I’ve a bad feeling about this…?

[HerbalBovril]

Have you ever experienced a moment/situation/circumstance wherein you had a “bad feeling”…almost a premonition of a terrible or tragic thing to come, only to be proved correct?

I’m not talking vagaries or coincidence…more akin to, “I’m somewhat petrified that I saw this coming, despite it being impossible to do so”.

Yes.

Sometimes I have dreams at night about bad things, and after a few days or even months, they come true.

Year and years ago, I left school to go home and all of a sudden I didn't want to get there. A 40 min walk I dragged out for over an hour , I just didnt want to go home, but as an 11 year old child there was no where else to go but home

Walked in to an empty house, both my sisters balling their eyes out and the neighbour from along the road doing her best to comfort them

Mother had decided to pack up half the contents of the house and buggered off

This does sound batshit crazy... but yes. I woke one morning when I was 17 in an absolute state. I was terrified, shaking and had a panic attack (which I don't 😂). Scared my mum to death and she made me stay home from work. It was the day of the twin towers attack, probably a massive coincidence but I can remember the fear today. It was so real and visceral.

Yes. I dreamed very vividly that my mother would die of the same illness that had just claimed my beloved aunt. Less than eighteen months later, she did. Her short illness had that horrible, otherworldly quality of a nightmare I oouldn't wake up from.

Obviously, a fear of the same thing happening to the person I was closest to in the world, when the aunt I'd just lost was the closest person to me to die at that point in my life, was natural in the circumstances. But it felt prescient.

I also used to be a rider - a competent one. I was never nervous on horseback, it was my 'happy place'. But I had a nagging feeling that one day I'd have a very serious riding accident. I brushed it off. Strangely, one of my closest friends, who does have a pretension to 'insight', had the same fear. And barmy though it may sound, I do believe this was.

A couple of years ago I was thrown, broke my spine, and suffered two massive pulmonary emboli post surgery which nearly killed me.

I do believe that was a premonition.

Only once.

But several times I've had an extremely strong negative premonition about a specific thing - I was almost in tears with anxiety - and then, nothing happened. Those premonitions were not borne out all.

Which convinced me that it's all bollocks really

Google "confirmation bias"

Also-there is a lot of interesting and valid criticism of "The Gift of Fear" too.

Was in the shower and suddenly knew a relative would die soon. It wasn't like a normal thought. It was louder and clearer, and it came from nowhere. Felt like I was being told it, rather than thinking of it. Never experienced that before. It happened a few months later.

I don't see it as spooky. I think my subconscious had picked up on signs that my conscious couldn't/didn't want to see.

I had a premonission that I was going to die. I was due to go in for open heart surgery, and one night I had a dream that I’d had the surgery and that I woke up with no symptoms or anything, my family and friends were there, but they couldn’t speak to me and I couldn’t get to them. I woke up and told my DP that I was going to die, but I couldn’t exactly cancel the surgery on the basis of a premonition.

I went in for the surgery, said goodbye to my DP and DC in the belief I wouldn’t be coming back. The surgeon walked in and said to me that having looked at my scan I was unlikely to survive surgery and so he wouldn’t be performing it.

I still suffered some major setbacks and very nearly died anyway, but everyone was adamant that had I had the surgery I 100% was going to die. I had a cardiac arrest etc but I also had some other interventions which improved my quality of life.

I got pregnant at 28. When I found out I told my closest friend. But I also told her I was sure I'd lose it and that i was sure i would never actually have children. She told me not to be silly, that I was only 28 and most people at that age have normal pregnancies. I miscarried at 8 weeks.
Despite this, I don't actually believe it was a premonition. It was just fear talking that happened to come true.
I also spoke to another friend not long after and we both discussed the fact we didn't think we'd ever have children. She even cried that she just knew it wouldn't happen for her. I was absolutely sure as well that it wouldn't happen for me.
Well she had twins 2 years later at 31. I'm now 44 and have had 3 miscarriages, 4 rounds of IVF and no children. Did I predict that? No. I was just scared. I doubt my friend even thinks of what she said all those years ago. Because hers didn't "come true".

I knew the sexes of both mine @Pinkpurpletulips .

I am intrigued by those who knew a relative or friend had cancer or a miscarriage - that’s a level of specificity that even psychics (who I am cynical at best about) don’t usually get. I do feel a bit ‘hmm’ about it, which isn’t suggesting that anyone’s lying exactly, it’s more in the vein of the stopped clock being right twice a day.

I do think it’s possible to have a feeling but usually explained by an instinctive sense of something, usually danger. This has only happened to me once, when I was cycling through a wood as a teenager. I could vaguely hear the hum of the motorway which was very close and I had a strong ‘get the hell out of here now’ feeling which was so strong I’ve never had a sense like that before or since. I pedalled away so fast feeling terrified, more of my own sense of dread than anything tangible.

It wasn’t until some years later when I was driving myself that I stopped on a lay-by on the other side of the wood and I realised how close I’d been to the motorway that day. I think that if I’d carried on cycling and a man had stopped to pee or whatever it would have been terrifyingly easy to have had an awful crime of opportunity: I could have been assaulted and even murdered within minutes and no one would have known.

I don’t think I’m psychic and I don’t think I sensed anything over and above subconscious instinct. A rabbit kept in a hutch all its life would still be afraid of a fox. I think I sensed how close I was to the motorway and for all I know I smelled urine or smoke or something that alerted me and knew danger was a possibility.

More people than we think are good "cold readers" too. Often without being aware that they're doing it.

I'm as skeptical as they come but...

When I was 9 ish we lived in a house that backed onto some fields with a strip of woodland and a gorge. My brother and I and the neighbour's kids used to play there. One day we split up to play hide and seek. I suddenly got an overwhelming sense that my brother was in trouble and something awful had happened.

I found him clinging for dear life off the edge of the cliff that dropped into the gorge. Thankfully I managed to pull him up.

I once worked with a friend colleague - we were both in training for a specific type of work & my friend said 'wish me luck as today I'm out with Sarah'
[Sarah was our manager/assessor - not her real name]

I said 'oh break a leg' & my friend said as a joke 'don't say that - I don't want to break a leg'

Jokingly I replied with 'no not you - Sarah'

Later on that day my friend colleague was being supervised outside & a car rolled down the hill & caught Sarah's leg between it & a parked car she was standing behind at the time.

The driver had forgotten to put the handbrake on.

Yes, I have had a few.
I didn't want to get on a flight from Bangkok once. I do not have a fear of flying- I am from a military family! One hour into the flight, the pilot declared we need to do an emergency landing. No-one hurt, but having to do everything from that safety announcement was scary.

I knew my Dad had died before mum called. He did have cancer, but had spoken to the hospice nurse that day who said he had months to live. That evening, I felt very odd and restless. I spent ages outside in Jsnuary looking at the sky and my partner couldn't get me indoors.

The first time I met my ex for a date. I heard someone or something say 'no!'. It was such a strong experience. Unfortunately, I ignored the voice.

Recently my partner went away with some friends. I dreamt that one of them had a choking incident and nearly died. The man in the dream had the name of one of his friends on the trip but it wasn't the actual friend. It was so vivid, I told my partner. On the trip the incident happened- to a guy that was with them with the same name that I just had never met before. My partner said he managed to deal with the situation and save this guy, but he felt ready for it. So strange....

These are some examples I am definitely a heart over head decision-maker.

I have also dreamt about random world events that have then happened. Although, I think this is just a massive coincidence. On the balance of probability, there can't be anything in it.

I had a dream that my parents dog died in a forest. It was really distressing and I told my kids about it the next morning. A few days later their dog died in a freak accident in a forest. My kids like to tell me that I 'manifested' his death 😳

It's not quite the same thing but I've known every house we're going to live in before we've even learnt we're going to move. I dream about the wall colours and garden usually. Although with this house all I knew was that it would be a town house.

When house hunting DH knows ill tell him when I've found the one from my dreams. He says he pays it no mind and picks our homes through practicality, but we always pick the same house.

I think pretty much everyone can give examples of this - It's confirmation bias. You don't remember the times when you weren't right/your dream didn't come true. Only the times it did.

Yes - I used to lie awake at night worrying that my DH would die, and I spoke to both my mum and Nan seperately on the phone and told them I had a horrible feeling he was going to get cancer. 18 months later he was diagnosed with bowel cancer, which has spread to both his lungs and liver. They have said the usual life expectancy is 2/3 years, ocassionally people make it to 5 years. He is still battling. But I knew it was coming. He is 45 years old.

I also had a fear my ex boyfriend would die young - more like a gut feeling I hoped was wrong. He died aged 30 in a traffic accident. We were no longer together by then but it was incredibly sad. He would still be here but for the careless driving of another motorist.

I get them quite often. Had a dream once, my friend who worked at the same company as me and our children went to school together, in my dream I had phoned through to her department and some woman answered the phone and said she didn't work there anymore. I discussed it with someone else at work because I thought it was bizarre. The following day she grabbed me on the school run and told me she had handed in her notice and was going to another job.

I've had a number of very specific ones about life threatening events, but also about more banal stuff. First time it happened I was about 15 and travelling back from the cinema with my brother and friends and I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling that we about to crash. We were in the middle of nowhere on a very dark night and friend's mum was a very safe driver, so there was no obvious danger as far as I could see. I felt really stupid but I signalled to my brother to hold on tight which he did, a minute of so later we smashed into some debris in the middle of the road. Not a bad crash at all. We were all fine but so out of the blue. Had multiple of these sorts of premonitions. Some are bad vibes about people but some I can't tell where I am picking clues up from.

The only time I’ve had a really terrible feeling about something was when my DS age 2 was going for a small routine surgery under general anaesthetic. It was such a terrible feeling of total dread, really never felt anything like it before, came on suddenly a week before the surgery. That same day my DH came home and said he had the worst feeling about it, hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all day so we cancelled the surgery.

DS has since had a few surgeries, never had that feeling again so went ahead with them and everything was fine. Obviously, we’ll never know what would have happened had we gone ahead with that particular surgery and I’m happy not knowing as whatever it was felt very bad.

I think this feeling is different to premonitions of someone going to die, which are like passing thoughts without the utter dread. My sister was walking to school one morning and said to her friend that our nan had died (she hadn’t, wasn’t ill) and she didn’t know why she said that. Our nan died that evening, completely unexpectedly while on holiday.

Very often yes. I generally think it's just an acute sense of awareness and experience about how things go in life given certain sets of circumstances, rather than any magical or inexplicable power.

I had an accident 18 months ago (RTA), and I'd had the most awful sense of doom when I woke up that day. I told my eldest son that I just had the most awful feeling, that I was going to receive bad news or something. I even rang my parents before going to work to check they were okay.

Unfortunately I've developed a bit of a problem with anxiety, I'm probably going into the menopause and the feeling I had that morning 18 months ago was maybe the first sign of it, but because I then had an accident, the feeling has been validated. I often feel that sense of doom now, and have to really talk myself down.

One minute it’s a passing thought; next minute you’re looking at a headline/text message/loved one explaining that it’s become reality

That's confirmation bias. You forget about all the times where you had a "passing feeling" and nothing happened and you only remember the rare occasions where, by coincidence or because something was likely, that it occurred.

@fadingday I think the miscarriage/cancer thing could be people subconsciously noticing changes in the behaviour of other people without being aware they have done so. Target once worked out a girl was pregnant before her dad knew so it's not unreasonable that for someone you know you might realise (without realising) that they were in early pregnancy and then a bit sad/withdrawn and conclude they had had a miscarriage. Similarly a lot of cancers can start with vague nonspecific symptoms which someone close to you might pick up on, e.g. a change in energy levels or vague pains which affect what activities you do or a change in diet because foods have started disagreeing with you.