Doing things Backwards

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Every once in a while I'll get the urge to type messages backwards to friends.

.siht ekiL

I also taught myself to recite the alphabet in reverse in less than 3 seconds.

As for reading things I usually don't read backwards, but rather read random paragraphs until I've read everything.

I write fluent mirror writing with letters and words reversed (from right to left of page.)
I can also write fluent mirror writing and also upside down at the same time - something I only became aware of when someone on WP suggest I try it last year.

I have whole journals written in mirror writing. It looks beautiful. pages and pages of script.

I can read and write backwards. It gets kind of annoying when I'm not meaning to.

Sometimes when I am reading I completely skip words or sentences, or I will look at them and get the words jumbled. I get numbers jumbled around a lot. A professor of mine said sometimes when he reads he reads straight down and not from left to right, I wanted tell him I do that too sometimes but couldn't form the words.

Besides reading, I do things in general backwards. If I am getting in a car and my hands are full, instead of putting the stuff in first, I'll get in with all of it in my hands and then have to get back out to place it because I didn't think about it first. Common sense things sometimes just don't occur to me and I feel incredibly dumb for it, specially when I am with people and they make fun of me for it or ask me why I did something the way I did it.

I've done this for as long as I could remember. I didn't know it it was a mechanics thing (easier to turn the page that way) or something else. I'm glad there are others that do the same. I well read and see what's what.

I only have read one book backwards and that is Cold Mountain because he goes into so much minutely specific detail about the way people lived back then that the plot is always a distraction when I read it so I didn't want to miss that much. I haven't ever read a book so concerned with historical objects and methods/customs but if anyone knows of any please suggest them, it is fascinating. Most books are concerned with plot and even scenery is a distant second place.

When I was alot younger and read voraciously (the internet has pretty much taken over my reading and I rarely read fiction anymore) I would always read the ending of a book first before I embarked on it. I just wanted to know what I was getting myself into. It helped me relax and not be so anxious and in a hurry to get to the end of the book.

This is a dyslexia thing, so I never have because I don't have dyslexia, but I know plenty of people who do.

I can't read magazines or articles backward...it drives me crazy! Even if there's no "plot" I still feel like I'm spoiling the story somehow by starting at the end hahaha.

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I often read the replies to threads backwards. And sometimes I read articles backwards, but I think that's more so if I'm scanning for a particular piece of information.

Why are you reading backwards? Is it that you enjoy thinking about different ways to get to the same solution?

If you look up divergent thought, you'll find it described as an alternate almost backward, way of thinking (not backward as in ignorant or out of date, reversed thought patterns). A divergent thinker wants to read the end of the book and imagine all the routes the author might have taken to get to that conclusion while reading to see which choices the author actually made. This is a right brained way of thinking, but doesn't necessarily mean that you'd be left handed.

My middle son is left handed and is most definitely not divergent. He's a start to finish kind of guy who colors between the lines. He's very smart, with a genius level IQ. He's extremely left handed and can't do things very well with his right.

My youngest son could be the most divergent thinker alive on the planet today. He didn't speak until he was 5 but tests as not being in the spectrum. His test scores support extreme divergency, and he sure is one creative unusual little dude. He's as right handed as they come.

Maybe you're not divergent and just have a unique quirk that's all your own.

Sometimes I do that, too.

In my case it has nothing to do with dyslexia, as I don't have it, but if reading is a problem for you, then maybe you should check it out. I know one way to teach dyslexics is to have them write words backwards. For some reason that seems to help them.

As for Hebrew, when I began learnig it, I had no problems whatsoever reading from right to left. It was equally easy as reading from left to right.

I read magazines, e-mails, texts and test backwards, or circular/spiral ping pong style depending on the info contained. Usually it's more paragraph by paragraph but sometime sentences too depending on the state of my brain. It helps me take it in better often, especially when tired. I see it as my brain taking in the information in the order that makes it easiest for me to process. Sometimes I can't focus on an intro paragraph because I want to know the point. Once I know the point it's easier for me to understand the back ground information. For tests and other situations I think it's partially an attempt to soothe uncertainty anxiety along with my attempts and strategies for time management. With both ADHD and ASD I am sensitive to losing track of time and also find it helpful for working within my own discovered patterns that help me process the data itself, calibrate to the data creators style, intents, and possible mistakes as well as having a visual material object feel of the physical paper and pencil journey I need to make in the allotted time and dancing around the pages helps me attune to the specific task at hand so I can have a sense of structure to help me feel calm and competent while testing. I may go to the end to make sure I finish/get a feel for the length and breadth of material then ping pong around depending on my brains flow, energy or depletion moment to moment. I don't jump ahead with fiction books, maybe in the past when reading something I had to not because I truly enjoyed it. With non-fiction however it can make sense to jump around the same way one does when studying, building up the data into a picture in my brain filling it out in the necessary spots before collecting other data.

Well there's this: When I'm preparing a meal, I'll begin by putting away the dishes off the draining rack, then I wash any dishes that are cluttering up the sink, then I make sure the worktop is clear of clutter, then I start preparing the meal. Just common sense really, to make the process run smoothly. I also often start a project by emptying a waste bin or clearing some space on a hard drive. But none of this came naturally. I had to experience the frustration of taking dirty plates to the kitchen sink only to find it full, wash dishes and find no space on the draining rack for them, start a project and find the waste was too full to accommodate the waste that the project generated, start a computer task and run out of hard drive space for the files I was trying to create. I suppose it's just intelligent forward planning.

Once I had a girlfriend who lived in another town, and I used to read her letters to me backwards. That was because she had a habit of writing nice things at the start and then ending with something nasty. So in that way I avoided being emotionally built up and smashed down. Not surprisingly, I got rid of her eventually.

I used to read newspapers backwards sometimes, until I gave up reading them.

Yes...yes .. the topic in magazines, and old newspaper articles ...they usually bring the topic together at the end ..
So , Would read the article backwards, if the ending gives me enough interest ,Would look at other parts of the Article or story. But in Later years learned when reading books for fun..It seemed more ' correct' to let the author build the story.. As you read.... Found it more satisfying ..
in the end.

Yeah Also I like to watch the end of a movie before I'll watch it through because I reckon that if it's got a good ending then it might be worth watching.

I mean I don't do that all the time but it's something I do do