Not intuitively knowing left and right is one of the signs of dyslexia btw
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2026
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Or the lesser known Left Right Confusion. Thereβs a test available at the university of Washington to see if you have this!
Then there's the third thing where you say "you're gonna turn left at the light" and I say "ok, got it... Wait, did you say right?"
My mom struggles with it but sheβs left handed
add it to the list
I had never heard of this.
I'm not sure I even register a complete thought about it when thinking about left/right. It fell into the instinct box a long time ago, I just sorta immediately and unquestionably know, if that makes sense
It's like up and down. I don't need to think which one's which.
I do on occasion. I was very frustrated when I learned that left and right comes as naturally as up and down for most people.
No I've never had problems with left and right.
Compass directions get me every fucking time though. I have to cycle clockwise N E S W to remember that west is "left". If I'm in a fast-paced action packed video game and they say "head east/West" I'm going the wrong way every time.
I've actually been playing a video game with a translation that confuses east and west a lot, and because I've never had that problem it's been making me feel like I'm losing my mind.
Please tell me it's not Morrowind
Dragon quest 7
Fucking same. When I first learned compass directions, I mistakenly thought east was left and carried that habit for years and now I can't unlearn it.
But things I know others struggled with learning as children I got right away and didn't need to use any tricks to get. Like using your thumb and forefinger as the less than sign and turning your hand so it's an L for "less than". And I know some people who need to use that trick to remember which one is which as adults still.
Bizarre how the brain works.
I still read "Never Eat Sour Watermelon" in my head to remember the order
Only when dealing with electric fields
No. I'm not sure I ever did. I've never thought about it, but don't most people (adults) generally just remember and/or know intuitively? I don't think it's something I need to think about. Just something my brain knows.
Yeah this is exactly where I am too.
Never have, it would never occur to me to doubt that I already know. My assumption is that if you've ever needed to, you always will. I'm that way with the alphabet or months, I need to whisper the entire alphabet to myself to figure out which letter comes after q, same idea to figure out whether august is the 7th or 8th or 9th month. I assume we probably all have mental blind spots of one kind of another.
Edit: unrelated, but did you know that September, October, November and December are so named because they were originally the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months? Would've really helped me out if we stuck to that calendar...
Really?
Never.
Heard about the L, after I learnt left and right.
every single time! i've done it often enough that i don't need to physically move my hands any more though, i just visualize what my hands would look like if i were doing it. that said, even with that optimization it still takes me a couple seconds to decode a "left"/"right" instruction and figure out which side was actually meant.
Left vs right hand is automatic for me, but I still do the right hand rule when screwing or unscrewing bolts.
Anything not straight-up-and-down always messes with me so bad. There's an extra hellish sweet spot around 45Β° and facing away from you that melts my brain as it approaches
Edit: also wtf, for me the post below this one is about screws lol
If you do this you should seriously get checked for dyslexia
Iβd say that Iβd think Iβd know if I had dyslexia, but I had a friend in college who didnβt find out until after he was in college. Itβs hard to understand how thatβs possible. He just said his school sucked and they thought he was just dumb when he had trouble reading. Somehow got into a top school though, so I guess he found a way to work around it or something.
That said, I donβt think Iβve really had a problem with reading. My best class was history and most of that was reading tons and tons of textbooks.
πΆ She was looking kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an "L" on her forehead. πΆ
No what am I a moron, I make a little writing gesture with my right hand because I know I'm right handed and write with my right hand.
Port is left (and red, same as port wine) - both words have the same number of letters. Starboard is right (and green). But that's from the cox's viewpoint - for us rowers, facing the cox, port is on the right. Does my head in every time.
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Never did, never had s problem telling which is which. It's just spatial awareness to me.
We did a lot of orienteering at school, and for sports. Maybe that helped.
No
No. Anytime I have been so out of it that I couldn't tell left from right I also couldn't remember if the L or β was right. I have no good solution left at that point.
Do you have a solution right though
I think we're going to be left wondering
All right then, go ahead and sit back down and wait. It's time I up and left.
By all means, that is your right to do!
No. Left doesn't start with an L in my native language, and I'd get confused on which way to write an L just by watching my hands anyway. Instead I pretend to shake someone's hand, and whichever hand I want to put forward is the right hand.
Only while driving at high speeds in residential neighborhoods
I've never done that but I have excellent proprioception.
Is this in case the polarity of the universe flipped again?
When I was a kindergartener, the way we sat to face the teacher meant that the room's wall clock was on the right side. The teacher used the clock to teach us which way was right.
Decades later, I still see a little clock in my head, but I never confuse left and right.
I remember I heard about the L thing, but then immediately looked at my little hands and thought '...But which way does the β go? That tells me nothing.' Then I spun them around like finger guns akimbo and it made it worse. I think I was ~4.
My wife still does. It's adorable and reminds me she's fallible.
I am one of the fortunate (right handed) so I remember one of my uncles eliminating all confusion by asking me which hand I "right" with.
I try to and then I realize I don't know which direction the L is supposed to face and now I have two problems.
The more important one to remember is "lefty loosey, righty tighty".
I pretend I'm writing something
I still say the wrong way though
Used to have to do it all the time up until a few years ago, now it doesn't take me as long to figure out left and right.
I've never had any issues with dyslexia so, idk why I have issues discerning left and right.
every time. also my mom. i just cannot keep them straight.
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