# can tou type with your eyes closed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 19, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133 "2005-04-19T21:40:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sarah\_Woodruff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sarah\_Woodruff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarah_Woodruff)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/81 "2005-04-20T08:14:05Z")
Ah, but can you type with your eyes closed but your subconscious open? Like so: Lobsang is sexxy! I’m a crazzy girl!!! Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/82 "2005-04-20T08:45:24Z")
anbydyo cna typ iwht their eysi clesod by t mkagnin nsese i anmokthwe mattrt rentiotely ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/83 "2005-04-20T10:39:49Z")
Of course I can type with my eyes closed. People often accuse me of just tapping away nonsensically, because my head tracks them and I can carry on a conversation with them while I type at a brisk rate. Tappity tappity tappity tap. blah de blah de blah del blah.Then they come over and scratch their heads because they were sure that they were going to catch me out with a bunch of “asdklfjasldkfjalsdfkjaeiofajalekfj” Then again, I’ve been typing on a fairly standard keyboard for a few hours every day since the lold BBS days, in 1983. My handwriting is totally illegible, but I can type like a demon. Nice printing, but cursive script? Forget it. It’s gone backwards in the last twenty years, because I never write, I always type. I would probably get lost after shifting or using the numeral keys, if it weren’t for the bumpy bits on the index finger/home row keys, of course. But otherwise, there’s no need to refer to the screen at all. This screws me up sometimes when I’m at an unfamiliar keyboard. I made a few posts last year from a german friend’s laptop, and didn’t notice that the keyboard was mapped differently until I was ready to preview. (Watching TV and browsing the dope. Multitasking man.) Qs and Zs reversed, if I reemember right. I would hate to try it on a commodore 64 keeyboard or something like that. Eeesh. _preview_ Ah, crap. Cocky bastard. A few typos, which is bad enough, but that “otherwise” doesn’t make any sense at all. So looking at the screen helps with editorial changes on the fly, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/84 "2005-04-20T11:48:49Z")
Can I type with my eyes closed" I don’t know. Let’s see what happens when I try., How’d I do: Ok, words, I can type with my eyes closed. Punctuation, not so much, so it seems. Twas fun doing it though. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/85 "2005-04-20T11:54:10Z")
I dunno, let’s see: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Or something like that. (Opens eyes) Apparently, yes, at least for short bursts. For what it’s worth I had to correct two things in the sentence after I opened my eyes, but before that is “as is”. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/86 "2005-04-20T12:32:46Z")
Since IU usually look at the jeyboarf aS IO TYPE, i ASSUI,E THJIID OS HPRRINLE. [Lovely. It’s the inadvertant Caps Lock that makes it art.] ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/87 "2005-04-20T18:11:37Z")
CAbn itype with my eyes closed? I suppose so./ I’m doinjg it right now, let’s see how I do. …Whoa, that was a lot better than I expected. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/88 "2005-04-20T20:31:59Z")
Absolutely. I learned to type with liittle stickers stuck over the keys so that I couldn’t see the keys. Not seeing mistakes is a different story0- I can usually tell when I’ve made a mistake, but am not always sure how far to back up to correct it, or how many spaces I may have put into the sentence. At any rate, I typed this whole thing without looking. That’s the result of getting a formal typing class on good old IBM electric typewriters back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![swanky\_glue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@swanky\_glue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swanky_glue)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/89 "2005-04-20T20:44:14Z")
I can type with my eyes closed, but when i cross my hands and put my right hand on the asdf keys and my left hand ont eh jkl; keys, this same text looks something like this: e ,hz pqri uwp X ---
**Author:** ![swanky\_glue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@swanky\_glue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swanky_glue)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/90 "2005-04-20T20:45:42Z")
as you can see, i accidentally hit enter at some point during the crossover and was unable to complete my eyes closed/ hands crossed experiment oopsie ---
**Author:** ![Jammer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df705f/32.png) [@Jammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jammer)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/91 "2005-04-20T20:59:56Z")
\ Yes, I do believe I can type quite well with my eyes closed. My highy school typing teacher would have it now other way, so thanks Ms. Matthews! I can pretty much type at my normal speed this way, too. Og course, this may end up giberish and the point will be lost. \ So, not too shabby. Cool thread. ---
**Author:** ![EmeraldGrue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dc4da7/32.png) [@EmeraldGrue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmeraldGrue)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/92 "2005-04-20T21:36:35Z")
:closes eyes: Yes, I can type with my eyes closed. I still remember those Almena lessons from grade six. “Quiet Aunt Zelda.” “Willie sits exams.” But I’d be utterly lost without the home keys. :opens eyes: Still got it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/93 "2005-04-20T21:59:58Z")
_closed_ I presume I can. Seems to be going well so far. Actually, there is a friend of mine here at RPI who learned to type before he learned to write. Weird, eh? Believe it or not, I was correcting typos with my eyes closed. _open_ Sweet jumpin jehosephats, I did it! And yes, I really did stop, delete, and correct at least 3 typos while I typed that. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![silverfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@silverfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silverfish)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/94 "2005-04-20T22:46:22Z")
Let’s see whether I can, starting in the next paragraph. I should be able to do this, as I can touch+typpe, and have been able to for a number of years, as I leart at school. I know I’ve made a mistake in here, but I can’t correct it. ANyway, let’s see how well I did. Not bad. I realised half-way through that I don’t know by memory where the hyphen is, so I just took an educated guess. I spotted typpe as I was typing, but didn’t backspace far enough. With leart I must have realised there was a t at the end, but for some reason I thought the n (I think I typed learn first), was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/95 "2005-04-21T01:27:44Z")
This is what I type like with my eyes closed. For a little while U can rememver where the keys are, but then U get confused. \ Looks like I’m not so good at remembering wjere I and U are,. I never learned formal typing, so U guress this is pretty good. [heh. I meant to type “U and I” in that line so that’s pretty consistently bad] ---
**Author:** ![StarsApart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecc23a/32.png) [@StarsApart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarsApart)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/96 "2005-04-21T01:39:57Z")
I can type pretty well with my eyes closed, as I’m doing now. I learned it in middle school when typing class assignments were annoying me and I decided to learn to type fast to get them over with. (I just memorized the layout of the keyboard.) We were also equired to type without looking at the keyboard, so I picked that up, too. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/97 "2005-04-21T01:49:47Z")
[closes eyes] I usually type while looking at the monitor but I’ll try it with my eyes closed. [opens eyes] Wow. No mistakes. I think I got lucky. A former secretary told me I type amazingly fast considering how wrong I do it. I learned to type on a computer then later took a typing course. I found that I was already so set in my ways that after the course was over I went back to my old way of typing since it was faster (for me). > [@Larry Mudd](#): > > I would hate to try it on a commodore 64 keeyboard or something like that. I developed my fast typing skills on a commodore 64. In fact I actually wore out two keyboards on one. Those keyboards weren’t like a modern PC. You had to disassemble the computer to replace the keyboard. I bet with a bit of practice to get used to the keys again I could type fairly fast and blindfolded on one of the things. ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/98 "2005-04-21T02:51:33Z")
\It’s probably easier to type out refular words yhan trying to hit specific jets. \That last work is “keys”. \abcdefghikl;n,pqrstivwxtz \ huh, that makes no sense. \hell if i know, man. I just work here. \The time will come for all good men to come to the aide of their country \The quick brown fox jumed over the laxy dog \It was a saturday aftermoom in novemner. \afternoon felt wrong. \antidisestablishmentarianism \deoxyriboneucleic acid \i think you get better at it over time. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/99 "2005-04-21T11:53:21Z")
I learned to touch type decades ago, and never look at the keyboard, even for numbers and symbols. This amazes children, who like to hold their hands over my eyes and watch my fingers hit the keyboard. I can also use the computer in a totally dark room. ---
**Author:** ![luluBahrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e5b9ba/32.png) [@luluBahrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luluBahrain)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133/100 "2005-04-21T13:41:03Z")
Ok, tjsis is going to ve tje wptst I rea;;u can’r do this and provavlu wpn;t [pst vecaise ot wpn;s even liik liike words. _eyes open_ I challenge anyone to figure out what the fudge I was trying to say. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-tou-type-with-your-eyes-closed/300133.md?page=6)