Space

Space like time, is another illusion of our universe. Like events in time, objects in space have a beginning and an end. We live in a world of beginnings and endings, and some people even believe that they have an end, that they will cease to exist when they die. However, our concepts of time and space where created to give us a specific experience that we could learn from.

By giving us lifetimes that have a beginning and an end we are able to learn much more quickly than we would otherwise. Our memories of any other lives we’ve had can be veiled and we can start afresh in a new life. We are given as many opportunities to learn as we need.

Science now tells us that time and space can be warped, and that theoretically it is even possible to travel through time. If this is so, how can anything have a beginning and an end, least of all ourselves?

Space is a concept I find difficult to navigate my way through. I can’t see it. I don’t think in terns of three dimensions. When I’m in a crowded space where there are lots of people I panic. I think everyone is going to walk into each other, including me. I’ve talked about this before. The reason I wanted to bring this up again was an experience I had a few days ago in the supermarket.

As I was entering the store, straight away I saw two people coming my direction. One was coming from my right the other from my left. I tried not to panic. Normally I would increase my pace to move out of the way as speedily as possible, but instead I decided to try and imagine where they would end up if they carried on in a straight line. I could see their paths crossing but this would be just after I had passed them, and that’s what happened. Everything was fine.

Crowds are usually a source of much anxiety for me, but I felt a bit calmer going round the shop that day. I couldn’t keep up this mental imaging though. It takes a lot of mental effort. Especially when I’m also struggling to find my way round the shop in an order that means I can get everything on my list without walking round the whole place ten times.

So shopping is really difficult for two reasons, I’m trying to create a sequence in my mind of the things I need to get, whilst avoiding running into people. I could try to work out the order I get things when I make my list, which would take some of the pressure off. Then I could concentrate on not walking into people.

I think pointing should also come under the category of space. I’ve been doing some more thinking on this point, no pun intended. When I saw those two people coming towards me and I projected their paths, I realised this is the same thing people do when they point to things.

However there is another element to pointing that makes it harder. If the object being pointed at is too far away for me to hold both the hand and the object in my vision, I am stumped. This is because I can’t hold the space occupied by the hand in my mind. As soon as I lose sight of that hand I no longer know where it is in space so I can’t project it’s line. I wonder if this is because I am such a poor visual thinker. Not all autistic people are like this, some autistic people think in pictures. I can only think in words. Maybe visual thinkers don’t have the same problems with navigating crowds and pointing?

I have been monitoring my own pointing. At first I wasn’t sure that I did point, but now I can say that I do. I don’t point to indicate the whereabouts of objects, but I do point to give directions to people. If someone asks me the way I might indicate left or right by pointing. (I’m not good at telling left and right, I have to imagine myself doing the brownie salute first). So there are two uses to pointing, one to indicate an objects position, another as a kind of sign language.