Orientation is a function of the mind

Mind

The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...

 involving awareness of three dimensions: time

Time

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

, place

Location (geography)

The terms location and place in geography are used to identify a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term 'location' generally implies a higher degree of can certainty than "place" which often has an ambiguous boundary relying more on human/social attributes of place identity...

 and person

Person

A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...

. Problems with orientation lead to disorientation, and can be due to various conditions, from delirium

Delirium

Delirium or acute confusional state is a common and severe neuropsychiatric syndrome with core features of acute onset and fluctuating course, attentional deficits and generalized severe disorganization of behavior...

 to intoxication. Typically, disorientation is first in time, then in place and finally in person.

The exact cerebral

Brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...

 region involved in orientation is uncertain, but lesions of the brain stem

Brain stem

In vertebrate anatomy the brainstem is the posterior part of the brain, adjoining and structurally continuous with the spinal cord. The brain stem provides the main motor and sensory innervation to the face and neck via the cranial nerves...

 and the cerebral hemispheres have been reported to cause disorientation, suggesting that they act together in maintaining awareness and its subfunction of orientation.

Disorientation

Disorientation is the opposite of orientation. It is a cognitive disability in which the senses of time, direction, and recognition

Recognition (sociology)

Recognition in sociology is public acknowledgement of person's status or merits .When some person is recognized, he or she is accorded some special status, such as a name, title, or classification...

of people and places become difficult to distinguish.

Causes of Mental Disorientation

Disorientation can occur in healthy young adults as well as in the elderly or ill person. While exercising, if you are dehydrated or hungry or possibly from over exertion you may be disoriented to time or place. While exercising the body may not be able to supply enough oxygen to your brain fast enough.