Have you ever followed you gut instinct and been right?

Yes.

There was a drug store in a shopping center that was opened an hour later than all the other stores, and the parking lot got quite empty during that hour. I parked a bit down from the entrance by mistake, and was walking to the door when a car with two male passingers pulled nearby. A clean-cut white guy in a suit got out. He had his hand in his suit jacket where I imagine a gun holster might be.

I looked at him on my left, then the store door on my right, then back at him again. Then I turned and headed for the store door. He followed me, saying “excuse me, excuse me”. I got to the door, stepped in, then held the door for him (oddly, I know). He was now only a few feet behind me. He still had his hand inside his jacket. He just said “Oh, never mind.” He turned and walked back to his car and left.

I know something was wrong here, I’m just not clear what it was,

Yes, one other time,

I was walking to a club late one Fall night. At one point, there is a long stretch where, on the right, there is a closed storefront, then a chain link fence. I was walking past that point, when up ahead I saw two young black men walking towards me. At one point, one of the guys starts crossing the street. He got as far as the curbstone on the far side of the street, and then started crossing back to my side of the street.

So, I have a guy approaching from my left, another from the front, and a chainlink fence in my right. It was late so there was no traffic. I might have turned and run in the direction behind me, but that didn’t feel right. But I knew I was in trouble. So, I unzipped my Fall jacket, and put my hand inside my jacket where I thought a gun holster might go, and pretended to fiddle with it.

The guy on my left was now in the center of the street heading towards me. He did this wobble as he processed what he was seeing, and crossed back to the other side, I passed the guy who was coming from the front without incident, still with my hand in my coat.

I just know something was amiss here. Amazed that I got through it unscathed.

I had a feeling my boss was trying to fire me, and ignored it. I focused on being the best employee ever while he set me up to fail. And then I got fired. Since then I've learned to follow my instincts.

Came home one day, just got in the house and then had this overwhelming sense that my elderly next door neighbor needed help. It was so strong, I ran through the back yard and hammered on her back door. Turned out she had fallen out of her wheelchair not long before I'd come home.

What would you have done differently, R3?

r5 found another job and quit earlier. I was afraid to make the change myself and had to be forced out of it. I wasn't happy there and the new boss was a nightmare - needy, self-absorbed, mean-spirited, passive-aggressive - as soon as I realized that I should have started looking. I could tell he was lying to me and things were going on that were working against me, so I knew what was happening, but I didn't want to admit it because I thought I might be mind-reading / projecting. I didn't trust myself, but I learned I need to. I guess it ended up being a learning experience.

Yes.

I had been working late on a computer program in college. They took the computers down around 1am for backups so I decided to leave. As I walked down a narrow corridor towards the door, my knees began to go weak. I kept telling myself not to be a weenie. As I reached out toward the door knob a sense of panic set in. I turned around so fast that I ran right out of my flip flop.

I returned to the computer room, shut the door and fell asleep. The next morning I went back to that door thinking I had been paranoid the night before. There was a big pile of cigarette butts outside on the ground. Someone had been out there waiting for me.

I think what caused me to turn and run is that I caught a whiff of his cigarette smoke.

Wow, R7!

Why do you assume it was a him, r7? It could have been a smoking woman.

I had seen a guy out there about three hours before when I walked past the corridor to get to the bathroom, r9.

I don't know if this counts - but in highschool I was catching a bus to my after school job and for some reason I wasn't feeling the bus stop I was at and started walking to another about two blocks away. As I was walking I heard tires screeching and a huge crash, I looked back to see a totaled car on top of the very bench on which I was sitting. It freaked me out for days.

No, Rose. Never. 🙄

I started this thread because I've been having issues with someone and suddenly they're acting out of character but at the same time doing small things that are making me wonder what he's up to.

That counts, r11!

Nope.

I was walking with two friends in New Orleans, from the FQ to the Garden District. It was broad daylight but the street we were on felt ghostly, we went from loud crowds to being literally the ONLY people on the street — we didn’t care, we were partying and laughing, having a gay ol’ time.

Next thing I know, out of the corner of my eye there are two huge goons walking maybe four feet behind us, staring at us intensely. As I said, there was NO ONE else on the street to help us, plus there was no reason for them to be so close, so I knew immediately we had a problem. They were HUGE, very muscular and looked Caucasian-ish but also maybe in a gang, they just looked like criminals, heavy thug jewelry, thick-rimmed caps etc.

I whispered quickly to one friend that we were about to get jumped (we had backpacks, I sensed they wanted to rob us). My one friend who was quite the brawler at one time turned around in a very cocky way and started walking backwards, facing these guys, while we kept moving in the same direction. We just kept talking and laughing like they weren’t there but we were all ready to fight. After maybe 100 yards, they just split and crossed the street. I knew that once they realized they had lost the element of surprise, they decided we were too much trouble.

And that’s not my only New Orleans brush with crime/dark weirdness. It’s such a unique city, I looooove the food and history and architecture, but it is just WAY too seedy and crime-infested for my taste. This was a long time ago, not sure if the city is still the same. I still had an amazing time there.

July 1986. I was young and naive—early 20’s. It was after midnight. I got into a cab. The young driver said he’d take me home but was planning to end his shift and made arrangements to pick up two friends. He could take me home but would I mind if he picked them up first, since it was on the way to my place anyway, and then they’d drop me off? He had a slight build and seemed meek and I honestly didn’t mind so I said so. Zero apprehension. I settled back as the driver waited to turn right onto a busy street. Out of the blue, a. strong sense of danger came over me. Like a bolt. I’ve never felt anything like it, before or since. The feeling almost seemed to be coming from outside me. I tried to ignore it and as I did, the insistent feeling instantly intensified. I didn’t understand why, but I knew I had to get out of the cab immediately. (This all happened within seconds.). As I quickly opened the door— apologizing—the driver became a different person from the “mild mannered guy” I initially pegged him to be. People can scoff, but I will die believing I was being protected by something that night. It was beyond normal intuition.

Re normal intuitive experiences— I’ve been in work situations where I’ve seen unsettling things (bullies) and when I’ve gone to higher ups, been treated like I was the crazy one. (I was trying to defend myself.) So I retreated. In all the instances, however, the bullies were eventually exposed. (One “beautiful person” was institutionalized a few weeks after one such conversation, shocking everyone at work but me.).

Those experiences taught me to have faith in my gut feelings. I tend to be too easygoing because of wanting to be nice & play fair, which makes me vulnerable to a bully co-worker with more seniority every decade or so, usually as a fairly new employee myself.....I’m going through it now and am debating whether I should leave or stay, since there are other red flags. Last week, management caught my supervisor in a lie about me. This may resolve itself but it may not. Coming from an alchoholic home, I tend to stay loyal to unhealthy people & situations far longer than I should, so I’m on alert. Regardless, past experience has taught me that staying non-resistant/calm always leads to a positive outcome.

Once I didn’t act in time despite intuition and signs because I was afraid to leave a 20-year job. I ended up being fired from the situation shortly after a merger but landed a better job at a more prestigious firm for more money a month later, where I stayed for 10 years. And there were a lot of crazy coincidences that led to the job, too. So sometimes I wonder who was rattling “the tree” (security) I was desperately holding onto. Same thing recently happened to a friend of mine.

Management often sides the money maker, even if institutionalized. If I had hinky feelings about a boss, I’d start looking....

Good stories and wisdom r17.

A friend and I joined a couple of guys who were friends of his, to spend a day on the couple’s small motor boat. I was probably about 25 at the time. After heading down river, we dropped anchor before a draw bridge, and waited for the harbor master to raise the bridge, for us to pass through.

After far too long a period without moving, the Captain then declared that the tide had gone out, and the water was now too shallow to motor back to the dock. We were going to have to spend the night there, in that tiny boat. Of course I was pissed about the whole matter.

Shortly after that declaration, the Captain waved to a boat that was passing by. (In boating culture, you wave to everybody.) I raised my arms above my head and waved them frantically. They motored over, and I asked these strangers if I could hitch a ride back to the dock with them, and they said sure! My friend chose to stay.

I hope that embarrassed the Captain, because I sensed a drugged/rape scenario was going to take place later, if I stayed on that boat. Either than, or the Captain was too stupid to be captaining any boat.

Almost identical to r11, only it was one of those glass bus shelters and it was completely shattered and flattened by an oil truck.

This is a health issue rather than an escape from danger, but...

Once, I was getting sicker and sicker, and for days I'd been running from doctor to doctor who were trying to figure out what my symptoms meant. I seemed to be getting slowly worse, but one morning I woke up with a fever and a very strong sense that if I didn't get help right away I WAS GOING TO DIE. So I called the ambulance and was brought to the ER, and it turned out that most of my symptoms were due to a life-threatening infection and I was heading towards septic shock. I had emergency surgery and a lot of other treatments just in time.

I've heard a lot of other similar stories. I don't believe in guardian angels but I do believe in gut instinct, and there's absolutely a gut instinct where your own body is concerned. Your brain can tell when the body is in trouble, listen to it if it sets off alarm bells.

I'm a history nerd and live in a 1920s-era house. Over the past few years, I've spent hours on researching its often bizarre and dramatic history. A few weeks ago, I found an item about a 1940 break-in attempt at the house, foiled because the lady of the house screamed him off the side of the house.

Five minutes later, I had a bad feeling and went to check the side of the house. There was a guy hiding under my open living room window. I went full blown Karen Black at the end of Burnt Offerings and had him out of there in thirty seconds with my profane hollering.

The house warned me. I found that 1940 item just minutes before I had the instinct to check outside.