[floatingatoll]

I glance at the paragraph, it glows briefly, I blink, I trace a spiral from the center counter clockwise, and if I still don’t have comprehension, I go back a couple paragraphs or try again the agonizing word by word way. Sometimes I read left to right to left depending on text width and such. I can usually keep math in the right order but I'm known to add left-to-right which involves the concept of 'one past nine' as a 'digit' for the sake of forcing it into base 10 math, and then I unroll the carries right-to-left, but not always, it depends.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> I trace a spiral from the center counter clockwise, and if I still don’t have comprehension, I go back a couple paragraphs or try again the agonizing word by word way

Wow. What?

[floatingatoll]

I don't know, man. I work with my brain as best I can. Some pages of books are an entire page of "glance, glance, okay, that's all meaningless" next-page. But I also remember books as intensely as TV or in-person experiences, if not moreso.

If I'm trying to figure out whether what I've just written will make any sense to other human beings, sometimes I'll say a fragment of it out loud to hear the emotion and make sure it's landing properly. My edit history on HN is probably >99% of my comments have edits within sixty seconds of sending it, because Fixed-width reads different than Sans-serif, and I can't absorb many Fixed-width fonts very well in white-on-black, certainly not whatever the browser defaults are. (InputMono Light dethroned Menlo Regular after ten years in my Terminal, and I miss it any time I'm in the browser. Yes, I know I how to fix that in the browser.)

Reading is the inverse but the same: sometimes I have to do five passes on a paragraph or page, just to fully grasp whatever it's trying to say.

[TedDoesntTalk]

Have you been tested for dyslexia or other disabilities?

[floor2]

Seconding this. This description sounds like severe dyslexia to me, and the good news is there are a lot of resources and therapies out there which might be able to greatly improve your quality of life if you choose to seek them out.

Definitely worth speaking with an appropriate medical professional for diagnosis.

[titusjohnson]

My experience on reading isn't as dramatic as the person you're replying to, but similar.

I read whole paragraphs and/or sentences in one go. I don't really know "how" I do it, and there are limits (it really, really helps to know the author and their writing style). My eyes hit the paragraph, flick to see the end of it, traverse back up half-scanning each line, then I scan through the lines from the top, and afterwards I know what the paragraph was saying. It takes a few seconds per paragraph.

I can't recite it verbatim but I can effectively describe the content of the paragraph accurately.

If I have to read something word-for-word it's so slow that I tend to get bored or frustrated quickly. I don't find that slow, word-for-word reading gives me much more than by inhaling paragraphs whole.

[floatingatoll]

Yep, basically like this. I can’t repeat anything I read verbatim, but I can remember a sentence someone said and quote it back to them easily when context requires it.