To get an overwhelming sense of danger from a stranger?

[ThisIsCheese]

The weirdest thing just happened. I’m in the supermarket and as I’m stood selected and bagging vegetables I suddenly feel very uncomfortable.
There is a man about 50 something stood with his elderly mother a few feet away to the side of me and I felt very sick and uncomfortable when I looked at him.
Absolutely no reason for it but it was overwhelming, like a sense of fear he was not a good man.

Completely clueless why I felt that way I moved along quickly but I crossed paths with him again in another aisle and knew he was there before I saw him because the sick / anxious feeling returned.

Anyone else ever had this? I don’t have anxiety or anything but this feeling was so odd, like I could sense he wasn’t a good person.

Never met him before, he could be perfectly lovely but my physical reaction to him was so strong

It is a quirk of the brain, nothing more. The human brain is essentially a paranoid playground. He didn't look at you and you had no interaction.
Get over yourself.
How do you know it was his Mum?
Maybe he was a gerontophile......

The fight or flight response to real or perceived threat isn't a 'quirk of the brain'. It is controlled by the most primitive part of our brains & formed part of our early survival programming. In today's world though 'perceived' threat may be the result of pure imagination but it may also be due to, as so many have already suggested, picking up on very small cues. I don't think that character assassination (of certain people thought to be creepy or whatever) is warranted or justified but getting bad vibes from someone isn't fictional or groundless. Look at how many people who've said that they wish they'd listened to their gut.

I had a bizarre experience when I was at uni. I was leaving a party around 3am, I had a 10 minute walk across campus to get to my digs. There were lots of students around the main bit (the campus never slept) but I had to walk past a wooded area and around the back of some buildings to get home. I walked this path regularly and had never felt nervous even at night.

When I reached the start of the trees I suddenly felt afraid. I don't know if it was the shadows from the trees (moonlit night) or the sound of the breeze in them, but something felt wrong. I noticed a dead bird on the path (not unusual) but it freaked me out a bit. I made myself keep walking, but suddenly I lost it and ran back the way I'd come, all the way back to the party. I slept in my friend's room that night and she teased me about it!

Next day there were signs up all over campus asking for witnesses: a girl had been attacked and raped in that bit of woodland, around 4am so not long after I'd been passing.

I don't remember seeing or hearing anything out of place. But maybe I glimpsed or heard or sensed someone in the trees. Or I interpreted the bird as a sign of danger because I was already on edge.

MitziK 💐 your writing makes a very clear picture. I am so sorry you had to deal with such a childhood. Your posts like Graphista are very well written.

i had my DD in hospital over 10 years ago and we had to stay in for various medical reasons. just before midnight one night a nurse came over. she was dressed older than the others, in a 1960s looking nurses uniform maybe. she fussed over DD and asked how i was doing. she then sharply left. she gave me goosebumps and there was just something about her that freaked me out. she just seemed so strange. i didnt sleep a wink.

the next morning one of the nurses asked if we had been seen recently, i told her about the nurse from the night before and described her. there was no elderly nurses on the night before and certainly not in the uniform i described.

obviously then, she was a ghost. only realistic answer. ive retold this story over the years and DH thinks im nuts and laughs at me (doesnt believe in ghosts). ANYWAY cut to my DD going to high school. went on a mums night with my new mum friends and we got talking about all things woo. i told my story. only to be informed by one of the nurses at the table that back in the year and month I had my daughter there was a woman caught in the hospital i had my DD, attempting to take a baby. She would approach the new mums, dressed in an old nurses outfit and ask to hold the babies. god knows how she got in as it was so quiet at that time of night so surely she would be noticed, but she was caught leaving with a little girl.

The talk of people who have been abused having a greater sense of danger doesn’t fit though with attachment theory etc. My DP was badly abused as a child, to the point he has permanent disabilities as a result, and yet I would say he is the opposite and rarely senses bad in people, in fact if anything he is over trusting. Same with children who have attachment disorders, and even adults who have been in abusive relationships are often prone to be drawn to the same types over and over again.

But NoCauseRebel an attachment disorder would fit with the behaviour you describe. I saw it in a little boy I knew who didn't have a secure attachment with his mother (social services involved, was in foster care on & off) & he seemed so desperate for love & attention that he would go to just about anyone. It was v.worrying to watch. A child who is securely attached to primary care givers won't go to just anyone. I think the picture is fairly complex. Different experiences will produce different outcomes. My ex was abused as a child but had a very loving secure relationship with his mother. I think that's what saved him from being completely damaged. He is the most acute judge of character I've ever seen. I tend to take people at face value - at least until i get to know them but it's uncanny how he sees straight through people.

What I mean is someone abused as a child won't automatically have an attachment disorder

Thank you, everyone.

Taking it in a slightly different direction, I don't know whether anybody has experienced this, but it seems quite similar, as it's an instinctive reaction to sense potential danger - but when I visited a museum, they had a full size model of a Sabre Toothed Cat in one of their rooms. It was quite dimly lit, as some museums like to do, and I looked at it for a while, then went to follow the others who were with me, as they crossed in front of it.

Now, I knew it wasn't any threat and wasn't even looking at it anyway. But I couldn't help but stop dead and slowly look at it, feeling a real jangly chill at the 'face' or even the slightest trace of it in my peripheral vision - I would say I felt it long before turning to look and see it (which gave me the second chill).

I just couldn't cross its path - I found it funny and ridiculous, but I tried three times and had to walk behind it instead, whereas everybody else was clearly thinking I was an idiot. except for, probably, some bunch of University Psychology students having the time of their life when running the footage for their final research project.

should always take notice of instinct
few years ago ddog and i were walking along the old railway track by where i used to live. vague recognition of someone behind me not really bothered but my dog who is normally quiet and gentle all her hackles went up and she started growling at this man. he started to walk quickly went past me and my dog followed him until he turned off onto playing fields never known her so fierce before or since. i turned off quickly onto main road i think she saved me from something horrible

Loving the dog anecdotes. Dogs are the best.

Dogs know. No one can read body language like a dog. They live so closely with us and have such strong relationships with their human families but we don't share any common language. They learn the meaning of some words but mostly they, and we, use body language to communicate.

Not so surprising really that they can so easily gauge someones intentions.

@Oliversmumarmy - I told dh to buy a lottery ticket on the basis that I read your post and then seconds later there was a tv advert for this weekends lottery. He played an instant win game and won a few quid. Cheers.

“ bet your instincts are better at identifying sickos than just random chance.”

I don’t.

Do you really think that a human being making an (albeit unconscious) assessment of another human being is exactly the same as random chance? Do you not think that humans have evolved to be very observant of other humans as survival often depended on it. And some people are more observant than others - consciously or unconsciously surely? People learn all sorts of things in life and they don't always remember them but they do use them and call them "instinct". Dh often notices things I don't and vice versa. I think Gavin de Beck's point is we call it instinct but usually it is based on an observation we hardly know we have. Yes sometimes that might mean you don't hire the window washer because your instincts go into overdrive - and it is all because he looks like the boyfriend who was crap to you so you were in no real danger. So what? people have refused to hire window washers for worse reasons. Sometimes, though, it is because you recognised subliminally that he is doing something a bit off. You don't have time to assess what that is but you still don't hire him. Again, so what? No-one on here has said they ruined someone's reputation based on instinct. Far from it. Some of the stories I can explain to myself as just wrong - especially the woo ones - but that jumble of observations and cross-checking and pattern recognition that we call instinct - no I don't think they are wrong.

loads of examples on here or of people realising their choices were not particularly safe - running through a deserted wood or home alone in early hours of the morning. Yeah they called it instinct and told a story of someone getting raped/mugged that night/next day etc. But the reality is they deepdown recognised danger and avoided it.

I can't imagine telling my children to ignore their instincts or treat them as no better than a random chance.

Re the sabre toothed tiger, years ago we were at the zoo with our children and another family and all of the kids were pressed against the glass of the lion enclosure when without warning the male lion from far away turned and charged at the glass, raising on his hind legs and scratching at the glass. Our children stayed put and the other mother said to me "I'm not sure we're doing our children any favours teaching them this is safe behaviour"

SunshineCake😀😀😀

I had come to a stop at the crossroads and I was almost screaming at myself internally to turn left.

I have gone with my gut on a few occasions in the face of every sensible thought in my head saying to go against my gut and it has always worked out brilliantly.

Gone against my gut on a few instances and I regret those decisions to this day.

Even without the lottery instance my life would have worked out so much better

Yeah they called it instinct and told a story of someone getting raped/mugged that night/next day etc. But the reality is they deepdown recognised danger and avoided it.

What is instinct if not unrecognised use of subconscious knowledge? They're calling it instinct, because that's what instinct is.

And it's not always right, but the consequences of reacting to an instinct which is wrong is probably something like you don't get to know a new personumber, who is actually okay - but you'll never know they're okay, because your reaction was to avoid. The consequences of ignoring this instinctive reaction could be fatal, though, so on balance, it's going to be best to go with your instincts.

Of course, subconscious knowledge also fuels subconscious bias, so good people will miss out on jobs and promotions, so there are times we need to work on over-riding our instincts, to make sure people get treated fairly. And interestingly, Amazon had to withdraw an AI program they developed for recruitment because it did its learning from past data so downgraded applications which were clearly women's, as past data showed men were preferred candidates - I think our own brains can develop wrong instincts in the same way, just like many of the stories here where people avoided people who seemed off - but because we don't have access to the parallel universe where they ignored their reaction, we can't know if their fears were well-founded or not. In some cases, they probably wee, but we just can't know.

But out in real life, when you're walking down a dark road or something, you don't have the luxury of time to prepare - which why our brains over-ride the parts of the brain which do planning and research and go into fight or flight or freeze mode instead.

And it's not always right, but the consequences of reacting to an instinct which is wrong is probably something like you don't get to know a new personumber, who is actually okay - but you'll never know they're okay, because your reaction was to avoid. The consequences of ignoring this instinctive reaction could be fatal, though, so on balance, it's going to be best to go with your instincts.

That is exactly it for me. I don't care if I missed the best window washer in the world or avoided being friends with a fabulous person. I have other window washers and taxi drivers and friends in my life. And I'm sure the ones I reject go merrily on their way too.

I just don't understand anyone dismissing people listening to their gut/instincts as a bad iodead and wonder if these people actually say to their kids' Oh when your gut tells you not to get in the cab, ask yourself if you are really being fair here" I just can't imagine it.

Personally I rarely get gut feelings about anyone. But if I did I would listen to them.

Showmethekittens - I think your post at 1527 is incredibly arrogant and dismissive of the many of us on this thread who've not only described this experience but especially those of us who have been victims of predators.

There are "quirks" of the brain but there's a wealth of peer reviewed scientific research into body language, micro expressions, changes in body odour, pheromones, muscle tension etc which are believed to be why people have such responses, plus many reports of people's experiences with serial rapists, murderers and paedophiles and other predatory criminals who've recognised them as dangerous when encountering them.

Rosspoldarkswife thank you

Nocauserebel - surely you understand that not everyone responds or develops in the same way as reaction to trauma?

Even within attachment theory there are different attachment styles.

Rape and sexual abuse survivors can respond in various ways including either by avoiding sexual contact even with a previously trusted partner to hypersexuality. And that can vary at different points in their life too. I vary between the two.

But yes I've had experts in csa say to me that some victims were so abused they don't recognise it as abuse, it's normalised for them.

Coping mechanisms and responses vary greatly.

There's a lot of factors involved in how and why people respond the way they do, when abuse/assault took place, the relationship to the perpetrator, the circumstances in which it occurred, how others responded when victim disclosed...

Mitzik - Re the sabre toothed tiger while your conscious self knew it was dead/stuffed your subconscious - as a result of your line having survived/avoided attacks by such wild animals and evolved with that sense of danger went "shit! Tiger! Don't let it see me"

SunshineCake love that! A wee win is always nice

"Gone against my gut on a few instances and I regret those decisions to this day." I've gone against my gut on a few occasions - it's rare for me and was mainly job related because I was desperate! Ended up regretting EVERY time. After the 3rd time I decided then to NEVER go against my gut again. But I got caught out on my last job as the person that was the problem (line manager) wasn't involved in the interview process. She was a nightmare from the very start! I later learned that

They outright lied about why previous post holder left

They knew what she was like and had experienced her doing batshit things even during interviews

There was a VERY high turnover in the post (Iirc 7 in 2 years)

They were completely shit at handling her!

I damn near had another breakdown as a result and haven't been well enough to work since.

If she had been there on the interview panel NO WAY would I have taken the job.

I was a single mum, financially insecure and trying my best following a dreadful few years to keep going and be a responsible member of society etc

So I decided to give it a go, hoping I'd be wrong. It was hell! Won't go into details here as outing but the women was completely batshit but also very clever in making it damn hard for me to prove.

Though in hindsight I wish I'd gone to her (lovely) manager and took the chance of being disbelieved etc as o effectively ended up "losing" the job anyway, so really I'd nothing to lose by doing so.

I'd I'm ever in a similar situation again that's what I will be doing.

I wasn't on mn then either and I suspect if I had been I'd have got excellent advice on how to deal with her.

The repercussions have been very damaging.

Same, pallisers

@Famalamaringwrong

I was living in the area at the time and remember this.

It's the eyes. The smile stops at the nose and never, ever reaches them. It's how you know that whilst she is being the 'lovely, sweet, loving mother of many children' to the trusting souls she is holding Court with, she is silently telling you that you are going to get a battering at some undetermined point in the near future. Or, worse, when the conversation is about your beloved dog, that the dog is going to cop it to punish you, as you don't seem to care about being hit anymore.

Oh @MitziK.
As well as all the other positives you have managed to wrench out of this appalling early life, you are a great writer.
And ... as you already know ... you are not alone. The above paragraph, (except another human in place of the beloved dog) was my early life too. And the 2am's. Poor you. Poor us.
The other silver lining to come out of the awful shitshow is how many people manage to endure it, survive, & ensure they don't let it happen to the next generation.

Best wishes to you.

This story is very outing for where I live, but I think important to this thread.

A young woman in our town had a call to show a house. She was very disturbed by the call and told co-workers although there was nothing disturbing said during the call. She asked her boyfriend also a realtor to come to the meeting with her, but he had a previous engagement and told her he would come as soon as he could. He had a friend drive him to the meeting as soon as he was available. Too late for her as she had been brutally murdered. She had not seen the person's face, so her fear was not based on looks. She had a gut reaction, and tried to do what she could to keep herself safe. No one else had taken her fears very seriously. I will never forget the never ending stream of emergency vehicles flying by the house that night. It makes me sick thinking about that poor woman, afraid but going anyway.

So for the naysayers please try to explain away this one.

She had a reaction, but obviously tried to be 'sensible' about it and she died horribly. I'll take gut reaction over 'sensible' any day.

Mitzik

Graphista

I'm sorry to hear about your job experience. I did exactly the same as you. I kept thinking at the interview, I need to pull out. But didn't and accepted the job!

Only stuck at it less than a year (Not me at all). Made me ill and now have messed up my career.

I had a feeling all along and should have gone with it. In that academic year, I was the 31st person to leave.

Our instinct is made up of all the worldly knowledge we have and to protect us. I ignored it.

31?! Bloody hell! Sorry you've been through similar.

This was some time ago before SM and review sites exploded.

I believe there's now sites where ex employees review ex employers?

Graphista

Yes 31. Another colleague lasted a few weeks.

Maybe it'll turn out good. Looking to leave my career and retrain.

Next time I go to an interview, I'll leave if I get that feeling. Having a breakdown for the sake if being polite is not worth it.