toomuchplor | Left / Right Brain?

cupidsbow and I are wondering about my last post and whether we have a predisposition to think of characters' relative positions based on left/right brain dominance. So! A highly scientific poll!

I can't post all the data for the questions in the poll itself (because LJ is cool like that) so I'm afraid you'll have to scroll up and down a bit.

First, look at this lovely ballerina:

Photobucket

Decide for yourself if she's moving clockwise or counter-clockwise, then scroll down and answer the first question.

Now, read the following excerpt (#1), trying to picture the scene as vividly as you can from Rodney's point of view:

#1:

“Shut up, shut up, shut *up*!” Rodney groaned, flailing his arm haphazardly again. This time he made contact with Sheppard’s arm but didn’t manage to move it. Exhaustion soaking down to his very bones, Rodney rolled over on his side and propped himself up on one elbow so he could glare balefully at Sheppard’s open snoring mouth. “Oh my god, shut up,” Rodney slurred, torn between weariness and the pressing need to kill Sheppard. “Shut up?” Rodney attempted pathetically, half sobbing, then went about the business of levering Sheppard onto his side.

Sheppard snorted awake just as Rodney succeeded. “What?” he sniped, cutting an accusatory look Rodney’s way.

“Your death rattle snore is capable of penetrating the hull of an Ancient warship,” Rodney said. “And you’re drilling a hole through my skull with every god awful breath.”

“Huh,” said John, drowsy and completely unrepentant. He punched his pillow and settled down again, undoing all Rodney’s good work. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not on your back, you freak of nature!” Rodney bellowed, pummeling Sheppard’s stupid head. “I’m *this close* to spooning you just to make sure you don’t roll over again.”

Sheppard sleepily grunted and rolled onto his side. “Least I don’t fart in my sleep,” he said, sounding not a little grumpy, probably because of the spooning threat.

Go and answer the second question.

Done? Good. Now read this excerpt (#2), again trying to imagine the scene in as detailed a way as possible, this time from John's perspective:

#2:

John woke in the darkness and blinked at the digital clock, wondering what made him open his eyes at three twenty. With a groan, he rolled over, intending to curl into Rodney’s warmth and go right back to sleep — but Rodney was gone. John opened his eyes again and became aware of the line of light under the door.

Rodney was sitting with his back to the wall in the hallway, bare feet pressed into the carpet pile, hair sticking up on one side from falling asleep with sweaty post-coital hair. He was holding a sheaf of photocopied papers in one hand and had Dalton tucked in the crook of his other arm.

“Thought you didn’t need to hold him?” asked John, rubbing the heel of one hand against his right eye, squinting in the dim light of the hallway.

“I heard him wake up,” offered Rodney, not looking up from his papers. “Jeannie said he was fed and changed and just wanted someone to hold him. So I said I could do that, had to get some work done anyway.” He smirked. “You should have seen her: she was staggering around like Zelenka after two Athosian beers.”

“Ha,” said John, though it sounded less triumphant as he said it halfway through a yawn. He made his way to Rodney’s side, staggering a little himself, and dropped down to the floor, nestling groggily into Rodney’s heat.

Great, answer the third question.

One more, just for fun (#3):

#3:
You are a lab tech on Atlantis. As you round the corner of a corridor, heading back towards your lab, you encounter John and Rodney coming the other way, hurrying all tough and business-like for the gateroom where there is obviously some serious shit going down, judging by the looks on their faces. As they approach you, which of the men is on your left?

Now answer the fourth question.

[Poll #1247537]

In case you're interested:

For the ballerina image (from this article), counter-clockwise is supposed to be the commonest direction for people to see the ballerina moving. The direction you see is apparently linked to your brain hemisphere dominance:

"If [you see the dancer moving] clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa."

(I cannot make the woman go anything other than clockwise, so help me god. I'm a confirmed artist.)

And, in my (apparently right-brained) opinion, as the writer of the above excerpts, I totally pictured:

#1: Rodney is lying on the left side of the bed and John is on the right.

#2: They are sitting on the left-hand side of the hallway (John has emerged from a door to their right) and John is sitting on Rodney's right.

#3: John, John, totally John. So, yep, Rodney's STILL on the left. Weird.

From which we can conclude: that I seem to feel like Rodney's a left-hand kind of guy? Or John is Rodney's right hand man? I don't know, clearly my brain dominance theory doesn't work for me, anyway. What about you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The ballerina: Okay, so someone with more knowledge about ballet might say I'm wrong, but since her right leg is up, she can *only* go in the clockwise direction. It makes no sense for her to go counter-clockwise.

(Brought to you by 3 years of ballet as a girl and as an adult)

Of maybe interest? Excerpt number 2, I imagined John rolling towards his left (pov of viewer, John is on the left side of the bed and Rodney on the right side - just like in excerpt number 1)), but then you mentioned a door and to me (to the left of Rodney) there is only a wall. So then I had to readjust my view and John rolled to his right and then saw the light, goes through the door (on Rodney's right) and sits beside him, Rodney on his left.

I couldn't make the bed do a 180 degrees move (i.e. John would be sleeping between the wall and Rodney). I think my heart is going to hurt if I think about this anymore.

Haha... I have a weird habit, as a writer, of subconsciously writing non-canon environments as actual homes of people I know. John and Rodney are actually sleeping in a strange version of my parents' house in this fic, and in Theory of Acquired Characters, John is living in a version of a house I rented for three years. So while, to me, the room layout is very obvious, I can understand how readers wouldn't find it as neat and straightforward unless they happen to have stayed in my parents' guest room.

Ah! I wonder if anyone else had the same problem reading that excerpt.

I just thought of the fact that John's room, his bed is in the direction I can't imagine it to be (according to the last episode). I can't explain it. The foot of the bed should be the other way around for me! O_O

Rodney's bed (from that episode where Cadman is in his head) should for me be moved 90 degrees in a counterclockwise direction. I think. O_O

I did the same thing; I pictured John rolling on his left side, but then when he opened his eyes and was looking at a door, I switched it so he had rolled to his right. And then the door is on Rodney's right, of course, so John sits with him to his left.

I am not the person to answer, even with my own 3 years of ballet as a kid -- but I can tell you that my brother the mechanical engineer (who is about as typically left-brained as they get) had the opposite reaction. He cannot see the woman going any way but counter-clockwise, period. And our other brother (who is ambidextrous) says she keeps changing direction. So maybe there's something to it?

My dad (who is not ambidextrous) says she keeps changing direction! This is freaking me out. O_O

argh, now I was able to make her change direction. O_O

If you concentrate on her shadow, you can get her to go the other way. It took a bit of concentration, but after my roommate pointed it out to me, I was able to see it.

Left / Right Brain?

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