Psychologists believe that intuition is fueled by pattern-matching; the mind combs through experiences we've stored in our long-term memory for similar situations and presents in-the-moment judgments based on them.
Even Albert Einstein relied on it. "I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am," he told The Saturday Evening Post in 1929. It's much better to trust those instincts and test them later than to dismiss them out of hand, he said.
But Reddit user ElectroIsland was interested in how we approach it when the stakes get higher, so they asked everyone on the platform to share the scariest "We need to leave, now" gut feelings they've ever experienced. Here are some of the most upvoted stories they have received.
#1
Image credits: Willowed-Wisp
We got in touch with ElectroIsland, and the Redditor mentioned that they came up with the idea to ask this question while simply relaxing.
"I was just watching Adult Swim and thought of some situations that Rick and Morty present and go through," the author of the post told Bored Panda.
After reviewing the discussion, ElectroIsland said, "A lot of the stuff posted had to do with either attempted kidnapping/SA, or some kind of robbery or gang presence."
#2
Image credits: MatrixVirus
#3
Image credits: Ambam3434
ElectroIsland believes intuition is more than a tool for avoiding danger. They say it "can be applied to just about anything in life."
"I can find many uses for it, even in normal, non-life-threatening situations," they added.
Scientists agree. For example, while researching intuition for her book 'Sovereign,' Emma Seppala, a Yale management lecturer, found that gut feelings are a powerful source of information that we can and should rely on.
#4
Image credits: ScoobyScoob
#5
Image credits: lavenderacid
"Awareness is key to sovereignty," Seppala explained. "As you start to make room for intuitive insights, you'll find your awareness deepens further. By making time and space for intuition to arise, you'll have greater insight into yourself and the world."
To incorporate it into our everyday life decision-making, Seppala suggested to "make it a habit to also consult your feelings on the matter ... When you need to make a decision between options A and B, for example, sit with your eyes closed for a moment. How do you feel about each option? You might notice one makes you tense up while the other makes you feel relaxed."
This might take practice, and you might not notice much at first. But try it in different situations and see what happens!
#6
I stopped by a friend's house to watch a ball game, he, his wife and I were just relaxing and someone knocked on the door. It was the middle of the afternoon, he opened it up, he was expecting others might come by also. I hear him greeting someone, the guy was his brother I had never met, but had heard about. Very sketchy looking guy, meth teeth, scrawny, long greasy hair, my friend had told me that he had a brother who lived in the area who had a serious d**g problem.
Buddy is talking to his brother about nothing and the guy gets a call on his cell, whoever called, all he told them was "not yet, I'll call you later". Seems pretty obvious this guy has come to rob and most likely to take out witnesses, I look at my buddy, it seems he has come to the same conclusion. Now my buddy's wife is a no nonsense type of woman, sweet, but athletic, on the tall side, she had left the room to go to the bathroom, or so she said.
She comes back in the room with a handgun, I'm thinking "WTF did I walk into", but she calmly says "Ron, you're strung out and came here with bad intentions, you need to quietly leave, if you get any ideas, Chris, their son, is sitting outside in his truck to make sure you go."
Ron doesn't say a word, he just turn and goes out the door, we can hear his old pickup drive away rapidly. Chris come in and says "he's gone, I don't think he's coming back". The ask me to leave so they can decide what to do, they have already called the police, who are well acquainted with Ron.
The next morning my buddy calls me, the police said they found his brother in the trailer park where he lived, m**dered with multiple gunshots. They are guessing he was in serious d*ug debt and had come to rob his brother. I told my buddy I was sorry, he said "don't be".
Image credits: drawnnquarter
#7
Image credits: Werm_Vessel
#8
I was 12 at the time, and my favorite thing in the world was spending the night at my grandma's house. We lived in the sticks at the time, and my grandma lived closer to the nearest town. Thursday night was grandma's night.
I felt something off one Thursday night and asked my mom if I could just stay home with my mom and dad. They reluctantly agreed. I went home, watched some TV, and went to bed. My bedroom was on the adjoining wall to the living room.
I wasn't really asleep but I heard my mom keep saying my dad's name over and over again, with a hint of panic. I sneak out to the living room, and my dad is on the couch with his head tilted back, snoring, really loud. Which wasn't uncommon but my mom was beside him shaking him and telling him to wake up. She yelled at me to go back to bed.
I didn't obviously. I snuck to their bedroom to call 911. I told the dispatcher that my dad was asleep and my mom was trying to wake him up but she couldn't. Eventually the phonecall went to the living room and my mom talked to the dispatcher. They sent an ambulance, to the middle of nowhere. My dad had taken a bottle of diazepam to try to commit s**cide.
I remember sitting on the floor and holding his hand and repeating over and over that I loved him. The ambulance came, and took him to the hospital. Lights and sirens the whole way. We didn't know what happened during that time but we found out a day or so later and that is when our world changed.
I am very sure if I did not call 911 that night that my dad would have succeeded and it would have probably have drove my mom over the edge as well. And I have no idea why I didn't want to stay the night at my nanny's. I just had that feeling that I needed to go home.
Image credits: Adler221
#9
Years ago, before cell phones, I was driving home from dropping my husband at the train at 4:30am. Only me and one other car on the road. He started turning where I turned twice so I didn't go home, I went to an all night gas station and called the police. I gave them a description of his car. 3 weeks later, he was arrested. Turns out he was following women home and driving past their house and doubling back to r*pe them. No one had noticed his car. I'm glad I paid attention.
Image credits: coreysgal
#10
Years ago I was at a club with some friends. I was at the bar and for some reason looked down at the other end of the bar and saw 2 guys quietly arguing. They tried to keep from being overheard but I saw their agitated face. I went to back to my group of friends and told them we should go. This was a popular club and it took us forever to get in so they didn’t want to leave.
I don’t know what came over me but I picked up my friend’s girlfriend (she was barely 5’ tall) and started walking to the door. She was kicking the entire time and the rest of the party followed me outside telling me to put her down.
When we got outside, we heard the distant “pop pop” and people screaming. We looked at each other for a second then ran for our cars. I forgot to put her down and was still carrying her over my shoulders.
Update: Dang, I didn’t think this would blow up. It was the early 1990s and we were at a club in Miami. If I recall correctly from the local news, it was a d**g deal that went bad between 2 groups. No one was k*lled but they wounded each other and a couple of innocent people.
LOL, I’m still not carrying her today, the legend are false. Those two eventually got married and they mentioned me in their speech, something about the other groomsmen holding me back so that I don’t get the urge to carry her across the doorway.
Image credits: ZestyGolf7654
#11
#12
Picture it, 1994. I was 18 and waitressing in a sports bar. A comedy club was upstairs. One night a comedian kept visiting between sets. He was funny and charming, and he seemed quite smitten with me. He asked me out to late night breakfast. If you’ve ever been in hospitality, you know we go out and eat at 3:00am. I changed after my shift and waited a few minutes for him. I realized I really didn’t know this person, and I should not let him in my car. I decided to be smart and GTFO. A few years later I was absentmindedly flipping through a People magazine at a friend’s house. That is when I saw my comedian date, Vince Champ, had been arrested as a serial r*pist. His favorite target was young college girls and they finally caught him after putting the puzzle together between victims and his campus circuit. Holy s**t I dodged a bullet!! I think he may still be in jail; he was that terrible.
#13
In college I was studying at my school’s business school building, waiting to meet a friend and I had a sudden sense of dread. I texted my friend that I would just meet her at her dorm later instead of meeting at the business school, and I left to walk to a nearby library instead. When I got to the library about 20 minutes later, I checked my phone and I had nearly 20 missed calls and texts from my friends who knew I was at the business building. Literally seconds after I left, a student entered the building and stabbed multiple people, k*lling one professor and injuring several students. It happened in the room I had just been in.
#14
My little brother and I were tossing a baseball around near dusk at the bottom of our property, 30 wooded mountain acres WAY in the middle of nowhere. It had gotten dark enough that we were *just* about to call it quits when we heard the single most horrifying scream we've ever heard coming from the trees just beyond the edge of the clearing.
Imagine a woman screaming in mortal agony, writhing in the most wretched torment imaginable, every tortured scream from horror movies, war movies, anything you've ever heard; nothing compared to this. Even now, decades removed from hearing it, the hair on my arms and neck stands up just thinking of it, and it's made even worse by the realization of *what it actually was*:
A mountain lion. Full-grown female mountain lions scream loudly when they're in heat, and it sounds like a human woman being torn to pieces by the devil himself. To hear that, two kids alone in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, was about as terrifying as it gets. I grabbed his arm and ran-scrambled-fear-levitated up the hill faster than ever before or since. It's been 25 years, and I still haven't fully un-puckered...
#15
Image credits: stillgot1111t
#16
I was at the state fair with my mom and my best friend. Friend and I were looking at the rides and the games. This creepy guy and his blonde girlfriend kept babbling at us about taking head shots and that he was a modeling agent. He just seemed off and really sleazy and the girl was giving me the creeps so I pretended that I saw my mom telling us to come and grabbed my friend and dragged her off.
She was close to 5'8 and not a small girl at 13 yrs old, I was 4'9 and around 65 lbs at 14 yrs old. A few days later, there's a news story and rumors going around the school about two girls being kidnapped, assaulted and m*rdered. They were taken from the fair the same day we were there, just a few hours later. The creepy couple were Gerald and Charlene Gallegos, serial k*llers.
Image credits: Danivelle
#17
Image credits: Odd_Llama800
#18
Image credits: djbeaker
#19
#20
I bartend and years ago I kicked this guy out because he was acting very strange, muttering under his breath that he would k*ll my other customers, just really hostile. He had missing fingers on one hand and he was kind of a bigger guy. After bar close I was almost finished counting money, so like an hour after everyone left, and i was just about to leave and I had that gut feeling. I looked out the window and that guy was standing on the corner watching me in a ski mask. I know it was him because of the build. As soon as I grabbed my phone he took off but the cops know who he is. Now he has a vendetta out against me and he’s well known around town. He’s f****n nuts.
Image credits: Neeecoley
#21
#22
Image credits: tomyownrhythm
#23
When I was around 9 or 10 my mom took me with her on a business trip to a nearby city. This is before smartphones when you still had to Mapquest stuff. We were supposed to meet my mom’s friend/coworker at the mall for something. Since her friend had given her directions we didn’t bother going down to the hotel computer to print directions (I think there was maybe 1 there, this was around 2000-2001).
We got lost and ended up pulling into a small storage unit place to pull out a map. It was just two rectangular buildings, maybe a total of like 20 units. I don’t remember why, exactly, but I was really scared and kept crying and asking if we could just go back to the hotel. I assume she got fed up with her kid crying in the passenger seat and she couldn’t quite figure out where we were, so we went back to the hotel.
The next day they found the bodies of two teenagers in one of the units we pulled in front of.
Image credits: DueTangerine2539
#24
#25
I’m a teenage girl who worked at a restaurant/pizza shop. I was harassed by these two men one weekend who were totally wasted, so they were kicked. The following weekend they return, and they tried to sit next to me (at counter which is connected to Bar) but they couldn’t so they chose a table across from me and moved both their seats to look right at me, then would only order from my counter instead of our waitresses, were staring at me, making jokes about k*lling a girl, and kind of just freaking me out.
I ended up going to our upstairs employees only section to fold boxes (up there all alone down and hallway where nobody would hear me), I ended up feeling sick to my stomach as I heard someone walk up the stairs and whispering and I closed the door and turned my music off and texted me mom. The two followed me up there, then tried to go down the unlocked hallway but another waitress noticed them bothering me and caught them trying to come after me.
I just had a gut feeling as I heard them coming and she came down the hallway and told me to be quiet and hold our body weight against the door. We waited for them to leave as they stood there, waiting for me to come out before making some remarks about not knowing where I was then going back down. My dad came and picked me up early because I just felt so off. The following day I had to come in for another shift and as I was clocking out the TV’s started playing a true crime documentary on a girl with the same name as me who was kidnapped and assaulted by two men. My stomach dropped and shortly gave my notice after that. I realized I wasn’t going to be protected there and wouldn’t be surprised if they returned again.
Image credits: Mack_turnzie
#26
#27
Image credits: YouThinkYouKnowStuff
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#29
Image credits: gl_zzygod
