Intuition, has it ever helped you?

[YadaYadaYada]

Just curious if anyone has a story about how their intuition might have saved them from harm or perhaps helped in some other way?

On the flip side, did you ignore the little voice and regretted it?

 

[OreoRosies86]

I prevented a drunk confused girl at a bar from getting into her angry boyfriend's car when I was younger. She shot me this look like "I don't want to get in the car with him" so I hustled her into the kitchen and she called a friend. We had the friend meet us at the neighboring store and I handed her off. The guy was storming around for over an hour after that looking for her acting stupid and eventually a bouncer had him arrested. I still remember her face!

 

[Calliecake]

Yes, I believe it has. When I was around 30 I met a group of friends one Friday night. When I was driving home around midnight, I had a flat tire on the expressway. A man stopped to help me and I didn't open the car door. He told me he had just got off work and that he was a maintence man at a hotel nearby that you could see from the expressway. He kept saying I could trust him. I still would not roll down my window or open my car door. A few minutes later a state police office showed up. The other man vanished so fast even the police officer asked how he could have disappeared so quickly. The next Monday I called the hotel HR office to try to get in touch with the man to thank him. This man had a limp and a noticeable scar on his face. The woman I spoke to said she had worked there over 20 years and knew everyone who worked there. The man did not work there.

 

[siamese3]

Yes, I believe it has. When I was around 30 I met a group of friends one Friday night. When I was driving home around midnight, I had a flat tire on the expressway. A man stopped to help me and I didn't open the car door. He told me he had just got off work and that he was a maintence man at a hotel nearby that you could see from the expressway. He kept saying I could trust him. I still would not roll down my window or open my car door. A few minutes later a state police office showed up. The other man vanished so fast even the police officer asked how he could have disappeared so quickly. The next Monday I called the hotel HR office to try to get in touch with the man to thank him. This man had a limp and a noticeable scar on his face. The woman I spoke to said she had worked there over 20 years and knew everyone who worked there. The man did not work there.

Callie, that story freaked me out. I am glad you trusted your instincts!

 

[Calliecake]

Siamese3, I still feel weird whenever I think about this and it was over 20 years ago.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Elliot, thank God you were there to help her, who knows what would have happened otherwise.

Callie, that is so freakin scary, I literally got chills reading that, you just don't know what people are up to these days.

I have two to share.

Years ago we lived in a condo and my DH was working at Home Depot part time, he made friends with the security guard there and invited him over. I was cleaning the house so it would look nice and as I was dusting my dresser a little voice told me to put the dish with my jewelry in it in the drawer. I ignored it. A few days later we were broken into and my dish of jewelry was stolen, couldn't prove it was him so nobody we ever charged.

Before I met the DH I was dating this real scumbag but I was desperate to get away from my first boyfriend so I put up with him. He drank too much and was verbally abusive, he never physically hit me but I was always careful not to set him off. Well we had split up and gotten back together and he told me he had sex with this woman and then found it she was married and the husband almost killed him. We had an argument and as I was walking down the stairs I said to him "why don't you call your married teacher friend".

I ran all the way downstairs (three floors) with my dog in hand and got across the street to my car. He opens the window and yelled "You need to get up here NOW". He was absolutely furious. Well intuition told me if I went up there I probably wouldn't be coming back down so I sped off and never saw him again.

 

[whitewave]

I have gifts, and yes, they have always steered me well.

 

[Austina]

I can remember seeing Dr Phil on TV years ago, talking about this. They interviewed a few women who'd all been attacked. When he spoke to them, they all said they'd had a bad feeling about their attacker, but ignored it.

His point was, that we have become so wary of appearing rude or offending people, we ignore our instincts. In all the cases, the women should've have said "no, sorry, I don't need your help" "no thanks, I'll wait for the next elevator" "no, sorry, we're closed, you need to come back tomorrow" but they were too concerned that they'd seem rude. We have instincts for a reason, and we should never ignore them. Too bad if someone is offended, better to be safe than sorry.

I have very good instincts about people, I know immediately if there's something 'off' about them, and after seeing what had happened to those poor women, I always listen to them.

 

[whitewave]

Read "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin deBecker

 

[telephone89]

I don't think my intuition specifically actually. I think I'm just paranoid in general and it has helped sometimes (it has also hurt sometimes!).
I do remember one time when I was younger, like 16?17? Walking to the bus. This man kind of popped up behind me and started talking to me. I was like no, no, need to catch the bus, and he started to walk with me. He kept asking if I wanted to buy his van that was for sale, gestured behind him to some sketchy van. Like no creepy dude being weird to a 16 year old girl, I don't want to go check out your van, how ****ing dumb do you think I am?
It just weirds me out that a) someone would be so stupid to try that and b) I hope no one else was stupid enough in the neighbourhood to fall for it.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Telephone, nothing wrong with being a little paranoid if it keeps you out of trouble right? He was pretty dumb though, I mean what teenager is going to want to buy some old van anyways? I always worry about someone trying to lure my son with an animal, because he loves them so much, that would have made more sense. Obviously he was not in his right mind, good thing you were though!

 

[OoohShiny]

The realist in me is cynical of things that can't be explained by science, but equally, I rely on gut instinct and feelings quite a lot. I understand from some recent training at work that the speech and communication part of our brain is all very recent for us humans (like 300,000 years or so) but at the very beginning (millions of years ago) we had our 'reptilian' brains, which means that instincts are hardwired into us, whether we like it or not. That's why we often react to / follow our 'gut instinct' and only 7% of communication is actually verbal.

I've had a couple of weird things that I can't really explain.

- Once, we were travelling in a taxi to a night out and the taxi driver was zipping along at a reasonable speed. As we came into a built up area she didn't really slow down much but I had a feeling that she should. Next thing we know, policeman with a speedgun popped out from behind a wall and got her.

- One morning, at a time in my life when I was really very down and low in self-confidence following a messy breakup (she left me for one of our best friends ) and an extended period of 'grieving' that I couldn't seem to get past, there was a phone-in on the radio to win a free skydive. I never bother with these things because there's always a zillion people ringing up so one has only an infinitesimally small chance of winning anything, but that morning, when the presenter was already speaking to the first winner live on air, I had an overwhelming urge to pick up the phone and dial in. I followed my instinct and the phone rang at the other end, and the next thing I know the presenter is saying "Oh, we've lost that line but it's ringing again - let's just pick it up" and then I find I'm chatting to him live on air. I ended up doing the skydive a couple of days later and it was awesome, and it really helped me realise I could go out and do things. Like I say, I'm not one for believing in ghosts or religion or the supernatural, but I can't explain what made me have such a strong urge to ring in that day. Perhaps there is an afterlife or the universe was looking after me? I don't know, but it did teach me to rely on my instincts more

 

[minousbijoux]

- One morning, at a time in my life when I was really very down and low in self-confidence following a messy breakup (she left me for one of our best friends ) and an extended period of 'grieving' that I couldn't seem to get past, there was a phone-in on the radio to win a free skydive. I never bother with these things because there's always a zillion people ringing up so one has only an infinitesimally small chance of winning anything, but that morning, when the presenter was already speaking to the first winner live on air, I had an overwhelming urge to pick up the phone and dial in. I followed my instinct and the phone rang at the other end, and the next thing I know the presenter is saying "Oh, we've lost that line but it's ringing again - let's just pick it up" and then I find I'm chatting to him live on air. I ended up doing the skydive a couple of days later and it was awesome, and it really helped me realise I could go out and do things. Like I say, I'm not one for believing in ghosts or religion or the supernatural, but I can't explain what made me have such a strong urge to ring in that day. Perhaps there is an afterlife or the universe was looking after me? I don't know, but it did teach me to rely on my instincts more

Love this story! Skydiving?!! What a great metaphor! And you actually got to go skydiving!!

 

[marcy]

I tend to listen to what my gut tells me.

My husband at the last minute decided to take my car on a business trip to corporate offices located about 2 hours away. His pickup then was a big F250 diesel extended cab with long bed. On his way there and going a highway speeds the semi right in front of him lost a big metal wheel cover and it came flying back right at our car. My husband just drove in the ditch with several cars behind him following along; so no one got hit with that flying cover. My car was a medium German sports car with lots of horse power and Maneuvered well. He told me later he had no idea why he decided taking my car that day was a good idea but there is no way he'd have gotten out of the path of that wheel cover in his truck.

 

[kenny]

Just curious if anyone has a story about how their intuition might have saved them from harm or perhaps helped in some other way?

On the flip side, did you ignore the little voice and regretted it?

I use reason to evaluate things.

I don't do superstition, astrology, magic, intuition, religion, etc.
I don't regret believing only in what's real.

Skepticism is a method of intellectual caution, suspended judgment, and pursuing knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Skepticism

But I get that people vary, and most people like that stuff.

 

[partgypsy]

I've had it both ways. Where I trusted someone even though it seemed sketchy. For example I was in highschool and I was walking trying to find my dog, calling his name. A guy pulled up and asked me if I lost my dog and I said yes, and he said he saw it. I get in, and as we are driving down the road I realize, that was a stupid thing to do... But then he points out my dog, I call my dog and get him, and thank the guy. I've had other instances where I was lucky or stupid or whatever.
OTOH I have had bad vibes about people, and just wanted to get away. One time my sister and I were hanging out at her new boyfriend's apartment who was having a small party. As we left to get beer, I confided in my sister that I really didn't like/trust one of the guys there. And my sister thought I was being weird because I couldn't specify why. Sure enough as the party progressed, he ended up making inappropriate comments. We leave. When we get back to our apartment we realize that my sister's wallet was missing from her purse. It turns out her boyfriend didn't really know that guy, other than from work. He managed to get her wallet back (minus her money), and also learned the guy was an ex-felon.

 

[partgypsy]

To me, intuition doesn't necessarily mean something having to do with spiritual or "out there" information. It has to do with one's gut, that one can have knowledge about something, without being able to verbalize how one came to that conclusion. Some people have this kind of knowledge better than others. It's just as real as any other knowledge, just that one doesn't know how one arrived at decision.
master chess players can look at a board and know what is the "right" move, though they may or may not be able to verbalize either why it is the right move, or how they arrived at that decision.

 

[rainwood]

I use reason to evaluate things.

I don't do superstition, astrology, magic, intuition, religion, etc.
I don't regret believing only in what's real.

Skepticism is a method of intellectual caution, suspended judgment, and pursuing knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Skepticism

But I get that people vary, and most people like that stuff.

Actually, I think there is science to human instinct and that we are hard-wired to receive cues about people and situations that may not even be part of our conscious brain or thoughts, but are part of our subconscious and/or survival instinct. And not just about personal safety, but about many aspects of life.

I wouldn't say that every situation described here falls in that category, but over time I've come to respect that gut feeling more and more. To me, it's not a voice in my head so much as a feeling about someone or something that I often can't even articulate. I just know either to go ahead or not. When I haven't followed my gut and either reasoned my way to what seemed like the right decision or was persuaded by someone else to do something, it sometimes works out okay, but mostly I end up wishing I'd followed my gut. I can't think of an instance where I've followed my gut and then regretted it.

One example. When we went to build our weekend place, we had a choice of who in the company was going to head up the job. One guy had done the estimate, had an amazing reputation for good work, and knew the job really well, and my husband thought he was the clear choice. That made logical sense to me, but for some reason I couldn't articulate the first guy made me uneasy. I really preferred the other guy who didn't know anything about our job. We chose the first guy and he was an absolutely a#$ to work with, ended up going through some serious, serious personal problems that affected his work, and didn't do a very good job. I don't know what I picked up on with the first guy, but I so wished I'd listened to my gut and convinced my DH to go with the second guy. That year of our lives would have been so much easier.

 

[rainwood]

I'll give you another example. When I was in school, a friend and I went out to lunch at a food court near campus that had lots of people coming and going past our table. My purse was on the chair next to me, but close by. As I was talking to my friend, I must have seen something out of the corner of my eye because I reached out to grab my purse a second or two before a guy reached over to do the same. I don't know if he was walking a few inches closer or something else because I never even got a good look at the guy, but something told me to do what I did. I'd never done something like that before and haven't since. But I did learn not to set my purse someplace where passersby might have access!

 

[Puppmom]

I'm wary of everything; afraid of many things. So, to some degree, I have to ignore my "intuition" often. Being a scaredy cat definitely presents challenges!

These stories are very interesting! The night of my 21st birthday I fell asleep at the wheel (I was not drinking but stayed out too late the previous night). For some reason, I didn't take the road I usually take home that night. If I had, and I fell asleep, I would have drifted into oncoming traffic instead of on to the grassy island. That really got to me for a while. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have fallen asleep at all?

 

[kenny]

Believe whatever you want.
I can't tell you how many times theists show their proof that god exists:

The miracle of a tree.
I survived that terrible tornado.
God talks to me and shows me he's real.

People insist psychics help them talk to their deceased relatives.

You can't argue with these people.

 

[longtimelurker]

Ditto to Rainwood. The older I get, the more I respect that gut feeling. I read somewhere that intuition is your subconscious putting together info you're receiving from various sources and synthesizing it before you're aware of it. When I listen to my gut and do/don't do a deal/trade/work with a person/whatever it works out in my favor. When i try to reason the more logical choice I generally regret it. I spend a lot less time now fighting that feeling and just going with it. This is more of a financial/business intuition.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Believe whatever you want.
I can't tell you how many times theists show their proof that god exists:

The miracle of a tree.
I survived that terrible tornado.
God talks to me and shows me he's real.

People insist psychics help them talk to their deceased relatives.

You can't argue with these people.

Hey Kenny, I totally get that you prefer to rely on science over religion or superstition etc but intuition is more of a sense than any of that. I think a lot of people would not consider intuition related to most of the beliefs or groups you posted above. I actually read a Psychology Today article that described intuition:

"There are several possible explanations for why such "intuitive hunches" sometimes play out. One is that on a subconscious level, we are always thinking and coming to conclusions, but that these register only as hunches to our conscious mind. Another is that we pick up telling cues from body language, subliminal sounds or peripheral vision without being consciously aware of doing so. A third is that for each amazing coincidence we remember, we forget all the times we had a hunch and it didn't pan out. A fourth possibility is that we modify our memories for our own convenience, creating a connection where it may not have existed. And so on. These sorts of prosaic explanations probably account for many intuitive hunches. But they don't explain them all."

I'm not sure about your statement "you can't argue with THESE people", why argue? People aren't going to change their beliefs and why lump them into a group? It's been my experience that you embrace individual choice which is great but your post sounded a bit dismissive and hostile.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Guys, I am loving all of your stories especially because they have happy endings. Oooh Shiny, so cool that you got to go skydiving that is a life experience that you can keep forever now!

 

[Phanie]

Yes.

It has happened to me many times. It is really bizarre.
One of the mos bizarre ones was in 1994. We are at my cousin's on a Sunday, her husband is starting to watch the Imola F1 Grand Prize. Well before the start of it, I told him that Sena was going to die with his head impaled that day. He laughed. People in my family have known for years not to laugh when I say things out of the blue. We left . As we get home, the radio is playing. And we learned that it happened.

I have missed a train that was in a terror attack because of work. I had an appointment in Paris, my boss knew it but made me take another quick order. I usually would have declined and said I am leaving in 5 minutes but i answered him that my train was never going to get to my station anyway.

Many things like that.
I trust my guts instincts a lot.
especially with my patients. Saved quite a few because I felt something.

 

[kenny]

"There are several possible explanations for why such "intuitive hunches" sometimes play out.

Chance.
Confirmation bias.

We don't hear much testimony about the overwhelming number of times hunches didn't pan out.
Reporting that is not fun, exciting and sexy.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Chance.
Confirmation bias.

We don't hear much testimony about the overwhelming number of times hunches didn't pan out.
Reporting that is not fun, exciting and sexy.

Right, because sometimes intuition is something else like paranoia, sometimes people pick up on cues and interpret them wrong.

And Science is not always right either, scientists are human and make mistakes as well.

 

[Missy]

I listen to my gut and I am not sure if it is intuition or just that I am very perceptive but I have a pretty good BS meter and can read people pretty quickly. I have been wrong a few times yes but for the most part I can quickly tell if a person is genuine or not (and if a person is kind or not etc) and I am rarely wrong. And I listen to what I hear. That is key. I don't know if it is intuition or just an acute perception and listening to cues but when I get that feeling I listen to my gut.

 

[Queenie60]

I'm very perceptive and can usually smell trouble a mile away! I was in Costco about 8 years ago during the summer months. Wearing a skirt with sandals. Suddenly a lady came to me and said "do you see that man? - he was under the book table, looking under your skirt" - OMG. I wasn't sure what she meant because I did not see anything. Well... as I was cruising through the isles, each time there was a creepy man standing at the end, watching me intensely. My intuition kicked in. I went up to a display table where they were promoting a certain Costco card at the time - whispered to the guy and told him that that strange man was following me throughout the store. He quickly escorted me to a line and put on a huge act that I was going to open a special account. The strange guy went into the line next to me, with one item. After checking out, he went to the bathroom at which time, security escorted me out quickly. They loaded my car and had me leave immediately. Later they phoned me and said that the strange guy was frantically going through the parking lot, trying to find me. When I spoke to the manager, she said that the entire incident (including him looking up my skirt) was caught on video and she stated "now we know who we're looking for." She would not give me details however, this was happening frequently in that particular Costco. I am glad that I was aware and acted upon my instincts. Who knows what he would have done had he followed me to my car. Yikes!!