A squared rectangle, with January at the top right. I travel counterclockwise, so that April is the start of the descending left side, September at the bottom of the right side, then ascending up that side until December at the top of the right side. Some sort of division between December and next year’s January.
I never thought before about why I visualize it this way; I just do. I could draw the exact picture, and when I think about, say, February, there it is top and center.
A counterclockwise circle with December at 3 o’clock and July at 9 o’clock. My mind’s eye hovers above it more towards the 6 o’clock position which is clearly September.
If you think that’s weird then don’t ask me how I visualize numbers on a number “line.”
Since you (and Caerie, and <oops> Chao ) are like the umpteenth person, other than myself, to see it this way I have to comment. Only real difference is that I see each individual day along the edge of the circle (so 365 units), and not a block calendar. But weird that nobody who sees the year as a circle/ellipse does it in a clockwise direction (at least so far)-anyone want to offer an explanation for that? After all clocks (duh) go in the opposite direction, so where does this (sort-of) meme come from I wonder? I know in my case I don’t recall anything which sparked me into using this model, nor have I come across anything like that in my adult years which might explain it retroactively.
[Yeah in editing I had to delete some of my patented hard returns to beat the 5 min. timer 
]
Hey all you visualizers, check this bad boy out!
This is such a unique thread- I nominated it for Threadspotters.
I see the year like a page-a-day calendar quickly being torn off page-by-page.
(is it ok to say you’ve nominated a thread??? hope so…)
I move through my calendar circle clock-wise. The thought of counter-clockwise is really bothering me. This is so odd… I also move through any given month as a block, down the rows of weeks, but all the months are grouped into a circle, with me traveling clockwise around it. If that makes sense–it’s not a line. (sorry to post twice, but the more I read about this, the more clearly I “see” my calendar).
I’ve always pictured things in my head–I am having trouble understanding how those here who don’t actually use their imaginations (I’m sure you do, but how?). So, if you read about the horse in the bed in The Godfather --you don’t picture that? This picturing business is one reason I can’t read horror–imagination’s too vivid (it may be why some DO read horror–to each his own).
This has been covered here before, and I have only a rudiment of it, but I can see (some) music in colors, and some flavors have music as well.
What does it all mean? Anything?
I’m not sure, but considering the number of us who visualize the year as a circle, I’d be curious to know what really separates the clockwisers from the counter-clockwisers.
I visualize lots of things, so it never struck me as odd to “see” the year like this. I also visualize centuries, though that’s a bit harder to describe. It’s like each century is a series of shelves, with the earliest years at the bottom and the latest years at the top. To the left are the centuries that came before it, to the right the centuries that came after. There’s a shelf for each year that’s passed, so our shelves for this century are still rather small.
I used to try to think of the year as a circle or an ellipse to try to mark off sections of sky where the sun was as being that part of the year. Much the way the signs of the Zodiac are defined. I even tried to let those positions in the heavens partially explain why astrology caught on as much as it did. I mean, if the sun (or better the earth as it orbits the sun) is in the same part of the sky it was in last year, last century, last millennium, and so on, wouldn’t the forces and influences of whatever the cosmos passes down to earth be similar enough each year to provide at least a modicum of validity to some of the claims of astrology?
All of that thinking went out the window when I learned that the sun is moving around the center of the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving relative to other galaxies. So that “place in the sky” by the time the sun (better, the earth) is back to that part of its yearly journey, has also moved so it’s really not back to the same place.
The best way to visualize the yearly circle or ellipse is more like a helix.
This awareness, independent of other logic about pseudoscience, helped me jettison any thoughts of astrology having any weight.
Well, I never thought about it until now.
But, my calendar has no past!
It’s a sort of tablet, like a sticky notes, but not sticky. This month, or today (depending on what sort of planning I am doing mentally) is on top. The format is like any monthly calendar you might buy, but this month, or today is the top page. However, there is no binding at the top; pages are just arranged, not bound. I mentally riffle forward to dates in the future, but upon reflection, there are no days, or months before the present!
More oddness: I own no physical calendar. I have a digital calendar included in my phone, and I actually set alarm reminders on it for future appointments. (Marks a significant change in behavior for me, too, I must admit. I had a nasty habit of forgetting appointments more than a few days in the future.) But there is no physical calendar in my home, nor do I recall ever having one. Yet the calendar and the duty schedule at work are objects I created for my boss. Both are done with all the pertinent information, such as holidays, paydays, and predictable cyclic work events included. Both also have digital copies that are set up to facilitate making future calendars.
And, just last January I was prevented from throwing out the 2006 calendar in the office, by a coworker. “We might need that!” she told me. “Thinking of going back to last June?” I asked. Now that I think about it, I was quite surprised when I learned that my phone calendar keeps reminders after the fact for a full year! I erase them as a part of the process of turning off the alarm. So, even my virtual calendar has no past.
Tris
The year is a track in space (differing from a roller coaster in that is has no supports coming up from the (nonexistent) “ground”).
January starts off heading south and downward, continuing through February and March, with the angle decreeasing a bit in April and May, then flattening out in June as the track curves off to the Southwest. Through July and August, it slowly curves around to the West while rising a bit until it “turns the corner” at the beginning of September, to head South again, continuing to rise until the beginning of October where it plateaus, again, still heading South, then starts to drop again in November and December while continuing to head South.
Without actually having to orient itself in the larger picture, each year fits onto a much longer track that extends back through the years. The 2000s are heading South (no surprise there) with an expected turn to the West around 2010. Looking back, the 1990s were a slow climb from the Northeast to Southwest, the 1980s were a plateau extending from the North Northwest to the South Southeast; the 1970s were a rapid claimb from the East to the West. The 1960s started oriented South and down but moved through a trough and ended in a rising attitude. The 1950s were fairly flat, extending from East to West. Interstingly, the 1940s were an upward claimb from the South Southeast to the North Northwest. The 1930s were a steeper climb from the South to the North.
It extends backward in time through the centuries on this constantly changing road or track. While it is certainly an odd way of “seeing” time, it lets me place events “on the track” in ways that even when I cannot remember a specific date, I can generally recall the epoch or milieu (or, more recently, the month or week) that an event occurred. (And for those for whom this confirms their worst suspicions of my sanity, I will note that I have used these images since my earliest memories and they are not something I deliberately constructed. Make of that what you will.)
I’m a clockwiser, but not in a circle. The months are a series of squares, January at the bottom left, then above that, February through May, next to that on the right is June through September, then below September is October through December.
Like this:
may june july august sept
april oct
march nov
feb dec
jan
I see it as a totally moveable object that I am flying over. Need to count months? Start at Jan and fly up and around to May (so January floats past underneath me toward my feet). The days and weeks are laid out so the first week of the month is a the bottom for the left months, top to bottom for the rest, most of the time, but sometimes left to right for the top (summer) months.
I recently learned (as mentioned above) that this is a form of synesthesia. I’ve always enjoyed flying over my calendar.
I do a similar thing with time (minutes, etc.) I can rarely add or subtract time without looking at a clock (say my half hour lunch started at 12:21. I have to look at a clock and count (by fives) to figure out I’m done at 12:51. The only times I don’t have to do this with are top and bottom of the hour and the 15s (say, 12:15 and 12:45).
There is a spatial notion to my imagination; I can close my eyes, for example, and still know where the walls are, or imagine that they’re in a different place. There’s no visual attached though.
Just like nobody’s claiming that their visualizations are 100% sharp and defined and real, it’s not like I get 0% visual image. It’s just that what I do get is very fuzzy and mixed with the spatial notion above to the extent that I would call it spatial, not visual. When trying to remember what I saw last time I thought of someone close, or what I saw last time I read about the horses head in the bed, I just draw a blank. Actively trying to imagine such a picture, inspired by this thread, makes me feel uncomfortable. Like the it’s on the tip of my tongue-feeling when trying to remember something, but different. When I do get a result, it’s a lot like looking at a real image, but holding a empty piece of paper with a small hole in it before the picture. The hole revealing, for example, just a bit of my father’s beard.
To answer the OP’s question, to me the year is either an abstract concept or a collection of moods.
I am very bad with abstract concepts, and I have always thought that the visualization is how my brain tries to deal with them…by making the abstract concrete.
I just asked my husband if he visualizes stuff like this, and he had no idea what I was talking about…I even had trouble explaining to him what I meant…and he is very good at abstract concepts.
What a fascinating topic! And one with posts that make me feel a lot less lonely. Ever since I learned what synaesthesia is, I’ve wondered if I have a mild form of it. Certainly I seem to visualize many things as shapes that I don’t believe other people do. I learned to stop talking about it a long time ago… all hail the relative anonymity of the Internet!
Imagine a narrow grey ribbon with the names of the months. I’m facing in the direction of the arrow. Below is the closest I can come to depicting the shape without drawing pictures:
–> J a n u ar y F e b r u a r y M a r**|**c h A p r i l M a y J u n e J u l y A u g
ust
September
October
November
Dec.
|
… where | represents the spring equinox and winter solstice, respectively. (Oddly, the summer solstice and fall equinox don’t register). I can visualize the days between the winter solstice and January 1 as individual days, but not as part of the year. Insert your own Christmas/New Year’s Day joke if you must, but those are a somewhat disorienting limbo period in my conception of time. Perhaps they’re part of the wormhole that links the solstice and January?
Count me in as one of the people who really wants a calendar like that described in the OP. I’m an antique dealer, and have never seen or heard of such a thing in my travels, but I must have one!
(having trouble getting the spaces to register. Imagine a fishhook shape that starts in mid-August.)
Several people have mentioned what the calendar would look like if they were to draw it. I HAVE drawn it, when I was a child. My week is like RealityChuck’s – a circle or triangle composed of blocks for the days, going counter-clockwise M-F on the left, Sat-Sun on the right. I don’t think of them in color, though. I use this configuration regularly when I have to count days into the future.
April 2007…August 2007…September 2007…
May 2007…July 2007…October 2007…
…June 2007…November 2007…
… …Decemeber 2007…
…January 2007…
…February 2007…
…March 2007…
Above is the best way to show I how visualize a calendar year.
Wow. I figured it was so idiosyncratic that no one else would come up with it.
I’ve suspected I’ve had some very mild synesthesia. From the Wikipedia article, I do think of numbers as having personalities: 7 is a bastard, 5 is nice – but I always thought that just had to do with the difficulties in multiplying them.
I, too, am a circular kinda visualizer, with January at the bottom, moving clockwise. But the circle extends along the z-axis, resulting in a spiral or corkscrew through the third dimension, rather than just a two dimensional endless wheel.
Counterclockwise circle (possibly a bit squared off), as many others have said. But mine seems to be slightly offset from normal: I have winter at the bottom, spring on the right, and so on, with the solstices and equinoces marking the corners. All this talk about December being at the bottom (instead of the bottom-left), or worse yet, August on the bottom, makes me want to scream “No, no, that’s all wrong!”.
I think that the rather prosaic explanation is that I once, as a young child, saw a poster of the four seasons (you know, one of those cartoony things they’d have in a kindergarten) which had them laid out this way, and I was at just the right impressionable age that it stuck.
I visualize a year linearly from top to bottom starting with January. The following year’s months replace the current year’s months on this same calendar. To go to above months, it goes out and around, not just straight up.
However, I visualize a week horizontally. The following week is just attached to the end of the current week. The same with previous week. Once I have to go 2 weeks out or 2 weeks back, I move to a calendar.