AIBU to trust my intuition sometimes, and is there a logical explanation for what happened this morning?

[MidnightSun77]

(N/C for this as I'm a MN regular).

We live in a first floor flat in a small gated complex.

This morning, about 10mins after DH left for work, someone buzzed our intercom. For no apparent reason I felt a sudden surge of fear. I asked who it was over intercom, couldn't hear anything but this often happens as there's a fault with it. Usually I buzz people in anyway even if I'm alone (I know I probably shouldn't but it usually turns out to be a delivery or my neighbour forgetting his key-fob).
However, this morning I felt strongly that I should NOT buzz them in or even go downstairs to check who it was. They buzzed again, I answered but couldn't hear much, faintly heard a man's voice but couldn't make out any words. I still had a very strong sense I shouldn't buzz him in so I ignored it. Why would I suddenly feel like this? Do you think there's any truth in 'intuition' or sensing danger or is it something else? Would you have listened to this feeling, or let him in as usual? I could have gone down to communal front door and looked through glass, but even that felt like really bad idea.

Im not usually superstitious or nervous. The only time something similar happened was years ago. I was in uni halls and used to take my laundry to campus laundrette at 2am as this was only time it was quiet. I'd done this regularly for 6months. One night I got my laundry ready as usual but felt jumpy and kept delaying. Eventually I carried it down the 4 flights of stairs to the side-door (laundrette was a 5-min walk away to a different part of campus, isolated from main buildings). It was a warm moonlit night. When I opened the door I noticed a dead glassy-eyed rabbit on the path, which made me jump. Suddenly the nerves turned into full-blown fear. I shut door and hurried back to my room. I felt really silly about this and almost made myself go out anyway as had no clean clothes left! Then next day we had visit from police... a girl had been sexually assaulted on campus by an unknown attacker (who wasn't caught) at 3am close to the laundrette I'd been about to go to. I was really shaken up.
Do you think this was a 'sixth sense' warning me against going out that night, or a complete coincidence? I was already uneasy before I saw the dead rabbit but would probably have gone to laundrette anyway had the rabbit not been there. On a different night I might have not been fazed by dead rabbit at all.

Anyone else had any experiences like this? Do you listen to your intuition or dismiss it?

I listen to my intuition now - too many times I have ignored it and regretted it. It's like that little voice at the back of your mind

Did you find out who it was at the gate?

I think your intuition is when you've subconsciously noticed something which your rational mind dismisses as unimportant so it doesn't consciously register.

Your intuition is screaming about 'something', when you might have heard the man hiding round the corner move his feet or breathing...

You did the right thing!
Intuition is too often ignored nowadays.

I believe in and trust my intuition. I can't explain why or how it works but sometimes you just know things.
I feel I have a natural sixth sense with my children, possibly bordering on some kind of psychic bond. Sometimes it's like my DS hears my thoughts, he responds to things I was only thinking in my head. Very weird.
But if you think about it we are animals and there's lots of animals who just have things programmed in to them.

Just out of interest did you find out who was buzzing this morning?

I do get feelings like this - I can't explain it either. Sometimes when I'm driving I'll automatically reach for the central locking button when I've been quite happily driving without it for half an hour. Sometimes I won't even go near the door to answer it - and I couldn't tell you why. It's odd - but we are born with this and really should listen to it more.

I listen to my intuition these days because I now believe that you subconsciously pick up on cues and triggers within your environment and with people, and it is those bits of data that combine together to give you your intuitive feeling.

There's a great story in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink that talks about archeological specialists just knowing there was something wrong with a statue when, by all scientific measures, it was a legitimate piece from that particular era. It turned out eventually that is wasn't, and the experts were picking up on some anomaly that they couldn't even consciously identify.

I also think humans are not entirely aware of all their sensory abilities.

The one incident that really swayed me about gut instincts and intuition occurred on the day I was due to move in with my ex-DP. I was looking out of the window, waiting for the van to come, and out of nowhere, a loud voice just said "Don't do it. Don't move in with him." There was no-one else in the house and I knew the voice was in my head, but it was so clear and loud, as though it was another person.

But I had already signed the lease and I thought I loved him. There was, at that point, nothing wrong. My ex-DP seemed like the perfect chap.

I should have listened to that voice. It took me years to extricate myself from the disaster that was that relationship, and years to heal from the damage it did to me psychologically.

It is common sense not to buzz someone in if you don't know who it is! Get the intercom fixed if it needs fixing.

i think intuition, 6th sense or whatever you want to call it, can sometimes be down to our other senses detecting something that doesn't fully register with our conscious mind at the time, but our body and brain know about and respond to IYSWIM. A tiny sound, the sight of something out of the ordinary/that shouldn't be there, the faint smell of another person that we don't even know we have registered but puts us on the alert.

I agree that it is possibly to subconsciously recognise something is amiss without consciously being able to pinpoint why. But there's also a phenomenon of randomly feeling spooked for no reason. Tbh I feel like your experience in uni was just a coincidence. The thing this morning, maybe subconsciously you were able to make out the man's words and they sounded dodgy, or maybe you were just being irrational. I wouldn't start thinking you've got the gift of a sixth sense or anything....

Well did the man turn out to be an axe murderer? Because otherwise your intuition is on the blink.

Yanbu, ivr had thr feeling you described 4 times and never ever ignore it.
The first time it was about my friend and a bloke who had been chatting to her at a bar. I left her and another friend to it and halfway home had the massive urge to run back,
I did and caught him raping her in an alleyway :( just wish I had got there sooner but I would have sounded totally totally mad.
I am glad I ran back though.

No I always listen to my instincts. I can always spot when someone is a wrong un, I've never been wrong yet.

I had a strange 'feeling' about one of my sister's boyfriends and couldn't put my finger on why. He was perfectly nice, never a bad word, very gregarious and everyone else loved him. I just had a feeling it was all a facade.

A year later it transpired that he had a gambling problem, and had embezzled a load of money from his work to gamble. It's like I could see he was hiding something.

Well the Uni thing could be - you had noticed someone hanging around campus suspiciously, but not enough to be really suspicious. When you were about to do something slightly risky, your subconscious perked up (maybe you'd even seen him in the corner of your eye on a previous trip).

If you tend to listen to "intuition" you will have lots of "false alarms" when you can never justify when you felt like that - but these will be less memorable than when there is an explanation.

On the other hand if you suppress your intuition - most of the time it will be fine, but occasionally you might put yourself in a dangerous situation which your subconscious is trying to warn yourself about.
This is not victim blaming, but is akin to learning about "red flags" in relationships.

Oh, I once got off a tube train before my stop, just before the doors closed, because I had this irresistible urge to.

I got on the next train, as far as I know nothing happened on the train in question! I told my mum about it, and she said never ignore that voice, it could save your life...

Yes I do. Years ago I was walking home from the gym and I had to walk through an underpass to get to my street. As I was approaching I saw a young man walking towards me, the other side of the entrance. As soon as I clapped eyes on him a very calm, clear voice said "he has a knife, he is going to sexually assault you and he will use the knife. Take action".

I did take action and got away unharmed although he did try to attack me and he did have a knife, but forewarned is forearmed.

How did I "know"? I don't know for sure but I do think we have a sixth sense that is to do with the energetic nature of the universe and we have an ability to 'read' energy in the environment that we are not consciously aware of, much like other animals.

I've never regretted trusting my intuition. I've only regretted ignoring it.

I once took an instant dislike to a friend's new partner for no justifiable reason. Spent months trying to be nice. She eventually cheated on him in a particularly nasty way.

Always listen. Ive done the get off tube and wait till next tube too.

Get your buzzer mended!

I think that for a reason that it is difficult to understand, your mind was alerting you to danger.

When I was in my early twenties I worked in a pub. I met a customer who on first meeting gave me THE FEAR. Being an easy going sort, over time I started to think he was alright and I had just been judging him on his slightly creepy outward appearance. Perhaps two years later his colleague came in the pub in complete shock and horror. The man had been arrested for murder. I should have trusted my instincts right at the beginning.

I had a similar feeling when I was pregnant. I got in a taxi and he asked me something in a slightly cocky voice, but it was his eyes that frightened me. He was a good looking man but my goodness his eyes were cold and evil. I even said, 'There is something wrong with you,' before I hot footed it out of that taxi. I am convinced to this day that he would have attacked me if I had stayed in that taxi.

So we don't know what it is. But it is an instinct and one I believe we must follow.

You did the right thing. If it was important they will come back. But yes, get your buzzer mended.

Yes, I think we do have an intuition that sparks the fight or flight reaction in us. I don't think it matters whether it's correct or not - it isn't a woo 6th sense type of thing, it's an inbuilt protection mechanism if we pick up on danger.

I think the times it turns out to be true is because we have picked up on a lot of signals that we haven't consciously acknowledged picking up on; body language a bit off, tone of voice, something about a situation not seeming 'right'.

I have no qualms about acting on a bad feeling, getting off a bus or away from a certain situation, not because there needs to be a rational reason, or a disaster around the corner, but because I'm uncomfortable and that's reason enough.

I had a strong intuition about a man I was sometimes left alone with as a child, I did everything I could to avoid him on no basis whatsoever. Everyone thought he was great. He was later imprisoned for sexual assault. I had no idea he represented danger of that kind, just felt unsafe around him.

There is some interesting stuff about this kind of thing in the book "blink"

My 9 year old met a friends new DP last summer at a play dat Our DCs have been friends for years and he's spent a huge amount of his childhood at their house and vice versa.

That night he went to bed and came downstairs an hour or so later looking worried and asked "is it ok if I don't like a grown-up?". I explained that it was fine, that the instinct he had was something trying to keep him safe and that although it might not always be spot-on, he should always listen to it and tell someone he trusts. He said that it was my friends new partner, and that he couldn't tell me why they made him upset, they just did, but that he felt like a bad person for disliking someone.

I trust instincts when it comes to other people; that not-quite-right feeling he has, he has it for a reason. So we've kept a bit of distance and he's not been for sleepovers or play dates at their home; we arrange something he's comfortable with, a day at the farm or a picnic. It's hard, but I think we need to listen to things like that. You absolutely did the right thing.

As others have said, it all seems to be about tiny cues that your unconscious mind picks up that your conscious mind doesn't.

In an opposite situtation to you, OP, a few years ago the doorbell went at about 3pm on a Thursday when I was randomly off work. Something told me I had to answer the door for someone else's sake. I can't explain this any better than that. I usually don't answer the door unless I'm expecting someone. I answered the door to two blokes from 'the gas company' whose colleagues were on the doorstep of my elderly neighbour saying that they'd switch her gas to a cheaper tariff if she got her bank details and she was there with her purse open.

A few weeks ago I was swimming (I swim every night after work) and the pool area - pool, sauna & jacuzzi- was empty apart from me. A man came in and went into the sauna and something just told me to get out of the pool and away from him. He looked like a perfectly ordinary chap but something just said 'if you don't leave now, something awful will happen'. As I was on my way out of the gym after getting changed, he was being very publicly arrested for trying to molest a kid in the jacuzzi.

Trust your instincts I'd say