Have you ever had a gut instinct?

[confusedbydating]

Inspired by another post.

have you ever just had a gut instinct that something was just wrong that you couldn’t put your finger on? Did you or didn’t you act on it? What happened?

one time i had this overwhelming feeling to stop and stay quiet. I did. Next thing I know something heavy fell off a balcony I was meant to be walking under.

have never not trusted my instincts again since.

I think gut instincts are part of our biological nature. As a means of protecting ourselves. I think women have better gut instincts for this reason.

Things like sensing if a man is a risk.

But have you ever had one?

As humans we will all have had gut instincts.

Some will have been right and some will have been wrong.

For obvious reasons we remember the right ones and discount the wrong ones.

Right… I’m just asking if anyone has. Mine was pretty spooky.

I’ve always trusted my gut instinct. It’s a survival instinct basically.

Yes, I think everyone does.

I don't think they are spooky in the least. Often it's your brain processing things quickly that you don't even realise you've noticed; sometimes, as @INX points out, it's confirmation bias that makes it seem spooky. We forget the times when we were totally wrong!

Yes, loads.

Just about all of us will have had loads over a lifetime.

I’ve been driving on a national speed limit road and had an instinct that something was going to run out in front of me, I just knew it was going to happen. 2 Roe deer ran out in front of me round the next bend. I sometimes know my mobile is going to ring before it does when I’m not expecting a call.

I’ve asked about both experiences.
i’ve also been wrong on many occasions too. One time I thought someone was listening but there was no one around so I just shook it off.

that is spooky! Glad you lived to tell the tale

All my gut instincts (that I remember) have been utterly and dreadfully wrong.

I read on here all about 'trust your gut' and all that, but I can honestly say that my gut has been very wrong too many times. People I have hated on sight have, over time, become my closest friends. Men who gave me 'good feelings' on first meeting have turned out to be utter turds. I've had the 'gut feeling' that something terrible was waiting for me in the dark when out walking my dog - only for absolutely nothing to happen.

I am ADHD and I'm interested in whether being on the spectrum makes any difference. I don't doubt that 'gut instinct' is a real thing, but there doesn't seem to be any guideline about what you do if yours is broken.

Ok ...?

What do you want people to say? Are you waiting for someone to ask you about yours?

If you want to talk about it, just do.

No I literally asked people to share their experiences. Someone has shared one that is quite spooky about 2 dear when she was driving.

mine is in the op, if you are interested. I was in a city, it wasn’t too busy. I just suddenly felt the urge to stop and be quiet. I still don’t know why to this day.

Yes. I took my alert, happy, only slightly unwell toddler to A and E in the middle of the night because I had a gut feeling that something wasn't right. DH thought that I was massively overreacting. DC deteriorated rapidly when we got there and ended up in intensive care. There were probably unconscious signs that something was off.

I would be interested in this too. I’m not sure about adhd. To me it seems like caveman superpowers - hyper focus, constant scanning etc

Always trust your parenting instincts!!

Nothing as dramatic as @INXbut we had a new boss. He was charmed personified and people thought he was the best things since Alice bread as he was young(ish) compared to the previous manager, but I got bad juju about him and told my work bestie that I felt like he was a smiling assassin. Lo and behold, 2 years in he’s sold everyone up the river and no one can trust a word he says.

Yes. Several times.

The first two times I ignored it and paid the price. I don't ignore a gut feeling now, ever.

The deer post is a classic example of something not being spooky though surely?

A competent driver driving along any road will be on the lookout for this sort of thing, especially in an area where there are deer, foxes or any wild animal.

I'd bet my house that poster has had that feeling many times before and nothing ran out.

I agree. It's not spooky at all.

You register slight movements when you're driving. Sometimes it's a leaf in the wind; very occasionally it's something that really matters, like deer about to leap out.

This is why I'd like to know more about whether ADHD etc works for or against gut instinct. I find that being hyperaware of my situation leads me to draw very rapid conclusions about things, places and people, but that these conclusions are proved wrong by subsequent contact/events. So snap decisions aren't always right. And where does a very quickly drawn conclusion differ from a gut instinct? And how do we tell the difference?

I would LOVE to have a reliable gut instinct, but mine is not and never has been. I've had occasions of 'knowing things' but those have never been in circumstances where they could be called gut instinct and would be termed more correctly a 'premonition.' But where does the dividing line lie?

She said she just knew. Plenty of people are took by surprise. That’s why the signs are there.

i really didn’t start this as a man bashing thread. I was just a bit shocked on the other that people were so shocked by the idea of trusting gut instincts and was just interested to see if that was because nobody had been in a life or death situation where they needed them. The people who clearly have clearly know the feeling

So for me it’s not an opinion. It’s normally an instruction. Be quiet, stand still. Listen carefully. Shut up.
that’s how I know the difference. That’s what I now try to listen to and honour

All the time, and always right. It's a blessing and a curse.

no! I do live rurally and I am a competent driver, I am always on the look out for wildlife running out in front of me, but that time I just knew it was going to happen.