Is knowing which way is left or right as automatic as up and down?

[Dramatic]

Saw a video online about this, apparently for some people knowing their left and right is as automatic as knowing up and down. Is this you?

I struggle so much, I can be confidently saying left and pointing right or vice versa and when someone gives a direction it takes me a good few seconds to know which way they mean. Whereas if someone said up or down it would be instant.

YABU left and right are as easy as up & down
YANBU left and right takes a few more seconds to think about/I quite often get it wrong

I’m very right dominant so it’s pretty intuitive for me but I’d imagine it’s harder for people who are more ambidextrous. My left is rubbish, so I always know which is left!

Up and down remains the same regardless of which way you are facing, or laying I suppose, it's totally irrelevant what you are doing in that space.

But left and right changes based on what I'm doing in that space. Turn left changes entirely if I spin on my heel (less or more than 360°, if you're being pedantic, I suppose)

That's what does my head in. Up and down is as things are and left and right is as I am. 🤷

I can't tell left from right without thinking. It's the main reason I can't drive a car. I have a licence but wouldn't risk actually driving.

I had a friend with the same problem and when directing her in the car I had to say 'turn next passenger side' or 'bear right driver's side'. It's a bit like colour blindness, you have to work round it.

I always need to pause and think "Lefty Lucy Righty Tighty..." 🤔!

Loving the "clocked it" 😀

Left and right are automatic for me but I struggle with East and West. I have to imagine a compass before I be sure as to which is which. North and South are automatic though. Brains are funny!

Instinctive for me, DH needs to think about it.

Up and down def more obvious - maybe as simple as the delineation of sky v ground.
I am fine mostly with left and right but have wobbles when nervous/under pressure.
Failed first driving test as turned a corner and became disoriented and ended up on wrong side of road. I’m grateful for this thread as thought was just me.
Just to reassure I am a much better driver now 😌.

Left and right are my enemies.

My dh reliably gets them mixed up, to the extent that if he says right you know he almost certainly means left. Interestingly, he's a left-hander who trained himself to write right-handed at school (apparently nobody forced him, he just decided he was going to).
He doesn't have any problems driving etc and has driven in the UK/Ireland several times with no issues (we live in a RH-driving country).
Our children are all very clearly RH, like me, and have no issues with the concept.

Me: (Thinks 'It's 112.5 degrees on the horizontal plane, approximately 845mm from ground level when approaching from a due south direction'. With completed 3 dimensional image in my head, angles, pitch, approach, everything, I could programme a drone to target this from the next county just by memory). Hang on, this is DP.

'It's on your left'

DP: ????

Me: On your left. The other one. The other other one. No, not turning to face me, stay where you were and look to your left. Your LEFT. The one you write with. NOT THE RIGHT. Stay still. That means don't do a 90 widdershins. Oh, for God's sake, stay still and face the window. The kitchen window. The one you're standing at. Look out of the window. Lift up your fretting hand and put it on the top of the dishwasher. Now creep it like Thing towards the window. 10cm. No, not the windowsill. Not, not the hob which is on your right and six foot away. GO BACK TO THE SINK AND FACE THE KITCHEN WINDOW. Do the Thing hand.

<deep breath>Stop when your hand hits the bloody great box of washing powder with FAIRY written in big, friendly letters over the front. Got it? <oh, for fuck's sake> STAND STILL.

<takes hand, rejecting the right that was pushed towards me and gently guide him back to facing the bloody window instead of spinning round like a disco dancing Springer at Crufts>

OK, your left hand. Your fretting hand, GIVE ME YOUR FRETTING HAND NOT THE PLECTRUM HAND, look forward OUT OF THE WINDOW...here we are <THUD> the bloody great box of washing powder.

There you go. Easy, eh?

He tried taking me in exactly the opposite direction at the weekend when he was holding the phone with the map and the little blue light that shows what way you're facing. AND there was a tube station with the name directly across the road that he was ignoring both in reality and on the map. Let's just say a look of Doom meant I was handed the phone pretty sharpish to check my internal suspicion that he was going in exactly the wrong direction.

Not for me. I have to consciously think about it every time and still get it wrong. I am left handed so often think about what hand I write with. I also struggle with east/west, although not with north/south.

As a dyslexic, definitely not. I did meet another dyslexic who got confused with up and down .

I'm actually OK with left and right and it comes as naturally as up and down however I know a lot of adults who struggle I don't think its out of the ordinary. I have no sense of direction and the amount of arguments iv had with my bf when driving and I'm saying which way and by the time he's figured out left and right we've missed the turning

ha I like your dh. I am like him while dh has some internal always calibrated compass. It’s a wonder to behold. If I try the hand thing to work out left both ‘L’s look fine and I still can’t work it out. I am quite smart and capable but there is always the chance I exited the toilets into the broom cupboard or lost the car after parking. Before Satnav I had some really long drives.

I'm now able to recognise my own right and left hand sides immediately, but I had to learn. Ask me to do the same with someone facing me, or side on to me, and I'll struggle. I can drive and give directions competently, and am righthanded but sometimes reversed my letters when I was learning to write. AFAIK none of my children has any difficulty.

One of my sisters, in her 50s, still has to look at her own hands to tell right from left. She's a very capable driver. A few months ago she was driving with me and DH in the car and I was giving her directions. DH was amused that I was giving her cues other than "right" and "left" because I knew they'd mean nothing to her.

Had a fascinating talk with an orthoptist who spotted this in my DD and went on to discuss her birth experience, her integrated primitive reflexes, left-right eye muscle compensation, and her general left-right balance and coordination (linked also to the fact she didn't crawl much at all, so that diagonal "opposite" coordination didn't develop.)
Apparently.

I do this too!

Often muddle left and right, and no the other right. Am doing a Phd so it’s not an intellect thing but I definitely do not ‘know’ it as instinctively as I know up and down. My kids are the same… but we’re all Autistic/ADHD. My kids struggle with analogue watches as well.

I would also add that although I don't know my left from my right, I don't often get lost. I have a great sense of direction and can easily follow a sat nav or read a map. No issues at all with driving or knowing what side of the road I need, or parking or spatial awareness. I can easily mentally picture the route I need to take from one place to another. The issue I have is explaining that route to someone else, I know exactly where I want to tell them to go but say left when I mean right.

I think for some it must be. My 3yr old knows it and on a couple of occasions I’ve tried to correct them and then had to apologise that I was the one in the wrong!!

I struggle with this too many years ago in my driving test I had to write an L and an R on my thumbs so when the examiner said left or right I did it without hesitation lol

I struggle. I always know my left hand is my left hand, but I sometimes think my right hand is left too. My right hand is my dominant hand so I have no idea why I do this.

I have to look at my right hand to check before I give directions.

The good thing, i suppose, is that I know I do this so I have learned to check.

As easy as up and down for me. But I had an accident as a toddler and lost part of a finger. So I grew up knowing that was my right hand. I think knowing it from very young helps

I think it's automatic for most people after maybe age 5 or 6. I've never had any problems with left and right.

One of my DCs does. I end up saying 'other left' as she rummages in the right-hand drawer or pulls a chair to the right, etc.