Losing your place on the train
How does it happen?
One of the things I've noticed while travelling on the train is the number
of people who lose their place momentarily.
They might be reading, listening to music or just
daydreaming ,
when they suddenly
realise
that they don't know exactly where they are because they haven't
been paying
attention
to the stops.
They search the darkness outside
anxiously
for some familiar pattern in the lights and
shadows .
It's happened to me a couple of times,
and it's very
disorientating .
The
odd
thing is that you think that you know the line
intimately ,
travelling on it every day. I think that the problem arises because the familiar
landmarks
are strongly bound up in their
linear
sequence .
Disorientated
Recognising where you are seems to be
dependent
on knowing where you are in the sequence.
Even in the daytime, if you lose your place along the sequence,
it takes several moments to place what should be very familiar landmarks. Odd.
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Train travel
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