Which side of the bed is the left side? Is the answer based on the perspective of laying in the bed (person’s head at the head end)? Is the answer based on viewing it from the foot of the bed, looking at the head of the bed? Is there an “anatomical position” or special terminology like in boating for this?
For context: My boyfriend and I can’t agree on this. We change who gets which side based on the shoulder we’d predominantly sleep on and how it’s feeling. This let’s us get good cuddles before shoulder pain gets irritated. He comes to bed after me. A while back he asked what side I’m sleeping on. I said “left”. Later that night, he comes in and almost lays directly on me because he claims “left” is the other side. Since then we have to describe which side using complicated descriptions.
Either:
- you establish a convention and both learn to choose one perspective or the other
- one of you tries to do that and the other pretends not to agree, because it’s cute and fun as a form of teasing
Pick one and I hope whatever you pick works for both of you. Agreement is easy, but teasing can be fun.
A very realistic answer. It’s unlikely either of us will concede so this is will be a perpetual joke.
Enjoy! “I’ve chosen to find it charming.”
My wife sleeps in the middle, like a snow angel, so I always sleep on what’s left.
Or what’s right.
What’s left ain’t right.
Correct.
Oh, you are a witty one. Good answer.
Driver side, passenger side.
Get nautical! Port and starboard.
I can get on board with this! (Pun intended)
But then which side is the Bow and which the Stern?
I would say the foot is the Stern and the head the bow I guess. Just to stay with a sort of head being the front of something and foot being the tail end.
Captain drives from the stern, though. If you sit up in bed you’re facing the bow.
But during normal use, you are facing the foot. I would think that makes it the Bow
I guess even if you are a stomach sleeper your feet are still towards the foot. Maybe this is best.
The answer is easy, but to get to it, a little bit of a thought experiment is probably helpful. I say, look to how we define our own left and right sides for guidance. When facing forward, our left hand is on the left side of our body, and the right hand is on the right side of the body. Perspective doesn’t matter, and there is no ambiguity.
Now we need to extend this to the bed. A bed has a head, just like a person does. So where would its face be? It seems clear to me, unless you are sleeping on a dead mattress, that the face is clearly going to be looking upwards at the ceiling at the head of the bed. So the left side of the bed, if you are standing at the foot of the bed looking at it, would be on your right. Just like the left side of your friend, when you are standing in front of them and looking at them, is on your right.
Now if you just imagine the mattress to be perfectly spherical and in a frictionless environment…
(Obviously just having fun with this answer, but it’s also the right answer)
It’s easiest if you think of the bed as a person. I call mine “Ed the Bed”
I’ll have to counter his argument with this. I think it nullifies the standing at the foot line of thinking.
Right, left if you’re looking at the bed from the foot.
Stage right, stage left if you’re looking out from the bed toward the foot.
He did theater stuff in HS, so we may adapt this if neither of us concede. Good work around.
Theater stuff in high school… Is that like making out backstage after rehearsal?
Probably along the same lines as band camp. I’m sure there’s a few “This one time…” stories.
the former is known as “audience left/right”
but allow me to use a more dated theatrical terminology:
prompt side and bastard prompt.
No right or left.
Window side or door side.
If this doesn’t apply to your bed, then you have aligned the bed improperly.
Forget left-right. Use port and starboard.
This is the correct answer. It’s how ships avoid running into each other. When whoever is steering the vessel is facing the bow (front, usually the pointy bit), port is their left, starboard their right. Ship’s running lights are red on the port side, green on the left. So if you’re out on the water at night, you can immediately see whether a ship is coming towards you or moving away. The rule for passing an oncoming vessel is “port to port”, thus avoiding confusion and collision.
Sitting up in bed I would consider the headboard the stern, because I have my back to it, and the foot the bow. So the area to starboard is right, and portside is left. Ahoy maties!!!
Driver’s side and passengers side?
Stage left and stage right? (Depends on where your curtains are).
People drive in different sides in different parts of the world.
I assume OP and their partner drive on the same side of the road as each other though lol
The majority of people occupying the same bed will have congruent driver/passenger sides. Distant strangers don’t need to know which side you are referring to. Couples from different regions could adopt the local convention.
Seems like a flawed system. Why would auto manufactures not force the whole world to do it the same?
Fuck it, topside, underside.
Imagine the bed is a clock. The 12 o’clock position is at the head — I don’t think anything else makes sense. That makes it unambiguous.
The positions are 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock.
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When we sleep, the monsters are at our 6.
This will only lead to more confusion.
We use “my side” and “your side” so it’s always correct from any perspective.
Stage left is the only definition that matters here, unless you have good reason to care about audience left owo
House left is the better methodology, you’re going to be talking about sides while looking at the bed more often than while already in it.
“Complicated descriptions”? Is there a lamp on one side, or a closet door? Just use that as a frame of reference, I wouldn’t call that a complicated description. Or, if you usually have the same bigs-poon, little-spoon orientation, you can describe which shoulder you’re laying on. But I still think using features of the room is the simplest way. “I’m laying on the closet side.”
Fair point. Complicated descriptions may have an exaggeration, but relative to simply left/right it’s still mildly accurate. I’m not a sensory thinker so pulling from objects other than what I’m referencing seems like adding a few extra cognitive steps. Silly, I’m aware, but that’s my brain.
My girlfriend lies on my right arm, so she’s on the right side of the bed and I’m on the left.
Where is the head and foot of the bed? Where are the top and the bottom? If the bed were stood up on the foot, is the top the front or the back? These questions may have something to do with the answer or are completely meaningless.
In medicine you use the view of the examiner like your boyfriend. I don’t think that is reasonable for the people lying down though.
So using the point of the examiner, is the mattress the belly or back or the bed? I say it’s the belly, the baseboard would be the back. So it would be the same as laying in the bed.
I might have gotten things messed up because I am not a medical student. Apparently the swap happens only for MRI and similar things where the picture swaps the coronal plane.
If you want the explanation for it search for sagittal and coronal plane. It gives you a way of talking about bodies independent of rotation.
Lie in bed on your back. Stick out your left hand. That is the left side of the bed. Stick out your right hand. That is the right side of the bed.
Completely arbitrary.
