“Most of us experience ?gut feelings’ we can’t explain, such as instantly loving – or hating – a new property when we’re househunting or the snap judgements we make on meeting new people. Now researchers at Leeds say these feelings – or intuitions – are real and we should take our hunches seriously. According to a team led by Professor Gerard Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning and Change at Leeds University Business School, intuition is the result of the way our brains store, process and retrieve information on a subconscious level and so is a real psychological phenomenon which needs further study to help us harness its potential.
There are many recorded incidences where intuition prevented catastrophes and cases of remarkable recoveries when doctors followed their gut feelings. Yet science has historically ridiculed the concept of intuition, putting it in the same box as parapsychology, phrenology and other ?pseudoscientific’ practices.
Through analysis of a wide range of research papers examining the phenomenon, the researchers conclude that intuition is the brain drawing on past experiences and external cues to make a decision – but one that happens so fast the reaction is at a non-conscious level. All we’re aware of is a general feeling that something is right or wrong.”
(via University of Leeds)
(Thanks Dedroidify!)
March 10, 2008 at 11:31 am
as a physician, i have come to trust my gut! as much science as is involved in medicine, many times i have had gut feelings contrary to the medical evidence and found my gut to be right.
i teach (tell) every med student to trust their gut as well as their head.
drfinley
March 10, 2008 at 1:38 pm
My intuition has saved my life on a couple of occasions. The only time I was sorry was when I acted against it. Now I always listen to it.
January 10, 2010 at 11:15 am
May i state for the record i dont beleive in god. I totaly agree with trust your hunches gut feelings and strong nagging thoughts deep in you that warn of danger and dont go away. for example as there have been many through out my life, i was on a weekend break the day i was due to go home i went out in my car to the shop for breakfast before the journey home. as i was driving back to the apartment where i was staying for the weekend i started to feel scared worried its hard to say exactly what, but its deffo some kind of fear, i kept thinking i was going to be in a crash. i dont know why i just did, i drove so slow back too the apartment watching everything, when i got in i told my friend’s as i do as proof, also so i know i am not insane or parranoid, so i chucked one the keys and said you can drive. On the way home the feeling intensified into full blown terror so bad i wanted to get out the car and run for the hills, but eventually no matter what, id have to go home so is stayed in the car. my friend who was driving turned to say some thing to me and in those few seconds a drunk in a car came onto our lane, because of my heightend awarness i saw him coming and leaned over screaming and yanked the wheel avoiding a collision. Reading up on this my opinion is the answer might be in my blood, my group is rh neg group a, but that does not explaine how it works, also there was no way my subconscious could pick that up hours in advance, which shows your research is on the right direction but does not cover all the events that can cause these feelings. i have a thought that maybe its the way the brain is wired and maybe like a radio it can pick up future events, but then that makes me not me and only a shadow of a future me. 🙁 how confusing.