will no doubt recognise this as me if they read this haha!!!)

Sorry op, think it’s just you! It sounds very interesting though. We all have our own fascinating inner worlds!

I have a map of the year in my head, like a clock face and running clockwise. We are about to head into the last quarter of the clock face as we enter October.

But that’s it. Nothing more exciting.

I have pages of a book in my mind, (I guess very much like a physical diary). I do a lot of planning from a future point in time and work backwards so I’m constantly flipping the mental pages. And I can flip back to search memories and remember when something happened.

Yours sounds much prettier and more sophisticated but I definitely relate

That’s Synaesthesia. My map of the year is a flattened oval. Summer months lighter in colour than the winter months. My map of time is a diagonal line stretching up into the sky.

Mine is a train track with the seasons in nature running along side it.

It's not just you!

Except my year is an oval shape with Jan at the top and Sep at the bottom. It runs anti-clockwise and I don't know why Sep-Dec have more space than the rest of the year. I can see friends and family birthdays lit up on the map.

I have a week map as well. Also oval shape but running clockwise. Mon-Fri go across the top and Sat and Sun share the whole of the bottom.

These maps are such strong images for me it always surprises me when other people say they don't have them.

Mine is less elaborate (love the daisy chain description!) but I have a picture in my mind of the year unspooling, with sort of ‘gates’ at different points. Same thing for months and weeks, and I can wind backward through my life to think about different years (don’t tend to think more than a couple of years into the future though) . I don’t really picture it in colour but the different months and seasons all have different shades/textures/qualities to them.

I think a lot of people do have something like this in their mind’s eye but equally a lot of people don’t and they can’t imagine what you’re on about as their brains just don’t work that way!

This. I see numbers in colours.

You’re all nuts 😁

Oooh your map of the week is just like mine, except Saturday and Sunday are across the top not the bottom!

The only thing I have is the months of the year like this

January february
march april
may june

etc etc all in rectangle boxes. So September is always in the left. October always on the right.

I just look at the calendar. Does that mean you never have to check the date?

Mine is like a moebius strip so that the years continuously continue around. I place myself on it and can look forward to October and look behind me to August. Obviously it's like a colour wheel too with the dark blues in winter through to green in March and yellow / red in summer.

I don't do the decades though in my head. The weeks are just part of my whole moebius strip rather than a strip of their own.

This is lovely.

I have a clock face for the year, and rather than seeing it, I inhabit it, so see it from the perspective of whichever month/season I'm surrounded by. Move clockwise in it and it is shaded according to the season but not vividly.

Weeks, though are a semicircle with Monday bottom right, the week days follow the arc with Weds at the top, and then Sat and Sun going straight across the bottom. If I'm working out dates I count up the day positions in the air in front of me.

Years ahead are stepping stones stretching away. I appear not to think about past years much!

(See also, if someone asks me what I want to drink, I have to physically take sips from my cupped hand imagining im holding different drinks to know what I want to have)

😆

I feel so boring!
Is this useful though, do always know days of the week etc?

This sounds fascinating - and lovely. But although I have an instant and permanent technicolour dream going on in my head all the time, I have never had anything like this and though I can picture yours from what you describe, I can't activate one for myself.

I just see clear images. So NYE is lots of flickering white candles and NYD is dawn rising over a ploughed field - quite obvious images really - bit Hallmark. Christmas is roaring log fires and a decorated tree. etc I can see static images of times ahead but have no inner visual aid for the distance/movement/progress of the year. I'd like one.

This sounds bonkers, but very interesting.
I experience nothing at all like this. Total blackness in comparison to these descriptions.

I want some of what OP's having! It all sounds great 😄

I use my phone or check Alexa screen for the date, I have a diary app on my phone for appointments and stuff. All very boring I feel now.

I have this too, my loop is 2 years long and we are currently coming down the left hand side towards Dec and will start going up the other side in 2024.

My weeks are like a long monopoly square type line, with the weekends fatter than the weekdays then tapering back into the week days

I've always wondered whether others see stuff like this so this is a fab thread and really interesting, thanks OP

AMAZING!!

Not just me then 😂

I have never really thought about it as just assumed we all did this.

I can't imagine not thinking like this, I would get lost in time 😂

@TotalOverhaul I had the images thing going on too. I can remember as a child drawing a picture of the days of the week and showing it to my mother. She was baffled; I was baffled that she was baffled.

My picture was of the following, arranged in an oval:
A nest
A sun
A ‘normal brown button’ (labelled 😁)
A drawstring bag with a green floral pattern
A drawstring bag with a pink floral pattern
A blue finger nail
A fried egg.

Some of these images - the sun for Sunday, the fried egg for Friday seem logical. But the others make no sense whatsoever, objectively. But they were so fixed in my head, I would ‘feel’ those images just as clearly as any of the five senses.

I found this drawing when going through my childhood stuff, a few years ago, and it brought it all back. Synaesthesia fades as you get older, sadly. I no longer ‘feel’ these images, but the time maps are still strong, as well as colours for names.

Nope, nothing like that at all for me. And can't understand why you would need to see where you were in time anyway??

But then I'm also one of the people that can't 'see' something in my mind unless I have physically seen it in real life eg I can see a mind map I've drawn, but can't visualise a random thing if I'm asked to. I can can kind of sense it but not see it

Absolutely none of that here, I just tend to know what date / time it is and if I need to check I look at my watch.