So glad there's a name for my weird condition. Since Sharon was only five when her mother made the "witch" comment, I wonder if it might have been a joking remark to a child who was not taken seriously. A little child might miss the humor. I hope it was.

This subject fascinates me! Your show made me look up the hippocampus and I'm further stunned. My husband swears I have a map in my head and my sense of direction is a bit exaggerated. However, I have memories going back to when I was only 3 and had a recurring dream that dates back to when I was 18 months old. I wonder if the people suffering with this disease also have an issue with memory. Are there connections? Have the Drs who treat this sought out people with an excellent sense of direction to compare the differences. As opposed to people with a regular sense of direction. I mean, maybe those people have too much of some chemical or a mark on a dna strand. Something to help the researchers pin point differences? I have been thinking about this show all week. Again, awesome show!!

Very interesting. I'm actually making an animated short that deals with perspective switches, much like the one described in the podcast. Thanks for sharing.
Though if I may give my critique on the interview, it actually got on my nerve that the 2 hoats always interrupt the person talking and talk over it.. I understand it makes it more compact and better to understand, but I'd much rather here the person saying it for himself/herself. Kinda made me want to stop listening.
Though, still very interesting and to the point, the whole podcast. :)
peace from Belgium

I just learned in a sustainable agriculture class about an insecticide called neonicotinoid that could potentially be responsible for the Colony Collapse Disorder of the bees. The chemical affects the central nervous system of insects and causes them paralysis and death. When studying the disappearance of bees, scientist noticed bizarre symptoms, like the foraging bees just not coming back home after flying away and then the remaining bees die off at a later time. Typically parasites immediately come and consume the leftover honey; however, now they wait weeks before inhabiting if they come at all. The most likely answer is that the neonicotinoids cause the foraging male bees to lose directionality and they cannot return to their hive, so they die. The queen and her remaining bees in the hive are not effected until a while later.

I just wanted to write about this because if the bees are losing directionality from neonicotinoids, possibly they (and other chemicals we smother our crops in) could be the cause for this rising disorder....thoughts?

The 90 and 180 degree instant flips in the perceived orientation of our viewpoint are called Visual Reorientation Illusions (VRIs). I too have experienced them from youth and have learned like others to cognitively initiate them... for fun. :)

I can't believe this actually exists. I tried thousands of times to explain this to my parents and friends when I was a kid but no one else could understand. I eventually trained myself to control it by visualizing how the world would look if I turned it 90 degrees, and lately it doesn't happen to me unless I "turn it on." This is so incredible.

Oh my goodness, I'm in tears right now! This is me, this happens to me and I've been telling people for years that I couldn't help it at all, there was something wrong with my brain. Finally, I have proof! Thank you so much!! I've been compelled to explain to people so many times that I can't find places outside of visual range reliably, even if it's just three blocks straight down the street from my home I can become disoriented very quickly. It's always quite shocking to people to learn of my disorientation problems because I'm very intelligent, and I can compensate extremely well most of the time but I'm still "permalost". I am SO excited! Maybe there will be help for me some day! :D

Just played this episode today and am so relieved. I have lived almost 62 years getting lost or disoriented regularly. My glitch while driving is that my destination suddenly flips behind my current position. I do not "see" it like Sharon, but I "know" it has moved...as I "know" that Colorado springs is north of Denver. My glitch while walking involves going in and out of buildings with multiple entrances.
Thank you radiolab for explaining this hard to describe condition that I have felt enbarrassed bout all of my life!

I found this story very interesting! I want to add my own story, or actually the one of my girlfriend. She seems to have the same problem. First, she has the problem with orientation. For example, the door of our previous house was on the side of a really steep street (women on high heels had to walk backwards to go downhill) and we used to walk every morning to our work going downhill. Even after 3 years living there and repeating the same root every day, there were mornings she was confused and she was turning uphill! Second, she has the problem with face recognition. She even had problem recognizing me during the first years we knew each other. Actually, when she was coming back from trips (she is a scientist, so she travels a lot for conferences) she was standing on the airport and she was waiting for me to approach her, because she was afraid she might go to a stranger! Also, if someone she knows change his haircut, next time she will see him she is going to introduce herself (it has actually happened few times). These said, I would like to comment some things people said bellow. First, someone mentioned that he has felt the same after sleeping in a train. Something similar with his case had happened to me, on a totally symmetric underground station with the platform in the middle, where I was waiting for the train to come from the opposite direction from where it came. The feeling was actually so strong that I didn't board on the train, but I went out of the station to "re-orientate" myself. After the discussions I had with my girlfriend though, I tend to believe that these two things are completely unrelated. I believe that my case is the result of the correct processing from my brain, but with a confusing input. The case of my girlfriend though is the result of a wrong processing and it can happen even with the simplest input, indicating there is something working differently in her mind. Second, Marie-Noelle (who mentioned she has the same condition), said she believes it is because of a brain damage during birth, result of her mother not really wanting her. I am not so sure though if the reason is a physical trauma of the brain. The common pattern I see with my girlfriend is an early childhood with very strong negative emotions, so I tend to believe the reason might be that during the early years of their life, all these negative emotions didn't allow this part of the brain to develop correctly. I would actually like to hear from other people having the same condition, about their childhood.

Yeah, what about the "witch" thing?

Did Mom have the same condition?

I have a theory explaining why people have this getting lost in a known space and being unable to recognize faces of people they should know. This is a problem to me, I can get lost in my own house and, as a matter of fact, I usually find that I am, for example, facing North instead of South. I was somewhat abused by my mother when I was a child, almost each day she would remind me that she had spent 36 hours in labour during my birth. Later she made it clear that she had not wanted to become pregnant (resented my father for this). I came to the conclusion that, witholding giving me up at the time of birth she had caused part of my skull/brain to be squizzed and therefore preventing part of it from fundtioning correctly. I suggest that someone make a survey of people with the "lost" syndrome asking them the question: "How many hours was your mother in labour?" I suggest that they would find out that people with my/our problem are people who skull/brain was squizzed that a crippling extent at the time of birth. Some graduate student should have a field day with this, even write a thesis and , perhaps a dissertation. Good hunting, Marie-Noelle. (812) 339-2739 (I do not have the Internet at home and must yuse the public library to send this message).

This was fascinating....one question: why did her mother tell her to keep it quiet or she'd be burned as a witch? Does the mother have the same condition and was persecuted for it?
So glad I found you guys!

I have a very similar problem and have a better way to explain this shift, 90deg or 180. I would like to draw this but will pen it instead. Suppose I was driving to my home horizontally on this board, from the left side to the right (ie heading east), and my home was on the next right turn, facing east, assuming north is up.
I would normally take a right turn and enter my gate, heading in the westerly direction. Lets suppose this is how my brain had oriented my home position.
Now, lets suppose, I was being driven by someone and I dozed off while heading east , prior to taking the right turn. When the car stopped, all i remember is we went straight, as I was not conscious to the right turn. Now when the car stops in front of my home, my house happens to be facing south as I made no turns. Now everything has shifted by 90 degrees. Similarly , if there were 2 right turns, which i was not conscious off, the shift would be 180 degrees.
In this situation, I have to stop and close my eyes and re-orient my self to the 90deg shift and soon, all falls back into place. If you agree and see what I am getting at and if you experience a similar shift, please let me know.
I can also tell you how I deal with this problem and I am now so good at directions. However, I do get disoriented when malls or other places are not sharp 90 degree bends but tend to branch off at an angel.

I am from India and have a very similar problem and have a better way to explain this shift, 90deg or 180. I would like to draw this but will pen it instead. Suppose I was driving to my home horizontally on this board, from the left side to the right (ie heading east), and my home was on the next right turn, facing east, assuming north is up.
I would normally take a right turn and enter my gate, heading in the westerly direction. Lets suppose this is how my brain had oriented my home position.
Now, let suppose, I was being driven by someone and I dozed off while heading east , prior to taking the right turn. When the car stopped, all i remember is we went straight, as I was not conscious to the right turn. Now when the car stop in front of my home, my house happens to be facing south as I made no turns. Now everything is shifted by 90 degrees. Similarly , if there were 2 right turns, which i was not conscious off, the shift would be 180 degrees.
In this situation, I have to stop and close my eyes and re-orient my self to the 90deg shift and soon, all falls back into place. If you agree and see what I am getting at and if you experience a similar shift, please let me know.

This story really resonated with me. As Sharon's story unfolded, I kept saying, "yes!" "yes!" to myself. I understand completely where she's coming from, although I do not suffer such an extreme case.
In my situation, I am disoriented only when I wake up in the middle of the night. When I was little, I thought it was just a dream. I would wake up in my room, but it's not my room (well, it is, but it isn't). It would take me a long time to get my bearings, then even longer to find the door, etc. If I found the light switch, everything would instantly be "righted" and I would be just fine. As an adult, this still happens on occasion. I wonder through my house, "lost", typically looking for the wc. This disorientation has always baffled me, and has always felt dreamlike. To hear Sharon's story - I feel like I can define it now and have a sense of control over it. My theory for my situation is that my hippocampus is a little slower to "wake up" than the rest of my brain. This gives me comfort. Thank you, RadioLab!

Facinating story! I had to read a little more about grid cells, border cells, and the like. Here's an interesting article if you are interested: http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2010/01/human_grid_cells_tile_the_environment.php

Wow - this happened to me only once and at age 18. It was terrifying because it happened with my eyes wide open. Walking down the street with 2 friends right outside my house, I suddenly felt lost and disoreiented although I had a clear sense of where I was, somewhere in my neighbourhood and that I was walking. It was just that the scenery had completely shifted...it was a 180 degree turn, where by I knew I was still walking in the same direction I had been before the shift but the path before me felt like it had moved behind me. But not only that, everything felt inverted too. I was completely turned around and terrified. I actually stopped and tried to explain all this to my 2 friends who were just bewildered. I tried to reason out my bearings trying to pinpoint actual landmarks and where they should be, but where they were now... In addition, I had lost all sense of distance and depth, and as I stood on that path trying to understand what had happened, trying to gauge the distance from me to my house and even which way exactly I should be heading, was it forward or backword?....and still unable to feel certain, I was so terrified that all I could do was sit and cry right there on that path. Eventually, I gave in and allowed my friends to lead me home, I just put one foot in front of the other where ever they led me but without any sense of where I was headed, crying with every step. As soon as I reached the gate to our house, and only when I was close enough to touch the actual gate, did I finally feel a sense of place and depth and prespective. What a terrifying experience.....it was like being in the twilight zone, truly, it was like entering a whole new dimension where everything looks the same but feels different and is in a different place.... in my case the terror was from being completely helpless to anchor the scene before me and to make sense of it all...
I just can't imagine how these folks, Sharon as a liitle child....how tough these experiences must have been, and to endure these episodes repeatedly...

Great story once again.

Thank you so much for this story! I suffered a concussion at the beginning of 2011, and ever since the injury, I find myself suddenly lost in a place that is should be completely familiar to me. The first several times this happened, I was quite panicked, but now I take a deep breath and wait it out. Eventually, my brain fixes this sudden disorientation, and I figure out where I am.
Hopefully, this won't be a permanent problem for me: my recovery from this concussion has taken much longer than expected, in many ways. In the meantime, it's comforting to know that there are other people out there who suffer from a similar problem with disorientation.
Thank you!
Amber

So, Sharon's mother leans over and says "Never tell anyone. They will think you are a witch."

It is quite obvious she said this because the problem is congenital and she suffers from the same thing. And just like Sharon, she hides it from her family.

are grid cells related to magnetism?

Just wanted to say this episode was fantastic and I'm so glad to see in the comments that more people now are admitting they have the same condition, realizing there's a name for it, and having the exact same emotionally-validating experience that Sharon expressed in the interview. Hope Giuseppe's studies will produce some solutions in our lifetime.

google maps on blind's people brain with live feed

I have a question I have not been able to get a real answer. Do blind people have the right connections on the brain to interpret images? I mean, I know they cannot see through the eyes, but maybe they could see through the brain. So I ask myself, are we able to put some kind of real data into a blind's people brain? We could design a system that we could signal blind people's brain with google maps real data.

Imagine, that we could insert google maps into blind's people brain so they could "see". The problem with this is that they would see still images and not "real data" images. So if there's a new hole on the street they would fall. So linking google maps and twitter we could have real data. Live feed.

The energy to build this up could come from our own steps, so we will be able to charge the batteries.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/luis-pallares/google-maps-on-blinds-people-brain-with-live-feed/10150177673874625

I, like Mike from Baltimore, was also driving when I heard this and thought "omg someone else has this.."- I have had this condition since childhood, and I, too, am only slightly disoriented by it as I have gotten used to it- but I have always had primary, secondary, and so on directions- just 4, but every location I spend time in has all 4, eventually. It gets really disorienting when I am somewhere just once, for a short time. I have never been able to explain it to anyone, except my brother.
Hooray for the 90 degree rotation & Radiolab!

When I was very young (under 6 or so) I remember that I always knew how to find my way back to places I had been, even when my parents and sisters couldn't. I remember one time when my parents were totally lost on the way to a house in a city miles from our home. I kept saying, "I can get us there", but of course, no one wanted to listen to a little kid. Finally, out of desperation, they let me give directions. I got us there directly, but when we turned the corner to the house, I remember being disappointed because I didn't recognize the house. It was the correct house, it just wasn't a part of how I found our way there. I don't have that ability anymore. so, sometimes I can't find my way back.

I was crying, laughing, and then crying again. What an amazing show. New favorite.

What a remarkable article! I am off exactly 180 degrees and almost never know where I am. I get lost in my own home. It's been interesting, to say the least. In addition, I began my life as a breech birth. Is there any help?

That was so interesting. I have to wonder if Sharon's mother might have had something similar and her comment was a response to her own experience, possibly as a child. Thanks you for the episode.

I think that the rotation occurs in the mind, it has happened to me too on a number of occasion, although my rotation tends to be 180 degrees and only when I have my eyes closed.

Plus I have the same problem as Steven from New Jersey in that I can totally get lost in stores with mulitple exits. Lost my car once and was so embarrassed when security found it in another parking area.

Also could never tell north, south, east or west until I moved to Lousiville Ky, then it clicked in and lasted for quite awhile through a move back to Texas, but then I moved to NC and now, I have a hard time figuring out north/south, but I think that is only because of the strange directions roads are laid out in the area I live in.

Ever since early childhood I've always feel like there was a thread attached to me. And if I felt too tangled up then I'd just feel "wrong."
If (when walking to a destination) I passed a sign on my left, on the return I'd have to pass the sign on my right; rather than "circling" it. This is NO WHERE near as complex as the 90degree rotation because my issue is just a feeling. My husband calls it the thread of life, and even now I feel it, but it's not as constant as in childhood.
This story just spoke to me, and I hope that Sharon and the 700 patients finds some way to grow or correct her Hypothalamis.

In relation to the part concerning the cells in your brain to do with orientation:

I am a landscape photographer and I simply adore polarizing lenses. Part of being that kind of photographer is spend many tedious hours driving around. While driving I would often tilt my head 90 degrees while wearing polarizing sunglasses to see the effect but I can only do this briefly because of the sudden harsh sense of complete disorientation while driving. The next time you're out driving somewhere relatively empty give it a go and maybe you'll get the same sensation.

The episode on place recognition was fascinating. My experience is the same as one of other commenters. I totally forget where I am. It usually happens when am driving; I forget how to get where I am going. I could be driving home, and all of a sudden I don't recognize where I am, or how to get home. I keep driving and it comes back to me in a few minutes. I have to think of how to get home. I've never told anyone; I was afraid it was the beginning of dementia of Alzheimer's.

As I was listening to the segment on place recognition, I thought about a study done by researcher Henry Lai of the U. of Washington back in the 90's. He took a group of rats that had successfully learned to swim a water maze to find a platform at the end, and then exposed them to 2.45 GHz (radiofrequency/microwave radiation---similar to that involved in Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies). A significant number of the rats had trouble finding the same platform after the exposure---they tended to swim around and around trying to locate it.

I'm wondering if there could be any relationship between that and the problems people are reporting. It might not be that exact frequency all the time, but the whole realm of non-ionizing radiation is showing biological effects, many affecting the brain, and it could be that some people are sensitive to it. (Several studies suggest that this is so.)

Even though most of today's wireless technologies may not have been around when some of these folks were kids, others were---radar, radio and tv transmissions, cordless phones, ELF from electrical lines, certain diathermal therapies.

Thank you for this segment on NPR. Growing up, my family was very accepting of my inability to find where I was -- my mother had the same problem. As a teenager and adult I found myself frightened and on the defensive a lot. Nick names such as 'goofy' and 'air head' hurt, yet I smile Now I know I'm not alone -- even when I'm lost.

The most striking thing about this story to me was how alone Sharon was for because of the power of her mother's words. As parents, we have such ability to 'change the world forever' for our kids. Had her mom had the skills to help her, her isolation and confusion may have been diffused - why do we have children and then allow them to experience such incredible hardship at our own hands? This story will remind me to be careful with my own power, and to try to be a better ally
to my own children.
I don't know how you found the strength to live
with this condition for so long after experiencing such betrayal. Congratulations on having finally found your way out of isolation.

So I have Karen Jacobson to thank for my Garmin's "recalculating" scolding.. you could sound a little less annoyed with me Karen.

I have had something similar happen to me for almost 30 years, since I was a teenager. I always think of it as the reverse of deja vu--instead of a place or a situation I have never been seeming familiar, it is a place I know well seeming totally new.
What occurs is I can be in a very familiar place and then it seems like I've never been there--the town I grew up in, even the neighborhood where I have lived for the past 15 years. It happens when I am walking, riding my bike, and driving. Occasionally it happens to me in places I am not too familiar with: foreign cities for example.
I usually just keep on my path and wait for it to clear...even if I have no idea where I am, I don't panic, keep calm, just follow my intuition and turn where I think I should turn.
I have always recovered my orientation. The weird thing for me is that I am very good with direction and situating myself the rest of the time, I am constantly being asked for directions and I always know which way is north, south etc.
I had never heard about anyone else having this before--a friend of mine who has epilepsy said it sounded to him like a seizure kind of thing.

I was listening to this podcast as I was driving. When Sharon said the world "turns 90 degrees" I almost crashed the car. For the first time in my entire life I had learned of someone who has experiences the same thing as I do!

My experience differs somewhat from Sharon's. First, I don't need to spin around to become disoriented. If I close my eyes (or not, I've gotten better at this) and visualize what the world would look like turned 90 degrees, I can open my eyes and see the difference. This is easier in places where I've spent a lot of time. In new places, I have to concentrate harder to visualize the rotation. Sometimes I actively try to avoid this, as it can lead to confusion and distraction.

The best way I've found to explain it is like this. Picture four streets oriented in a square with four identical houses facing in each of the cardinal directions. All of the surroundings are completely symmetric and identical. My understanding is that under these conditions, almost no one would be able to tell which house is facing in which direction. I can.

Here's another example. I would attend church as a kid. The building was perfect for "turning the world around" because I spent long amounts of time there, and my mind would wander a lot. I began to visualize how the church would appear different to me if I turned it 90 degrees. Eventually, I was able to visualize all four orientations. They each represent distinct places for me. Each was a sub-location buried within the original stationary location. Once an orientation had been visualized, with a slight bit of concentration, I could flip between them. Each felt different to me and caused different emotional reactions. I would notice details in one environment that I wouldn't notice in another.

Despite this, I think that I have a pretty good sense of direction. When I would bike around my home town as a kid and the world flipped on me, I became momentarily disoriented. It was no longer clear which path was the best way home. In those circumstances I could either rotate the world back to its standard configuration or try to map out a "new path" in the other orientation.

This still affects me everyday, but I've gotten so used to it that I'm barely consciously aware of it anymore. I'll sit at my desk, type, the orientation will switch, I won't miss a beat, and I'll return to typing. Sometimes I purposefully change the orientation just to make things more interesting.

I was amazed to hear about Sharon -- I've experienced something similar to her condition since I was a little girl. Many of my first memories about the house I grew up in seem as if they're experienced from a skewed or rotated angle.

As I got older, I realized that if I concentrated, I could turn the disorientation on and off. I remember lying awake at a friend's sleepover, entertaining myself my switching back and forth between points of view.

Today the disorientation is mostly gone, though I still get lost quite often (and am a terrible chess player. I wonder if Sharon is too).

Several years ago i started to experience another odd phenomenon -- I'd be walking down the street and suddenly, for no reason, feel myself lifting gently off the ground and floating away like a balloon. It happened several times over the period of a few months and then stopped, as suddenly as it had came. (I believe there was another episode of Radiolab about a woman who felt she was sinking into the floor and felt she knew she was going to die, or something. I was amazed to hear her story, too!)

I've never been to a doctor about any of this. Maybe I should. Thanks, Radiolab!

Is there some recommended readings (books /articles) about the neuroscience that Jonah Lehrer talks about? His site didn't seem to have anything specific. Thanks.

I can identify with the phenomenon that Sharon has described as I too have experienced it since childhood. Scientists call it a Visual Reorientation Illusion (VRI). Up in space with no gravity, astronauts routinely have the perceived ceiling, floor and walls exchange identities with a sudden 90 or 180 degree instant rotation. Here on Earth, because of gravity, the only VRIs we normally experience are around the vertical axis, so the perceived North/South/East/West directions get flipped around 90 or 180 degrees. One ends up being able to see one's surroundings in four different orientations using VRIs. Each world viewpoint is the exact same, except it is just flipped around 180 degrees from one of the other viewpoints, and 90 degrees from the other two.

I don't think you are using the phrase "begs the question" correctly. I think you mean:
"And Sharon's story raises the question--how do we know where we are?"

also want to know what that steel guitar song is!

Just heard the show today in a podcast. Fascinating.

Someone asked about taking the test. Here's a link to the page about the condition:
http://www.gettinglost.ca/ (which is a page in the lab of the doctor, Giuseppe Iaria, who spoke in the segment. There is a "Test Your Skills" link on that page.)

Also, here is a story from a TV station in Colorado which has an interview with Sharon Roseman. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/health/21513512/detail.html (Link good 0n 2-22-11)

What is that haunting guitar song playing at the end of this segment?

Place cells are in the hippocampus. All the other cell types mentioned are distributed throughout various other temporal lobe structures (i.e. entorhinal cortex and post-subiculum).

The fact that spinning fixes things suggests an influence of the semi-circular canals (i.e. the inner ears). One simple idea I had is that the guest's confusion may result from a mismatch between the "path integration" system and "cognitive map" system. This would be a difference between the computed location based on the number of steps you've taken in each location and the location you perceive based on local landmarks. That's all I can say but it'd be interesting to study more in depth with more neuroscience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_direction_cells#Vestibular_influences

One of the best shows! I turned a lot of friends onto this one! I related to all the comments about this episode, there are a lot of cryers out there. I am wondering if super olympic athletes have hyper active parts of their brain, opposite to your first segments subject. That increased blood flow to those parts of the brain that control direction or spacial relationships allow hyper sensitivity for body control in athletics??

Hello there, when I heard this show it reminded me of this french animation that I saw a few months ago. An animation that I thought was a lovely idea, but I see now that maybe it was based on real experience of a sort. see it here: http://shortsbay.com/film/skhizein - its beautiful.

Radiolab- i dont know where to post this so she might eventually hear it, but here goes... Sharon Roseman mentioned that she wished there was a Sit-n-Spin for grown ups- THERE IS!!! Its available at the Affordable Therapy Solutions website in the "floor products" section, and it is AMAZING! I work with kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders, and its great for their sensory processing needs. It supports the weight of a full-sized adult.

Does anyone have links to the web sites that were referenced in this show. I would like to take the face and spacial blindness quiz.

Brilliant show, guys; loved every second. Beautiful sound design.

--------
dougkaufman.net

@ Rebecca from Illinois

I had the same question as others who have previously posted about the 90 degree shift. Your explanation helps a bit, but it seems to be more parallel to a loss of control over one's body.

Any help with a more descriptive (I know it must be hard to describe) explanation of what Sharon's condition <i> seems like </i> to her when it occurs would be greatly appreciated.

I've been lying awake trying to find a way to describe this rotation disorientation for the people who have had trouble understanding it. The best parallel I've come up with is to compare it to old video games, when you'd drink the wrong potion or walk into the wrong pixel and suddenly your character is upside down. The challenge was that to move left on the screen, you suddenly had to press the right arrow key. You could figure it out if you thought about it really hard, but it took a long time to become instinctive.

I think the orientation of buildings becomes as much a part of their characteristics as the color of their paint or the shape of their roofs. If I'm turned around, a building can be as totally unrecognizable as if a second story had been added. (I also am increasingly face-blind and really dependent on hair characteristics- wonder if this is related?)

What's the forum that she talks about being the moderator of?

This was a fabulous programme. I've had this experience since I was a child but fortunately my grandmother had it as well and she described it to me when I was very young so I knew I wasn't the only one. All the same, I've kept quiet about it. I've lived in the same small town for over 14 years but I still come out of shops and think everything has shifted over to the other side of the street. I just stand still for a while and sometimes it clears.

I am almost always 180 degrees off, in my "senselessness" of direction. I've always joked (what else can you do) that I have a lesion in the map module of my brain, but this RLab piece actually tells me where my brain cells fall short. It's been embarrassing and frustrating, my whole life, to not recognize the direction I need to go to get to and from places I've been to numerous times--I always get lost, and never understood why I have above-average intelligence, yet can't find my way out of a paper bag--which I need while hyperventilating in my state of panic, adrift in what should be familiar terra. I see that others, like the Sharons, have it even worse. To not recognize your own backyard--eek.

@John from Wash.DC
Like you, I have a superb sense of direction and have had since I was a small child. Can count on one hand the number of times I've been "lost." However, in Berkeley around the campus, where I've been on continuous occasions all my life, I consistently have my compass points off by 90 degrees. I'll say "north" when it should be "east." I have to monitor my speech when I'm there to be certain I don't mis-speak. All I can figure is that something imprinted incorrectly in my 2-year old brain and has never altered since. I'm not lost there -- just the directions come out wrong!

I sometimes feel bad about having a worse than average sense of direction. Sharon, who was having a harder time than me, really inspired me with her joy when she reached Nordstrom with her friend. If it's hard for you to find your way, don't feel bad, just congratulate yourself when you do!

Since I was very young, I grew enormously attached to the compass points, but I never quite got the hang of left and right. My first year of college I learned to find my way around by the campus map, only to discover two weeks in (when I could actually see the sun in the morning) that the map I was using had east up. I got totally disoriented, lost all the progress I had made, and had to start learning campus all over.

In new places- especially in suburban subdivisions with their twisty disdain for neat squares- I frequently lose my compass points, and once I figure out where they are I get very dizzy until my brain has "reset". In the city I recently moved to, my "up" has somehow shifted north to match the map, whereas growing up my "up" was east. That in itself has been a long adjustment.

Short story that might be food for thought for folks who posted above. Metro-North into Grand Central was my daily commute into Manhattan. Would often sleep in the am on the way in. Routine was wake up, when the train went into the tunnel at 125th and stand by the door for a quick exit in GCT. One AFTERNOON I left work early. Had been working long and late, was exhausted. Got on a train that wasn't scheduled to leave for 20 mins and promptly fell asleep. Woke up in the tunnel! Confused and groggy, I assumed I was on my way IN to work, and still struggling with "what day is it?" I got up and stood by the door. Except instead of slowly pulling into GCT the train blew out of the tunnel into full sunlight heading Northbound at 40 mph. This event totally stripped my gears and for the next 40 mins I struggled with where I was. I knew the train, but my brain COULD NOT reconcile. I had been turned 180 and it did not fit with my imprint. I got off at my stop - with 200 other people and could not tell which stair to go up to cross into the parking lot (I had been doing this for 10 years!) I followed the crowd, and it wasn't until I was safely in my car until my orientation returned. The feeling of being disconnected stayed with me for hours after. One of the strangest experiences of my life.

I definitely had difficultly understanding the condition. In many ways it sounded like a simple 90° rotation, which would seem akin to suddenly noticing you were facing 90° to the side. In this case, I'd assume the disorientation would be easily solved by turning 90°.

However, I suspect this is not what is being described, as Jad makes a reference to the rotation applying horizontally only (or something like that). Would love for someone from the show to explain, if they can. It was definitely extremely difficult to understand.

I experience something similar to this, and only in a specific way;

99% of the time I have a dead on sense of direction (north/south/east/west) -- but in Penn Station in NYC (I am a native new yorker so this isn't touristitis or something) my sense of north/south gets completely mixed up. Even though I know the LIRR entrance on 7th avenue is the north east side, my sense of direction inverts there and tells me I am walking to the south west.

Also, where I work -- my sense of direction is always confused when I am walking away from the (several) MRI machines.

Being a skeptic though, all I can do is shrug and say to myself "confirmation bias" and "if its not bias, I still don't know what it is."

Point being, while I can't empathize with Sharon's experience fully, I do experience a version of it in a very narrow way... albeit rarely.

Which direction is the "90 degree rotation"? Clock or counter-clockwise?

What kind of spin could fix the problem? direction? speed?

Any explanation why spinning around could "fix" the problem?

If actions/external factors can cause and fix the problem, then genetic disorder alone is not the whole story.

"Big Ass Sit-n-Spin" is a real thing! It's called a Roundabout Rotating Disc and holds up to 250 lbs. It's like a sit n spin, without the stupid plastic handle.

http://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Pediatric-Supply-Round-A-Bout-Rotating/dp/B002EIU22W/ref=pd_sbs_sg_5

I have this condition, It is most awful. I have quite the sence of humor and there is nothing to laugh about for me......
I have been very late picking my son up at homes where he has been that I have been to several times before. ...driving in a panic and wiping away tears. " MOM, you have been here before" this was before GPS's in the stores. And, for many yearsm getting lost in my workplaces that I am in all the time...I know I have been in these buildings many times and on this floor, but I am lost, nothing looks familiar. and roads I have driven on , that have never looked driven on....my hippocampus is not mine

Just to clarify what I'm confused about:

If I closed my eyes, and did anything akin to stumbling around, or spinning in circles, and, while I was doing so, absolutely everything -- <i>everything</i> -- around me rotated 90 degrees, I would not be disoriented when I opened my eyes again; everything in my world would be in the same place in relation to every other thing in that world. I would have no way of telling what had occurred. Sharon must have some <i>absolute</i>, not relative, mental point of reference to be so completely thrown off by a thing like that.

I was left with an interesting question after this one. I don't doubt Ms. Roseman's account in the least, but I do wonder: if "everything in the universe," as she put it, was rotated 90 degrees, how could she tell the difference? Assuming, as was the case when she was playing Blind Man's Bluff or Pin the Tail on the Donkey, that she did not witness the actual rotation, how would she perceive that it occurred, if absolutely everything had rotated and there was no stable point of reference? I was hoping one of you would ask. Great episode as usual.

Great episode! I could relate to Sharon is a very small way. I have a horrible sense of direction, and I often get very disoriented when I enter and exit stores, especially in a mall. I've come out of stores or even public bathrooms and totally don't recognize where I am. I wouldn't say it is anything serious or even close to Sharon's condition, but perhaps that part of my brain is missing a few of those cells spoken about in the episode! :)