Close your eyes and stick your arm out. Eyes still closed, swing your hand in and touch the tip of your nose with your forefinger. I used to be good at this but since my latest accident (wear your seat belts, kids) my fingertip is .50in/13mm to the right and down.
At a recent checkup my MD asked if I had any problems besides what I was seeing her for. I told her, “I feel dislodged from the universe.” I assume she thought I was BSing her because she ignored it. Probably all for the best because being a half inch off isn’t a tragedy, but pouring stuff takes more concentration and it would probably affect fielding a baseball.
Is it just me or, if you hold your arm straight out to the side and just bend your elbow with your fingers extended, you will usually hit your nose? It’s when I drop the elbow or otherwise move my shoulder that I miss.
I’m glad that some of you are almost taking this as seriously as I am, which isn’t much. Y’see, I’ve had a number of accidents where I banged my head and cracked my skull, plus I’m at an age where various mental problems start manifesting. I don’t think it’s MS or Alzheimer’s but I’m keeping an eye on it.
I have not personally tried it, but reliable sources have told me the solution is “getting one’s groove back”. As far as I can tell, this involves having sex in Jamaica.
Maybe your nose moved over in the last accident. Practice in the mirror.
I’m klutzier than I was ten years ago. The ground seems to be coming up fast to my face more often. Aging is a bitch.
The brain adjusts it’s spacial measurements in accordance with the visual input it receives. It figures out where things are by averaging the slight difference in the pictures your two eyes take. So if the accident had cause an astigmatism, or if one eye were slightly askew, then it would be necessary to constantly adjust to the right and down when averaging the two images to find an object in space.
It makes perfect sense to me that then without the visual input the brain might still make the adjustment even when no visual input was being used.
I think you should call an ophthalmologist and make an appointment. Tell them what you are experiencing and have a full exam.
IANAD, and I’m probably wrong, but you should check it out just in case.
Thanks for the word! Have always had an astigmatism in my right eye. Seven years ago I cracked my left orbit right at the zygomaticofrontal suture so nobody made a deal of it. It probably blended right in and I had bigger breaks to worry about. but left eye used to be my strong eye and now it ain’t.
No insurance yet and it won’t kill me, so doctor visits are out until June, when I hit 65. Meanwhile I will monitor my descent into decrepitude.
If I do it without trying to touch any particular place, I usually touch somewhere around my mouth. But I have no problem touching my nose when I want to. It doesn’t even take much thinking about how I’m moving my arm.
Do you know if there’s any evidence to support that notion? It’s intuitive that exercising your faculties into old age would prevent deterioration, and neural circuits are certainly trained at some stage in development. But it’s an interesting question when & what extent proprioception & coordination is trainable, and whether the effects are then persistent.
