Ask Lemmy

I only remember one because it was a shot gun layout. Kitchen-living room-mom's bedroom-my bedroom all in a straight line. Super inconvenient because I had to go past her room every time. The other places I lived were bigger, so I don't remember them exactly.

All of them? No. I can remember some details of a lot of them, and some of them very well, but there's others -- especially from when I was very young -- that I no longer have a good full mental map of.

I definitely do not remember the layout of all my schools. I moved a lot and some of these are just disconnected fragments of areas to me now. I have no idea how my classroom and the cafeteria were connected in the school I was at in 3rd grade, for example, and I'm struggling to even remember how I got home from school then -- even though I do remember taking the bus to school at that age, and I remember some of the places I had to wait to catch the bus home when I was even younger than that... It's strange what sticks in memory and what doesn't, sometimes.

I'm 53 now, and could easily draw a map of the 2 houses that I lived in as a kid between 5 and 18 years old, along with most of the 10 or so houses I've lived in as an adult (a couple were very short term as a young adult, and I'm kind of vague on the exact layouts).

Before 3 years old I don't remember much, a couple of vague things that could just be from pictures of me in those houses, rather than real memories. I kind of remember some of the house from 4 - 5 years old.

Sure, one good one is bike paths, if you’ve used them enough, you get a good general layout of the neighbourhood.

Any place I've frequented I guess

I have very clear memories of my grandparents house in Michigan. I only visited three times, but I explored that house top to bottom when I was around nine years old. I also remember where it was in town, and how to walk to the main street from the house. It's a very small town, to this day, fewer than 800 people.

The thing is, when I look at Google maps, nothing looks quite right. I'm not sure I've found the right house, the house that looks right isn't in the right spot, etc. Main Street looks right, and the drug store is still there, but the rest is wrong. It's been 50 years, and you might think, 'well, of course, everything has changed', but it's a very small town, and all the houses and yards look old, there's practically nothing new in town. No spot where the house might have been, but is now something newer. It looks like a town stuck in the 1940s.

Anyway, I prefer my memories.

Vaguely, for most of the places I've lived, but the memories aren't super clear, but I'm also probably between a 2 and a 3 on the aphantasia levels. So it not being super clear but a general idea of layout makes sense.

Places like work are a lot less distinct, as are shared living spaces where I spent more time in my space and didn't go into other people's rooms. I worked in television for a long time, and I remember how the studios and control rooms for filming were generally laid out, I don't remember the organization for the rest of the building that I barely went into. I remember basically nothing at all about the first station I worked at, because they switched buildings and moved into a new space about a year after I started working there. I have a vague memory of the control room and studio, but it's a lot less clear than the others, which are also vague.

I remember the layout of the park and pool that I worked at clearly, but that was one of my favorite jobs ever, so it tracks that I'd have a lot of memories of it. Also I worked alone so I had to cover the whole area instead of having areas that I wouldn't go into.

I remember vaguely street layouts from places I've lived, but I usually have to go look at a map for a clearer picture in my mind how everything in the area was connected.

Basically anything after 5 I could probably draw you a pretty accurate map

There was an apartment we lived in when I was 6-7 which for some reason has some hazy spots, but besides that yeah pretty much. Friends' houses, schools since 9ish (at least the parts I went to), every workplace, theme parks, basically anywhere I've been a few times.

Yes, I thought back through them and I can totally remember and visualize them. But I've forgotten a lot of the address numbers.

I lived in the same house for most of my life and before that I was at my grandparents' place 

Not just houses and apartments, including those where I was a guest. I also walked quite a lot across two cities — as hiking exercise, I walked over most of a city with several million population, over a few years. I can remember most of those streets, and I've noticed some changes in the landscape from years before: mostly new fences and buildings put up.

Moreover, I have a couple places that only exist in my dreams and daydreams, but are the same every time they pop into my mind. They vaguely correspond to real places, but aren't copies of them.

This all is not to brag, as my memory otherwise is rather questionable, and I have little use for spatial memory, not being a taxi driver or whatever.

I call myself a homing pigeon because I have some wicked intuition with spatial knowledge.

So that being said, yes. I could definitely map out everywhere I've lived or visited for an okay amount of time. I could also probably give a pretty decent map of the surrounding areas of each.