59 Chilling Stories Of People Who Got A Sudden Bad Feeling And Left Just Before Things Went Wrong

Gut feelings sometimes act as guardian angels in disguise. And looking at the stories in this list, I am almost certain of it. I mean, so many people have had narrow escapes because of their instincts. 

In fact, research shows that people tend to be more accurate at judging someone’s honesty and whether they are lying about a particular event if they are asked to go with their intuition. This was shown in an experiment: participants who identified counterfeit bags were more accurate when they followed their instincts than when they took an analytical approach. But where exactly do these gut feelings come from?

University of New South Wales neuroscientist and psychologist Joel Pearson has been studying intuition for over 25 years. He speaks about what happens to the brain when we get these gut feelings. 

“The brain is processing all the things in the environment. It’s going to be making a prediction based on prior learning, situations you’ve been in, also movies you’ve watched, and all the things that you’ve been through in your life,” he explains.

Pearson clearly describes what he thinks intuition is: the learned, positive use of unconscious information to make better decisions or take better actions. Pearson claims that a lot of things get termed as intuition. These include paranoia, emotional thinking, cognitive bias, the human tendency to see patterns or associations where none exist, and human fallibility when judging probability. 

He prefers to call it “misintuition.” In fact, he stresses that trusting these things too much can be risky. So, according to him, “intuition includes 3 key components: it’s learned, it’s productive, and it’s based on unconscious information.”

In another interview, Pearson claimed there’s a growing case for using our intuition because people have to make faster decisions with less information. He has developed 5 tips to help you harness your intuition, and he uses the acronym “SMILE” for them.

S: Self-awareness. Check your emotional state before trusting your gut. Wait till you are emotionally balanced.

M: Mastery. Intuition is basically learned expertise. Don’t trust your gut about what you don’t know.

I: Instincts and [dependence]. People often confuse instinct and intuition. Instinct is innate; intuition is learned. Don’t mistake cravings from dependence for intuition. They mimic your inner voice but distort it.

L: Low probability. Don’t use intuition for numbers or probabilities. Emotions can’t process data, so relying on “gut feelings” here leads to bad judgments.

E: Environment. Intuition is location-specific. It doesn’t transfer well to different environments.

Pearson recommends practicing the SMILE rule daily to make intuitive insights automatic.

“It’s safest to try and practice intuition on a smaller scale to begin with,” he continues. “You don't need to understand where it's coming from; just notice what you’re feeling and whether the outcome is a positive or negative one, and note it down.

Sometimes, it’s completely fine to listen to our gut. However, Carina Remmers, a professor of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Health and Medical University in Potsdam, argues that intuitive decisions may not always be the most adaptive. 

She explains that an intuitive decision in a situation where you lack experience might feel good momentarily. But, according to her studies, you may end up better off if you think deliberately about different options and compare your initial gut reaction with what your ‘head’ is telling you.