Does anyone else know if they’re lying the ‘wrong’ way round?

[Roseyposeypie]

Okay, so this is going to sound weird but if I’m away from home as soon as I lie down in the bed to go to sleep I can tell if it’s positioned in a different orientation to my bed at home. For example last night I was in an Airbnb and I just knew that if I was at home the bed would be turned 90 degrees in one direction. My husband checked a compass on his phone and I was right. This isn’t a one off, it happens to me everywhere I sleep that isn’t home. It doesn’t stop me sleeping but it feels ‘wrong’. Does anyone else have this or is it just me me?

I definitely get the headache with the approaching weather change. I'm in a hotel right now and would love to check your bed theory, but sadly the compass direction on Google maps isn't working because I'm inside a big building.

However, I am so grateful for this thread because, being the idiot I am, I had no idea until I searched just now that you could pull up a compass on Google maps!

I am always frustrated when I get directions to walk somewhere and it says head south on X Street and I have no idea which way is south. I was talking about this to my daughter only yesterday and we were both saying that most people must be born with an innate sense of direction, and it's just us that can't do it.

So, thanks to this thread, I will no longer be frustrated by that part of navigating around new cities!

I have this too - I thought I was the only weirdo 😂. And I always know which way north is, the direction of places etc

No, but I'm well envious! People who live in grid cities, like New York, always know which way is North but I don't, not even if I'm there for weeks and am making the effort to learn.

I have an atrocious sense of direction. I've travelled about a third of the world - and got lost in about a third of the world! I'm good with maps, but need a bloody compass all the time 😬

I am fairly good at anticipating the weather, but I think this is simply from experience - I can hear how sound travels in high/low pressure, feel moisture in the air, smell petrichor, etc. I don't get any weather-related physical symptoms.

My husband thinks it deeply weird that if I’m describing a walk or trying to remember someone’s house in the area she grew up in, I will always say it was ‘east the road’ or ‘west the road’.

No, not the bed orientation.

But my husband and I quite often swap sides when we're in a bed away from home.

I’m just thinking it may be to do with being in tune with the environment.

This is how people word things in Irish or ScottIsh Gaelic. Do you have Irish or Scottish heritage perhaps?

I totally get that. The last hotel room I stayed in, the bed was exactly aligned as mine and I slept so well for two nights.

Yes, although ive lost it a but as ive gotten older. As a child , I could tell by the light behind the curtains in the morning if it had been snowing, horrendous weather headaches too. I used to lie in bed after a day out and be able to replay motions I had gone through during the day e.g if i'd been on the river boat or a fairground ride. I'm not sure I can do that as well either anymore.

This made me think of a funny story about my mum, bless her….when the satnav says turn east onto such and such road, she was convinced it meant turn right 😂
She was convinced I’d taken a wrong turning once because I’d turned left 🙈

My uncle always knew which way was north. Until one day when he suddenly didn't. Everything felt wrong to him and he found it totally nerve-wracking to have lost his sense of direction.

Several hours later there was an earthquake. Soon after that he regained his sense of direction.

You know how horses and other animals sometimes get very skittish before an earthquake, like they know it's coming? I think there can be a disturbance in the magnetic field before an earthquake, which some animals (and my uncle!) can detect.

Omg coolest thread ever

i can’t relate to this at all but find it amazing

I’m not bothered by which way round I sleep, but knowing which direction I’m headed is usually possible in daylight.

Those of you who have a ‘right way round’ in bed … I’m curious what happens in the southern hemisphere? Does it flip by 180°?

Not even close. I often pick the wrong side of the bed on holidays and dh assumes I’m winding him up when he has to tell me to move

I can get lost going around a round about. If I’m at home and I point in the direction of something outside, like the nearest supermarket, everyone looks puzzled because inevitably I’m pointing in the wrong direction.

it’s so predictable that if I’m lost, and have a feeling which way i should go, most of the time going the opposite way is the better bet.

There are recent reports about humans having around 33 senses, it sounds like something to do with that.

I am very good at 'knowing' the time. Not brilliant, but good. Allison theses things could have been essential to survival in our evolutionary past.

Or a Robin… there’s evidence some birds have an even weirder way of sensing the magnetic field!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_robin#Magnetoreception

I also have the bed compass thing. The other thing, which I feel is likely connected is that I always feel that I can tell if a beach photo has been taken on the east/west side of the uk

It wouldn't. N, E, S and W are always the same.

Oh no. I’m currently in a bedroom at my parents that I slept in for a few years in childhood. The bed is a different orientation to when I had this room, and different again to my own bedroom, and now I can’t think about anything else…

This has inspired me to change ends of my bed. I always used to prefer pointing north or east as a young person. If this fixes my insomnia I will report back.

Yes it's like having an in built compass. I also can tell the time within 15 minutes accuracy.

This is impressive.
In the dark, I can't even tell which way round I'm sleeping in my own bed! I've always blamed my dyspraxia.

I’ve just realised I do this, but not in relation to cardinal direction but to the front of the building.

Those who are orienting to cardinal direction must be picking up cues in the environment

I've just done the same! Let us know if there's a difference 😴

Yep - I have this. I also know in which direction the (nearest) sea is, even if it’s a really long way off.