Moments when we do unusual things against our will happen to us often, and we usually tend to attribute them to the work of intuition. According to the concise psychological dictionary edited by Petrovsky and Yaroshevsky, intuition is "knowledge that arises without awareness of the ways and conditions of obtaining it. Accepting this definition, we thereby recognize that not everything can be explained with the help of logic that we are accustomed to.
Attempts to find a scientific explanation
So should the sixth sense be trusted? "No," scientists have answered for years. Emerging from nowhere, not correlated with any of the five human senses (touch, smell, hearing, taste, sight), intuition has long been of no interest to the scientific world.
In 1958, the American sociologist James Staunton decided to find out if people trusted their intuition. He analyzed information on more than 200 train wrecks and 50-plus plane crashes and found that on average the train or airplane cabins were 76% full on safely completed trips, and only 61% full on emergency cases.
15% of passengers before a trip, trusting their intuition, refused to travel. But why didn't it work for the rest of us? It's logical to assume that intuition sent signals to all passengers without exception, but most simply ignored them, submitting to more powerful stimuli - determination, curiosity or duty.
Later, leading American neurobiologist Antonio Damasio, professor at the University of Iowa (USA), and French neuropathologist Antoine Béchard studied the response of the nervous system of a person making a decision "at random". At the University of Iowa Medical School they conducted an experiment: 16 participants took turns drawing cards from a deck, with a serious cash prize waiting for the winner.
And here's the surprise: if a player pulled a card that later turned out to be lucky, his nervous system worked as usual. When the participant wanted to draw a losing card, he began to worry, nervous system, as if anticipating failure, gave him the alarm. After processing the results, scientists suggested that "there is an unconscious mechanism that governs behavior, which should be recognized as an integral part of thinking.
Today, the capacity for instant sensory awareness of truth, bypassing logical thinking, is being studied in many scientific centers around the world. The head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, Dr. Dick Biermann, says: "Many experiments confirm that sometimes the human mind is indeed capable of running ahead and, by making a small leap into the future, warning us of danger."
The Rear Mind.
"It is easy to be wise after something has already happened," the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle sneered. This pattern was confirmed by American psychologists Martin Bolt and John Brink in the early 1990s. They asked students to name the outcome of the Senate vote for a controversial Supreme Court nominee. Fifty-eight percent predicted the nominee would succeed. A week later, when the controversial nominee was confirmed by the Senate, the experiment participants were asked to recall what their predictions were, and already 78% said they had no doubts about the nominee's success. The explanation is simple: in anticipating an event with an ambiguous outcome, we consider different options, including the most unlikely ones. So when the event finally happens, we can always resort to innocent self-deception, recalling that this option has also occurred to us.
Learning to pick up on signals
One of the most successful businessmen George Soros many times confessed that he conducted his financial affairs relying not so much on the arguments of reason as on his physical sensations: any wrong decision causes him a sharp pain in the back.
Everyone has his own "indicator". Someone senses the danger on a bodily level: for example, the cramp of the stomach or the goosebumps that cover the skin can signal it. Some are prompted by a sudden inexplicable desire or, conversely, an acute reluctance to perform an action. Someone discerns a warning in the accidentally heard words, someone helps visual images. In any case, intuition is always keenly felt.
Consciousness can react in advance to warn of danger.
One of its main properties is spontaneity. "If literally out of thin air a solution to a problem over which we have been struggling for a month, there is nothing surprising about it," explains psychologist Sergei Stepanov. - The brain simply analyzed the information and, without further order, answered the question posed earlier. With intuition, everything is different. Sometimes we get the answer before we even have time to formulate the question!"
In this case, thoughts and solutions arise as if by themselves, without any apparent tension of the mind. For example, Natalia, a mathematician and head teacher at a prestigious physics and mathematics school, has been involved in interviewing applicants for 15 years. "As soon as an applicant enters, I can already see whether he will be able to study with us or will not hold out," she says. - Of course, the decision decides the committee, but in all the years of my work intuition has never failed me!
Another manifestation of intuition - is empathy, the ability to understand the world of experiences of another person, to join his emotional life. This phenomenon is actively used in psychotherapy. "How can you treat without intuition? - asks psychotherapist Tatiana Bednik. - It is part of human nature, and its roots are in the capacity for empathy and compassion. Psychotherapist important to believe the feeling and not immediately try to drive everything into a rigid rational framework.
Can intuition fail us?
Intuition helps some people, while it can serve others poorly. "Intuitions turn out to be false when people mistake what they wish for what is real," explains Sergei Stepanov. - In such cases, it is not intuition that is mistaken, but we ourselves, taking our own hypothesis for insights that come from above. Unconscious desires often do not allow correctly interpret the signals of the inner voice.
"My mother has very good intuition," says Julia, 28, a photo editor. - But she's always wrong about my friends: she's too eager for me to do well.
"I was so eager to get this position that during the interview, I took the basic politeness of the people who spoke to me as a sign that I will definitely get the job, - says 34-year-old Anna. - God, how upset I was when I realized my mistake!
Another obstacle is our fears. "Most of them are born from past experiences," explains Tatiana Bednik. - Experience becomes part of us and prevents us from perceiving new things. Consumed in the flesh and blood attitudes such as "I never get anything done," "Love - it's not mine," "At my age is unreal" - prevent them to understand what is whispered in the inner voice.
In other words, when deciphering messages coming from the depths of consciousness, excessive emotionality, whether it is "plus" or "minus", can confuse everything and ultimately cause harm.
What psychologists say
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, claimed that we know the world through four psychic functions: sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition. It is the latter that provides additional information beyond the control of the five basic senses.
The Italian neuropathologist Roberto Assagioli, the inventor of psychosynthesis, introduced the concept of the "unconscious" - this is the area above the unconscious, where premonitions, as well as artistic, philosophical or scientific insights are born.
Russian physiologist and psychologist Alexei Ukhtomsky considered intuition to be a special logical apparatus of cognition, which included observation, sensitivity, insight, and conscience. By "intuition of conscience" he meant "a mysterious judging voice inside us, gathering within itself all the inherited impressions of family life and warning by special thrills and emotions of a higher order about what is now being done before us".
Intuition - the art of trusting ourselves
Intuition is a unique mechanism for harnessing deep feelings and thereby strengthening one's faith in one's own power. "It is important for clients to find an explanation for the unusual things that have happened to them: premonitions, sudden insights, strange physical sensations," says Tatiana Bednik. - They understand their importance and strive to learn how to interpret them correctly in order to use them sensibly in the future.
Psychotherapy helps get rid of existing blockages, teaches them to understand themselves and not to remain in captivity of clichéd ideas about themselves and the world around them.
"By starting with this," Tatiana Bednik continues, "one gradually gains confidence in oneself, in one's abilities. Listening to intuition - does not mean to become a controlled machine. Catch and understand its signals, not trying to minimize or exaggerate their importance - that's the best way to use this amazing feature of human thinking.
Six tips to develop your intuition
Meditate regularly in any way you can. This way you'll clear your mind and equip your "inner reserve space." Try to meditate at the same time, preferably in the morning, in a designated place.
Pay attention to physical sensations. Notice how the body reacts to a situation and try to understand what it means.
Learn to be still. Use moments of solitude to get to know yourself.
Explore your capabilities. During the day, set up mini-experiments. For example, try to guess who's calling you. And if you suddenly feel that something unusual is going on with someone close to you, call yourself.
Keep a diary. Every day write down there your premonitions (no matter whether they are confirmed or not) and physical sensations: you will become more aware of your behavior and will be able to feel the difference between assumptions and intuition signals.
Always tell the truth whenever possible. If you live a lie, your feelings will also be false.
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