“A hilarious and riveting journey.”
— David Eagleman
“A fascinating story that will make you rethink how you see the world.”
— John Robison
“An ode to neurodiversity.”
— Susannah Calahan
“Sadie Dingfelder was born funny, in both senses of the word.”
— Dave Barry
“A personal, vulnerable portrait of late-realized neurodivergence.”
— Devon Price
“A rare and insightful story.”
— Michael Gazzaniga
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Science writer Sadie Dingfelder has always known that she’s a little quirky. But while she’s made some strange mistakes over the years, it’s not until she accosts a stranger in a grocery store (who she thinks is her husband) that she realizes something is amiss.
With a mixture of curiosity and dread, Dingfelder starts contacting neuroscientists and lands herself in scores of studies. In the course of her nerdy midlife crisis, she discovers that she is emphatically not neurotypical. She has prosopagnosia (faceblindness), stereoblindness, aphantasia (an inability to create mental imagery), and a condition called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory.
As Dingfelder begins to see herself more clearly, she discovers a vast well of hidden neurodiversity in the world at large. There are so many different flavors of human consciousness, and most of us just assume that ours is the norm. Can you visualize? Do you have an inner monologue? Are you always 100% sure whether you know someone or not? If you can perform any of these mental feats, you may be surprised to learn that many people — including Dingfelder — can’t.
A lively blend of personal narrative and popular science, Do I Know You? is the story of one unusual mind’s attempt to understand itself — and a fascinating exploration of the remarkable breadth of human experience.
“In “Do I Know You?” Dingfelder deep-dives into her own psychological profile — but what is really on display is her infectious curiosity and enthusiasm. She delivers a tour de force of that most storied scientific approach: experimenting on yourself.”
About Sadie
Sadie Dingfelder is a freelance science journalist. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic, the Washington Post, and Washingtonian magazine. A former staff reporter at the Washington Post Express, Dingfelder also served as senior science writer at the Monitor on Psychology magazine, covering new findings in neuroscience, cognitive science, and ethology for members of the American Psychological Association.
