Your "something's not right" feeling...

[Scrump21]

Do you ever get this? And do you trust it?

Have you ever done something because you purely got a bad gut feeling and it's proved to be right?

I have had this and never got to bottom of it.

It was torture.

Would you like to elaborate?

I would have thought that at least one time in everyone's life they've experienced this and turned out to be right.

However, the times we're right will be far more memorable than all the times we were wrong.

I got an awful feeling about going to a playgroup one day, really didn't want to go. Turns out that 2 children got badly hurt when part of the equipment fell onto them as it wasn't secured properly. It was the part my DD liked the best. Absolutely trust my instincts.

Also avoided a guy I used to work with as he gave me a very off vibe. He was later outed by a vigilante paedophile group on Facebook

It's your gut instinct screaming at you. I've been in many situations where I've picked up the 'something's not quite right here' vibes. It's an uncomfortable and unnerving feeling.

I do get this feeling v occasionally.

Once, my DH was trying to decide whether to drive or book a train ticket for work the following day. I can't describe the feeling but I just blurted out, "you have to get the train". He listened. Next morning, there were 4 separate car accidents along the route he would've driven at the time he would have been there.

He has these feelings also. Once he randomly decided to cross a road, going out of his usual way, and the side he had crossed from, a huge sheet of glass from a window fell from about 4 stories up and smashed on the path where he would've been walking.

Totally disagree there Worra

I very, very rarely get this feeling. And on the handful of times in my lifetime I've had it I've been right.

One occasion being meeting up with a potential carer for my disabled DS. Nice, smiley guy. Chatty, he had a young, nine verbal child who has down syndrome with him who he engaged with well........I was so spooked by him I managed to put off another mum who was considering using him for respite. She already knew him and was the one who introduced us.

A year or so later he was outed as a paedophile and jailed. We've no way of knowing if he abused the children he cared for.

I'm very much take people as they are, even people who are very, socially awkward and deemed 'odd' by others. But every time I've had that get me the fuck out of here feeling it's been right.

Yes. As a teenager a friend of a friend used to really make me uncomfortable. I was close to our mutual friend. He said they were coming to see me in the middle of the night and to meet them near my house. That wasnt unusual but I found out my friend wasnt even there so stayed home.

He was caught by police on his way to mines having stolen his mother's car and his home was full of child porn. I was 16ish and he was in his 20s.
Yuck

People often talk about gut feelings or intuition like they are some mystical force and up there with the worst of the ‘woo’. Actually it’s really just that we take in so much information that we’re not consciously aware of most of it. A gut feeling is just an alert to subtle information that needs paying attention to.

This is a really cool article on it -

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/is-it-rational-to-trust-your-gut-feelings-a-neuroscientist-explains-95086

We nurses have it. You can't explain what is different about your patient, theres no physical sign you can chart, but something isnt right. Usually we are correct. When nurses tell me to come and see a pt because they have a gut feeling, I look extra carefully.

Totally disagree there Worra

I very, very rarely get this feeling. And on the handful of times in my lifetime I've had it I've been right.

Yes but you won't remember the times you've been wrong, because they're too insignificant for your mind to remember.

A lot of women on the Relationships board get this

I always trust my instincts about people, I am almost always proved right, I can just sense something "off".

Only once when I was a child. I must have been about ten and was at the local playpark with three other kids there wasn't an adult with us (not unusual back then), but there were lots of adults about with their own kids about. When I was playing I noticed a man sitting on a garden wall just outside the perimeter with his dog.

Some time passed and while we were having fun then suddenly I was overcome with this sense of dread just feeling completely sick to my stomach, I remember thinking in my head 'GO'. I looked up and realised all the other family's had left leaving only us and I saw the man who had been sitting on the wall was walking towards us quickly.

I just shouted run and me and all my friends scarpered through the other exit and ran home. A few days later it was in the paper that a man had tried to attack a child in the same play park, I have no idea if it was the same guy but I'll never forget that feeling I had that day.

I've had a weird sense of dread/anxiety since December, my mum died in January. However, it wasn't completely unexpected (one of those illness where it could have been 3 years ago, 3 years from now or anytime inbetween), so I think it was playing on my mind somewhat. I'm not sure if I believe in intuition, I think it's a mix of subconscious and self preservation in many cases.

A couple of times health related
Kept getting infections and unwell, was convinced something underlying was wrong. I was right
Back pain that felt different to usual. It wasn't just sciatica

There is a difference between instinct about a person or situation which your brain is processing you subconscious thoughts/feelings in the background, and some of these which are akin to believing in magic like predicting car accidents.

I think it is important not to try and suppress your instinct, though. Worthwhile exploring why you are feeling the way you are and really, if you feel uneasy enough in a situation, then I would rather do something about it. That said, my instinct is not always correct. Sometimes it is my anxiety talking. However, I have been right often enough to not ignore it.

Not me but my DH has woken in a cold sweat twice in the years that I’ve known him, first time his Dad had been hospitalised with a really bad infection (he pulled through but it was a long period of uncertainty). Second time an Aunt he was close with had passed away. Both times he woke me and said “something is wrong”. He’s also had the feeling when nothing has been wrong, but he always fires off a quick general text to those close to him asking how they’re getting on when it hits.

I had it before my DMum was diagnosed with cancer- I just had a really bad feeling and felt very anxious in the days leading up to her getting results which her doctors were expecting to be completely innocuous. However, I've also had it since when we've been waiting for her test results and she's had good news.

What I've learnt is that for me it's not intuition, it's an anxiety response. I don't have any special powers or insight. I agree with Worra in that we're going to remember the days we feel "off" or nights we spend tossing and turning before something unsettling happens, but no so much when nothing comes of it.

I would have thought that at least one time in everyone's life they've experienced this and turned out to be right.

However, the times we're right will be far more memorable than all the times we were wrong.

Totally agree. If you have a feeling of not quite right and it's proved right, then you will remember it far more than if you're wrong. You'll justify it in "I wasn't sure" and forget about it.

I did some informal research into seeing how often people were right/wrong in pregnancy whether they were having a boy or a girl.
It was very interesting:
I asked people if they thought they knew which they were having, how certain they were (scale of 1-10) and what they actually had.

For those I surveyed during pregnancy: (this was back when most people didn't know during pregnancy) and then asked whether they were right afterwards.
Pretty much dead on 50% were right with no difference to how "certain" they'd been.
How certain they were was a full range from totally certain through to slight feeling.

For those I asked after the child was born:
For those that were certain/almost certain it was about 60% right.
But for those who rated how certain they were as lower they were almost totally correct.

Why? Because the people who remembered were being wrong were those who had a really big surprise.
Those who had a less certain feeling dismissed the feeling afterwards.
Also, a couple of the people I'd met during pregnancy I met afterwards and they swore blind they'd been right. They weren't, I had it in black and white, but they'd rewritten it in their mind to be correct.

It wasn't a significant study; think I had about 200 answers, but there was a clear difference.

I visited my grandmother in a nursing home one day and, after I'd said goodbye to her, paused for a moment in the corridor just outside her room with that feeling in my gut. Since I was due to visit the next day I shook it off and carried on going. She died the next day and I've always regretted not acting on that gut feeling to go and hug her one last time.

I did that with my ex husbands grandmother many years ago.
We were leaving a family party and I said goodbye to her and just had an overwhelming feeling I wouldn't see her again. Gave her an extra hug and left. Said to ex that I felt really odd and he just shrugged.
She died the following week very suddenly from a heart attack. Otherwise a very fit and healthy older lady who was always out and about and busy. Always glad I spent those extra few seconds, she was a lovely lady. Haven't had that feeling before or since and have of course lost lots of people over time.