The True Human: Intuition

Have you ever felt or known an event will occur and suddenly, almost immediately, it did? Like looking at a man holding a pack and something clicked in your head… pizza…fall… it’s usually a disjointed feeling in a second! And the pizza fell almost simultaneously or in a moment. Or you sensed that someone was going to call and the person did.

Intuition is an act of the subconscious. It is close to instinct but more powerful and not so sudden. During an interview with a mother of six, expert educationist, and a Sunday school teacher for children, it became clearer that intuition is an advanced form of instinct in a new measure. It projects into the knowledge of things without logical explanation of how the knowledge is acquired and such knowledge has the same result to that obtained logically. Premonition and clairvoyance have their roots in intuition. While premonition is the sensing and knowing events about to take place, clairvoyance is a sudden idea of an event held at the immediate without the physical presence or perception of the event. The event in both cases is not accessible to the eyes or ears. However, in premonition, it is a future thing, clairvoyance is a present thing but occurring at a different position not physically accessible to the individual.

For example, someone who is clairvoyant might sense or see what is going on in another room in the same house even if he or she is at the other end of the basement. Premonition is more of an intuitive knowledge of the future.

The word intuition is derived from the Latin “intueri” meaning “to look inside” contemplate – and provides us with beliefs that we can’t justify. According to Abella Arthur; “intuition is a combination of historical (empirical) data, deep and heightened observation and ability to cut through the thickness of the surface reality. Intuition is like slow motion that captures data instantaneously and hits you like a ton of bricks. Intuition is a knowing, a sensing that is beyond the conscious in understanding – a gut (deep) feeling. Intuition is not pseudo-science. It is not mysterious or a miracle. It is purely a mental process, an outcome of the superb nature of the human brain.”

Some persons are tuned out of range, just so out of it that it becomes supernatural. Like what Mrs. Grace, my teacher, once said: “when it is natural, it is present, and most people can do it, but when it’s intensive, tuned out, we call it a gift.” I asked, “Spiritual?” she answered “maybe.”

Women are believed to be more intuitive than men – this can be based on many reasons, on the fact that women are calmer, more sensitive, feel and note verbal and visual cues or stimulus which is substantial raw materials of intuition. Another important information is that the reliability of one’s intuition depends greatly on past knowledge and experience – in a specific field. Someone who has more experiences with children will tend to have better intuition about what they should do in certain situations. Why women seem to intuit more may also be due to a particular fact which is still under research that women think differently from men – yes, sometimes. A study using MRI on women and men made to think about certain things and then speak found out that while men used one part of their brain while thinking, women use two parts of their brain when thinking. The standard part where they both used and a smaller part…making one wonder what the other more minor part is doing…

Intuition is a pattern matching process by the subconscious that quickly suggests feasible courses of action, and like the subconscious does, without your knowledge, computes the result with the highest probability and displays it even without your permission. As explained before, we may not be aware that while we do our chatting, drive our car along a road every day, buy some things from the supermarket, our mind works at a remarkable pace – picking patterns of behavior, noting reactions, actions, recording outcomes of events. It does it so expertly and neatly but quietly. When similar events call – snap! It projects or suggests what might come up and unlike the conscious, that suggests options and possibilities thereby giving two or more outcomes which you are unsure about. The unconscious hardly doubts, it works so much confidently, having faith in its decisions, and like Abella said – throws the answers to you like a “ton of bricks” – the idea hits you, you know all of a sudden!

There is this crunch of mystery between two or more persons that love themselves or a family that have been together for so long. Each person will always attest to the fact that they know the other person very well. That is, a husband can estimate to a high degree what his wife can do in certain circumstances and vice versa. Lovers can do the same. Brothers and Sisters can do the same thing. It is common that when two individuals are in love and have been dating for some time, one tends to know when the other is lying, or when the partner is guilty. This is an everyday occurrence. There is almost nothing to be hidden successfully from someone who truly has a profound long-term feeling for you because you are interested in the person, your unconscious collects every data possible while you chat with the person, play, eat and so on. You know all the expressions, facial expressions, and eye and body responses and finally, some cells in your body interact electromagnetically and gravitationally as we will see in the Biological Human.

Most good sports analysts have the ability to predict to near accuracy when there will be a win or a loss. Some even know exactly what the score difference will be. During interviews with soccer fans before a match, the football fan who has no sides, who is neutral always seem to be able to predict neatly what the goal difference will be. This is because his judgment is not for any side.

Intuitions are usually sometimes intense that the minute details that some computers cannot detect can easily be picked up by it. It was 1973, a boy was told by his mother to start his journey to school of which he had refused to go. During this period, education was made free and compulsory in South-western Nigeria such that the kids were sent to school even if they showed no interest in going to school. The poorest of the poor went to school, and so did our boy. Back then, most schools taught not just academics but also a form of informal education. Hence, most schools have a day set apart for this purpose. They called it “Labour Day.” Children were asked to bring cutlasses, hoes, and brooms to school so as to clean the school environs. It was usually once in a week. Of such was the day when Bodunrin refused to go to school and the mother thought he was absconding because of the labor and had to force him to go. In school, he was assigned bush-clearing for his duty – he and some of his friends. Some of his friends noticed that he looked odd, a little quiet. He cleared his portion with lack of interest… when suddenly! Swish! They heard a yell. And Bodunrin ran out shouting snake. He fell on the field. Immediately, the other boys searched for the snake while some ran to his rescue. They killed a green viper, a well matured one. The first aid could not save the boy’s life. And he gave up in minutes. It was a painful experience. Today, the mother who told this story will never force her children to go anywhere once she has a feeling or the kids refuse to go for an unexplainable reason.

Our problem here, however, is Bodunrin’s reluctance to go to the school that morning. From the information known, he hardly absconded from school. He was fairly brilliant and was a typical average student. We could ask:

Why did Bodunrin wake up that day and felt like not going to school, unlike other days?
Why was he gloomy and sluggish?
First, one has to imagine being Bodunrin. You wake up in the morning and felt uneasy, and like you should not go to work. You just felt odd from normal. Most times for students or pupils, there is usually the fear of bullies, but there seems to be none from this story. What made this day different and why did the strange feeling come on? No occasion where someone had been bitten in school though they do kill snakes sometimes. Asking further, if someone must have been bitten by a snake recently? She said there was none but that she’d heard about people do get bitten by snakes on their farms, or while going to the streams. A few die sometimes. We have no idea if he had a dream in the night. And being broken – hearted due to relationship issues is most not likely as having a girlfriend at Bodunrin’s age was so rare.

The detail we are about to go through here contains a bit of The Biological Human – a whole different aspect of human we will delve into in the future, so you might have to come back here later on. Most persons must have analyzed the situation and came up with; he just felt something, he had the feeling. The question is why and how? And that is why the unconscious seems so mysterious and intuition too which is a primary underground mental process.

Here’s one possible argument…

Bodunrin woke up in the morning. He felt sick. He felt uncomfortable. Flashes of snake’s fangs and head had been crossing intermittently in his thoughts. He remembered, one year ago when a farmer had been rushed to the native herbalist, a snake had bitten him, he never survived it. He might also remember some day when a snake suddenly crawled fast past their door into the green bush nearby. It can also be that some months ago they had killed a big boa and found three mice in it. That morning had a similarity. That day seemed to have something in common with those days. The morning was wet, humid, and this uncertain smell. Some persons usually have this crunch of distaste or feeling about an environment when there seems to be some unusual scene (something like déjà vu), or odor. It has also been noted that a victim will most likely lose interest in a particular food eaten shortly before the person becomes seriously ill, following recovery. A similar one can be an odor that may be associated with a terrible situation that a person picks up unconsciously. When that person comes across such type of smell again, there comes this gut feeling of a similar occurrence re-occurring. Every one of us must have experienced this one way or the other. It is advisable never to ignore such circumstances.

Most times, people find it hard to define or explain what the cause of this feeling is. Behind Bodunrin’s conscious, some computations were going on. In tropical zones where snakes are numerous, some seasons experience more snake population or sightings. Also, is the heat period of snakes where male snakes become more ferocious and aggressive and active too so that a snake you could easily control before, during that season might be faster and harder to handle. Snakes hardly always attack – especially vipers except when threatened, however during this season, they are on the offensive.

A young person or child intuitions should be clearly listened to and sensed since they rarely have them. Any coming might be somewhat accurate. Intuition seems to have most of its strengths from experience because that’s where it gathers the facts from. This is why most aged women seem to have better, clearer intuitions or premonitions than most people, especially regarding marriage and relationship. They can quickly estimate and conclude about a man or woman sizing the person by listening to a few words and actions. Data which seem irrelevant, illogical especially to the matter at hand might be just what it needs to conclude.

And do you know that science remains forever indebted to intuition – for all numerous discoveries and inventions? You can never estimate the hope intuition brings as you research, you can never be guarded so well as a clear picture and direction intuition brings to your mind and you can never tell of the clear-thinking intuition can create Its vivid visions. On Antarctica, the South Shetland Island called Livingstone Island lays a peak; it’s called the intuition peak, named in appreciation for the role scientific intuition played for the advancement of human knowledge.

Reference

Arbella Arthur. Arbella Arthur Quotes.

I’m Published by Norton. ;P I’ve Been Quoted About What Intuition Means. 🙂

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