Crossed Dominance

Oh wow.

I don't know exactly how I feel about this.  It is just the tip of the iceberg, if you will, and I've had little time to process it.

But I think it is interesting beyond whatever other conclusions I may come to over time.

By way of background I've known since high school that I have Hand-Eye Crossed Dominance, although I didn't know there was such a title for it.  In my case it means this: I am right handed and I am "left-eyed".  The latter is a term we don't hear much but I think these days most of us understand that our brain prefers input from one-eye over the other.  (If you don't know which of your eyes is dominant,  this card can help.)

(It may be relevant to note that I am also left-ear dominant and right-footed.  Thus, my head and my body might be said to be totally out of sync!)

I was generally a pretty good athlete in high school but I had little success in basketball.  I wondered then if having a dominant left eye while shooting from my right hand had anything to do with my poor shooting ability.  Since the hemispheres of the brain are said to control opposite sides of the body, my theory was that my crossed-dominance setup might mean my brain needed to coordinate my left eye and my right arm, an extra step (in very simplistic terms) over those who are purely right or left-sided.  (Turns out this question is a science fair experiment - I was just ahead of my time!)

The crossed dominance also means when I entered the Army I learned to shoot left-handed, because using my left (dominant) eye gave me a more accurate sight picture.  Problem with this is the M16 rifle is designed for right handed firers, ejecting the very hot brass to the right side of the weapon, and into the face, arms or body of a left handed firer.  A brass deflector alleviates this problem (though there are other issues for left handed firers using that weapon).

Today I was getting a jump on my upcoming studies by watching psychology lectures from Yale University online.  The professor, reviewing functions of various parts of the brain, discussed the theory of brain lateralization , which is, simply put, a recognition of the differing functions played by the hemispheres of the brain and the idealized state in which these hemispheres cooperate in environments in which each hemisphere may need to take the lead on elements of the involved tasks.

This introduction led me to search for facts about crossed dominance during which I stumbled on some correlations/ associations about which I had no idea.

For instance:

Results: 
Patients with heroin and hashish had a significantly increased frequency of left-handedness in comparison with the other patients and controls (chi square=29.36, p<0.001). Patients with cigarette, alcohol, heroin and hashish addictions had a significantly increased frequency of left-eyedness in comparison with controls (chi square=25.24, p<0.01). Also, patients with cigarette, alcohol, heroin and hashish addictions had a significantly increased frequency of the crossed hand-eye dominance in comparison with controls (chi square=19.11, p<0.01).
Conclusions:
Different addictions such as cigarette, alcohol, heroin and hashish may be associated with abnormal handedness distribution and accepted as cerebral lateralization abnormalities.

(emphasis mine)

It is no secret that I have been addicted to nicotine and alcohol, both of which I have overcome (although the AA crowd doesn't want me to say that of alcohol...but that is another discussion).  While successful in beating these addictions, I can say both addictions were intense!

I don't toss up crossed-dominance as an excuse for the addictions I've held and overcome.  Seems there is a chicken and egg question here involving association/causation.  But I find it interesting that there is even a link between these things.

It also seems to be a very good thing I never tried drugs...