My body seeks true north, south, east, west?

[diy_fun_uk]

Firstly, it's just after 10am as I type this. Secondly, I'm completely sober! Thirdly, although I fully expect to have a fair few replies that say 'are you NUTS?!?' I'm actually asking this question semi-seriously

When I'm in my bed, it's almost as if my body wants to lay at a slightly different angle than directly up and down. You might laugh, however sometimes I find I need to consciously adjust my position as I'm laying slightly squint! When I walk into my kitchen, it feels to me as though everything is slightly off at the wrong angle. Obviously it isn't, and if I turn my body slightly I'm then facing drawer and cupboard fronts face on and it then feels 'right.'

It's a weird sensation and I've never felt this in any house I've lived in or building I've been in day to day. My house sits facing southwest (front aspect) and northeast (rear aspect.)

Okay, here's the bit that'll make you laugh. It's almost as if my body naturally wants to lay in a more precise east west direction when in my bed, and stand in a more precise north south or east west direction when standing in my kitchen. Actually, as I sit at my dining room table typing this, I notice I'm sitting at a slight angle to my table and PC!

Do we have some sort of inner compass that can sense/seek out true north etc?!? Joking aside, I feel as though my house needs turned through 10-15 degrees for my body to feel as though it's straight on!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Pigeons/birds are reputed to have a built in compass, to enable them to navigate. Do you ever feel the urge to migrate south for the winter?

 

[diy_fun_uk]

Pigeons/birds are reputed to have a built in compass, to enable them to navigate. Do you ever feels the urge to migrate south for the winter?

Literally lol!

 

[bernardgreen]

Do we have some sort of inner compass that can sense/seek out true north etc?

Spacial orientation and the related ability to navigate instinctively was a "skill" that was said to have been found in some so called primitive civilisations in research performed in the late 1960's or 1970's.

I believe it may have once existed in all humans but has decayed over the generations of civilised / technically advanced people

 

[EddieM]

How do birds overcome pole reversals that happen from time to time? Apparently we are going through one now (now on a geological scale)

 

[^woody^]

Try dropping a few lbs. You can lie flat, and face the cupboards and table.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

Try dropping a few lbs. You can lie flat, and face the cupboards and table.

Again, literally lol

 

[JP_]

Too much Guinness, the iron in your body is trying to align with the poles ....

How do birds overcome pole reversals that happen from time to time?

The ones the don't overcome it die, and those that do give rise to the next generation. Survival of the fittest!

 

[just pumps]

You may be sober but stop taking the meds or take more. Whatever helps.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Spacial orientation and the related ability to navigate instinctively was a "skill" that was said to have been found in some so called primitive civilisations in research performed in the late 1960's or 1970's.

Yep, humans must have had some built-in means to navigate, pre-the arrival of maps and compasses. I used to be able to and did navigate all over the UK and EU, I would have some sort of instinct of going the right way, pre-satnavs. Some of the places I would be aiming for, to work, wouldn't even have an actual address, just an X marked on the OS map. I would just look at the map, write up a list of aiming points, clip it on the dash and off I went.

I 'bought into' satnavs before there were even any such items to be bought - a GPS receiver adapted to produce serial data and plugged into portable laptop running the early Autoroute. Later actual self contained satnavs. I latterly worked all over the north, often having to drop things at no notice and do a high speed dash to another site. I had all of the hundreds of locations ready set up in the satnav, so all I had to was select the one I wanted from the list and I would be taken there by the quickest route, often I had never driven the route before.

Whether age, or over use of satnavs, but have now I become a little anxious driving, without the satnav running, even if I have driven a route many times before.

 

[ellal]

Do you ever feels the urge to migrate south for the winter?

Maybe the urge to 'migrate is to 'go down' for whatever reason?

 

[johnny2007]

Have you got any metal plates in your body?
I'm sure last time they opened me up the must've put a magnet inside me.
I have same symptoms but my house is perfectly aligned

 

[IT Minion]

Yep, humans must have had some built-in means to navigate, pre-the arrival of maps and compasses

It's called the MK1 eyeball.

Now enhanced by tools such as: https://www.carlosterminel.com/wearable-compass

 

[IT Minion]

Do we have some sort of inner compass that can sense/seek out true north etc?!? Joking aside, I feel as though my house needs turned through 10-15 degrees for my body to feel as though it's straight on!

True north or magnetic north? The easiest way to tell is probably to mark the ideal orientation now and check back in a few years to see if it has drifted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_drift

 

[diy_fun_uk]

True north or magnetic north? The easiest way to tell is probably to mark the ideal orientation now and check back in a few years to see if it has drifted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_drift

Having done a quick Google, I wonder if it's a magnetic north thing? I've been in this house for circa 10 years and it's only within the last year or so that I've felt like this! And, yes I know it's funny, but it's a real sensation that I get!