Spatial awareness

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I am not sure if this is an autism thing, or something else. I have some trouble with "spatial awareness". I have myopia and astigmatism and I can barely see without my glasses. I have not seen an eye doctor since 2009 and I cannot get new glasses until I save up enough money because medicare does not cover them. I also have trouble with depth perception. Things that I know are in 3D look 2D to me. An example would be if I try to throw away trash, the trash can will look flat. It's even worse trying to play basketball. The hoop will look like a flat circle. Anyway, my trouble with "spatial awareness" has caused me to be extra careful walking around because I have trouble judging the distance of things. It seems like I have to take more time than those around be to navigate without bumping into things. This is really hard with "tight" squeezes like doorways. I will also sometimes bump my head on things that I forgot were above me.

Have you always had trouble with depth perception? I used to have horrible depth perception. I thought it was all in my head or just aspergers. Turns out I just needed glasses. You can get affordable glasses on Zenni Optical. It's not entirely ideal, but it's better than walking around with a five year old prescription.

I have trouble with depth perception, so much so that I was running over curbs and into parking garage posts when I was driving. I've had bad near-sightedness since before I was seven, so I don't know if that's autism or eyesight. My night vision is also poor, and I do run into things.

I have a lot of impairment when it comes to gauging depth, proximity and distance. Knock things over a lot. Bump into stuff a lot. Have difficulty navigating.

My vision is 20/20 with no astigmatism or anything like that.

This is why I am asking. I am taking driving lessons and am having a lot of the same troubles as you. I started another thread about this here: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=306883

So vision does not seem to be a contributing factor.

It took me three tries to pass my driver's license test

I am actually the opposite... My depth perception has never been an issue (although I still walk into things, because I am often concentrating on other things).

My depth perception doesn't appear to change with one eye closed, and even TV looks "3D"

I don't mean things flying out of the screen, but it doesn't look flat.
I have had arguments with people about this and it is hard to describe, TV doesn't look 3D like a 3D movie and in my opinion they look less believable than a standard TV. It's almost as if the depth is implied by shadows etc and my brain works it out, because people describe to me that a TV image looks flat and 2D, but that is not how I would describe it at all. Yes the Image is on a flat surface, but you can still gauge the distance between objects in all 3 dimensions.

Or maybe I am just weird...

I can also annoyingly point out all the CGI stuff that others don't notice, which stops me from being immersed, it all just looks so fake and out of place.

However it's not all good... I can see Plasma screens flicker, which makes them un-watchable for me.

Definitely not alone in this. I've always had difficulty with determining how far things are from where I'm standing. There's been countless times where I've gotten strange looks for walking down a set of stairs like they were going to attack me.

I'm also in the process of earning my driver's license as well, and am a bit worried about how it will all go.

For some weird reason, 3D movies make me feel a bit motion sick. Somehow the depth feels TOO deep, and it's especially noticeable if something goes close by the camera quickly. I think it relates to parallax, which is the phenomenon where things that are far away appear to pass you more slowly than things that are close up. If you are sitting in a car or train, look out the side window, and you will see that far away things pass slowly, and things by the side of the road go by very quickly. Really, really far things like the sun and moon don't appear to move at all. For me, the parallax seems off in a 3D movie and it makes me feel ill. I get motion sick pretty easily.

I have horrible depth Perception and a hard time telling how big or small something is. But other than that i have good Visual Processing. People in school used to call me a "human copy machine" because i was so good at drawng what i see.

I have no trouble seeing. I've broken the little toe on my left foot 3 times kicking the same lounge leg. I could just never judge it. I'm clumsy. I can fall over walking along a completely flat surface. I always misjudge the space I need to walk past things.

I'm certain it's part of AS! I've heard too many stories similar to mine to doubt it.

I have problems knowing my physical "place" in relation to other people.

I also have problems discerning distance when I do something such as park my car. It takes me longer to park than most people.

I also take longer to change lanes than most people. I have to look back every time I change lanes.

Minor stuff, really--but it could have a big impact if I'm not careful.

I actually excel at visual tasks that require good spatial acuity.

In school, I was the boy who always wanted to build things and draw. The other kids didn't seem to like geometry much, but once I learned what a protractor was, I had loads of fun using it. Heptagons were the toughest polygons I've ever tackled, but I've learned to work well with them.

One of my jobs involved directing trucks to a loading dock, and stevedoring. I was always able to direct the truck drivers to back up perfectly to the company's small dock when they thought they couldn't do it, and I very quickly got the hang of maneuvering a pallet jack. I could tell just from looking at a full pallet how to gauge its dimensions and tell whether or not it would fit where the foreman wanted it to go. None of the other guys at that job was able to do this very well. Some had a lot of difficulty getting used to the fact that you steer a pallet jack from the back.

I've always had a very good sense of direction, even back when I was little. I can still remember the lay of the land and the geographic directions in parts of the city where I haven't been since I was 5, and I'm even acutely aware of geographic direction when I dream at night.

And yet I always see NTs getting lost, misjudging space, or bumping into stuff.

When I was a child, my family nicknamed me Mr. Bump because I was always bumping into things. I think I've always done it, but since becoming aware of my Aspie qualities I'm noticing it again a lot more. Bumping into things, dropping things, knocking things over. It can get infuriating at times when I'm just trying to get something done like make a cup of tea. Every time I go into the kitchen I have to move objects to the back of the counter because I know if they're too near the edge I will knock them on the floor.
I do have glasses, but they are very weak. I think it's much more about how I process what I see rather than an actual visual thing.

I have myopia and astigmatism (corrected with glasses), I have never been delayed in motor milestones, never had any problems with clumsiness, or had any problems with driving or parking, so I assume I'm fine spatially.