Gut instinct - is it real?

[Marmitelover93]

I am really interested to hear about whether you think gut instinct is real?

If so, what has led to you to believe in it?

I've had extensive therapy and I apparently spend most of my time in emotive thinking (it might have a different term if I can find the documents I'll let you know). With emotional (or irrational) thinking, you can be volatile.

The other end of the spectrum is the rational thinking.

If you drew two circles representing each side, in some people they're entirely separate, in some people there's an overlap primarily with one or the other side dominating.

It's not your brain @dontdothistome

Your brain is the conditioned part of you. The part that tries to be sensible. The part that we can consciously educate. You don't 'learn to feel right about something' (although many try, including on threads here... 'He swears at me and hits me, but he's such a good dad, I can't leave him...' Gut instinct often doesn't make sense to us, and our brain is the bit that does 'sense'.

Gut instinct is 'I've got a funny feeling about this', 'This just doesn't feel right', 'This does just feel right', 'I don't know why, but I can just feel that this is x/y/z'. 'I know it in my heart' etc. Not 'I know it because I did it before, so I've decided it's right' etc.

Read 'The Body Keeps the Score'. It's pretty conclusive.

Gut instinct is the rational brain and the other side of thinking is the emotive brain

You're trying to tell us that gut instinct is rational. OK. I think we all have had quite a few experiences to the contrary.

I prefer not to read the interpretations of books by readers.

Here is a link to some of the exact handout I was given:

caps.richmond.edu/common/pdfs/caps/managing-stress-handouts.pdf

It's on page one.

caps.richmond.edu/common/pdfs/caps/managing-stress-handouts.pdf

This is good image to demonstrate it too.

Woops, think I copied the same link twice. This another illustration of it.
images.app.goo.gl/6qHxNsC3fJGn7bmV7

I prefer not to read the interpretations of books by readers

Nobody asked you to. What a weird comment. Anyway, we disagree. Not to worry.

Your handouts disprove your point and prove mine. Brilliant.

I had absolutely the same experience. Everything seemed absolutely fine at home. We were having sex, having a laugh, getting on well. At the same time I felt like I was going crazy. I remember going to the doctor and saying that I felt like I couldn't trust the ground under my feet. Nothing felt actually real. He gave me antidepressants and I took them for years. I found out later that my husband had been having an affair all those years. When I spoke to the doctor about that he said oh yes, I wondered if that was what was happening. My husband has been to the doctor and I think he'd told him about the affair.

As soon as I found out about the affair I came off the antidepressants.

It was only later on Mumsnet that I heard about cognitive dissonance. Look it up, it blew my mind.

What part of that diagram endorses your view and contradicts mine?

dontdothistome

It's the part where it says 'Don't continue to argue with someone who stoops to making personal insults in an argument'

Have a good day.

When I was in my 20s I had a relationship with an angry man for a couple of years. In my 40s I kept having a recurring dream that my (now stbx)husband was in fact my angry ex. I couldn’t understand it at the time as I’d convinced myself that my stbxh was a good man with just a few minor issues.

I now realise that my stbxh is also an angry man, but was just better at keeping a lid on it than the ex boyfriend from my 20s.

I’m sure those dreams I had were my subconscious screaming at me to LTB.

'Gut instinct' is you picking up on non verbal communication, so body language, facial expressions that don't match the verbal communication, etc. It's very logical.

Gut instinct definitely exists, and has done since long before humans became the civilised beings we are now. Ignore it at your peril.

Read thinking fast and slow. It explains a lot about what we call 'gut instinct'

I've learned from experience that it is. I ended a 1.5y relationship recently and honestly, during the early dates I had these extreme feelings of unease about him as a person but I pushed them down because I thought he was so great and I was just being silly and the feelings were an inconvenience. Needless to say he ended up having serious anger issues, victim complex, very self centred, just all these glaring and extremely serious red flags. It was only after some time that I had very strong, objective evidence of all of these things. But I really do think that was my gut instinct. Sure, it doesn't tell you what exactly the issue is but it does tell you there IS an issue.

Funnily enough throughout the relationship, I also sometimes had these very vivid dreams of sleeping with other people and it being very enjoyable. And I would wake up feeling extremely guilty. But maybe this was some kind of gut instinct as well...?

Beautifully put!

I think it’s real, yes.

I think your gut is your fight or flight reaction in its rawest form – animal instinct. On a primitive level you sense something is “off”/danger and it warns you.

Your emotional heart only wants to feel good things and see the good in people so goes into shock/denial at being challenged and told there are bad people/situations in this world.

Then your brain has to join in and mediate between the two to rationalise why a reaction (gut) might be more valid than a feeling (heart).

Gut: He's bad news, steer clear
Heart: But he's gorgeous, so handsome and sexy and he just told me he loves me and I felt so lonely and the sex was amazing. I think I'm in love. We're going to get married and have babies and a house and everything.
Head: So why has Gut just piped up then?
Heart: Dunno. Gut talks crap sometimes.
Head: Hmm. Gut always pipes up for a reason, like a parent, looking out for you. There will be a reason.
Heart: Ach, reason, schmeason. Shut up Head. Always trying to rain on my parade.

(later)
Head: Hi Heart, so you found him on facebook, happily married with children. How do you feel about that?
Heart: Gutted.
Gut: Told you so.

Gut feeling is real. It has been demonstrated empirically (see "system 1 and system 2").

We need use it most of the time for decision making and sometimes it goes spectacularly wrong.

Totally agree with this, and with @dontdothistome. Gut instinct is simply your brain picking up on and processing tiny details of your sensory experience. When people say “I had a gut feeling about X person” after they’ve turned out to be a serial killer, it’s because their brain picked up on micro details about that person’s mannerisms, behaviour, facial expressions, tone of voice, a look in their eyes etc.

Your brain is the conditioned part of you. The part that tries to be sensible. The part that we can consciously educate. You don't 'learn to feel right about something' (although many try, including on threads here... 'He swears at me and hits me, but he's such a good dad, I can't leave him...' Gut instinct often doesn't make sense to us, and our brain is the bit that does 'sense'

That's really not how brains work. We can't consciously access or educate all of the functions of our brain.

Well, if you're going to look at it that way, all of our functions are in our brain, including our 'gut'. I should have said 'mind', sorry. The distinction between brain and mind is really important here, as, probably, is the definition of what it actually meant by 'gut instinct', because I'm not sure anybody actually thinks it's in your digestive system. It's a feeling that you 'know' something to be the case, without any evidence, and 'knowing' is a mind-thing.

Do you think it's possible to not have gut instinct? I don't think I do, particularly when it comes to men.