Senses that you develope from living outside

I'm not sure if this is the right area to post this (mods please move if it isn't ) but I would like to ask people that have camped / live outside for any descent amount of time if they have ever notice their senses changing or have developed any unusual skills from living off of the land / in nature.

I am a city boy born and bread but for a couple of years of my life I worked for a charity that monitored turtles on the Greek coast, so I spent about six months of the year for two years living completely outside on the beach in a small group.
During that time I found that I could instinctively tell the time to the hour (or sometimes much more accurately) without looking at a watch or even thinking about it, I also developed a sense of when the tide was going to change, and had a much greater connection with the weather, as in I could tell if it was going to rain that day just from the smell of the air.

Has anyone else here noticed anything like this or am I just crazy?

I hope I'm not crazy

You're not crazy..
You just tune into your environment is all.
been there done that.
Still am.
Peace

Love and light

I live on an island in WA state, one that Colton Harris Moore liked to frequent, and I can tell by the squirrels and birds when a deer or person is coming.

After a few months of hearing the same noises before a deer walks by or a person walks up my driveway I started catching on.

No one needs a guard dog to warn them when they have visitors if they have place for wildlife to live in their yard!

yep..stay outside for long periods of time and you become Human again...

once we / you leave the cage of existence we call home we revert back to the way we were meant to be..

I love being outdoors ans always notice more things going on around me after being outside for a while..

As has been wisely stated, when one tunes the senses to the rhythm of the land, the true grasp of being human is glimpsed!

Ive had the pleasure of staying with some huichol people in central Mexico for a while, and often wondered about some feats of timing and prediction of variables some of them had, when asked about it, some spoke of the "inner silence" one develops while being in the great wide open, they say that the constant speaking to ourselves the so called inner dialogue, inhibits us from listening at all, city living folk have all sorts of mental defenses, ready to lash out at their fellows without warning, outside, one needs to be focused and "aware" if one desires to be efficient in any way...

So yeah, mans magical heritage shines when nature deprograms and reprograms our software to reach the never ending heights and lows of human experience!
cheers!

I am not a psychologist, but I dare say you are not crazy.

Becoming "in tune" with nature is over used, but completely true. Just as if you grew up in New England, the cold would't bother you as it would if you were from Texas. It's enviornmental.

Working outdoors gave me:

-An unnerring sense of direction; i.e., sense of where north is, even on a cloudy day, etc.

-An awareness of a drop in air pressure, (oncoming supercell thunderstorm)

-Ability to guess when / if the day's thunderclouds would bring rain to my location (desert).

-Feeling when you are being watched.

-sense of when birds hush---danger lurking in hiding.

I wish my sense of direction had improved with my extended stays in the outdoors, I can get lost inside a telephone box

posted by TheOneEyedProphet

some spoke of the "inner silence" one develops while being in the great wide open, they say that the constant speaking to ourselves the so called inner dialogue, inhibits us from listening at all

One of my old friends had spent quite some time living with Australian aboriginals and he used to say something very similar to that!

It's all in the elements.

The Earth will be your home.
Fire will be your tool.
Water will clean you.
Wind will guide you.

You first have to accept that nature is indefinitely superior to you and you are nothing compared to it, so join it. After that, you might just make friends with the animals if you have no fear and you utilize common sense.

reply to post by davespanners


I'm with you there. Growing up in Montana, my friends and I spent 90% of daylight hours outdoors (except for school). Of course that was before video games, cable tv and computers. I sometimes wonder how the new(ish) indoor growing up will affect society.

Now I live in the big city, and I'm sad.