Have you ever had a strong feeling come about you? Everyone has an intuition that should be acknowledged, appreciated, and acted upon. The more people honor their profound sense of innate knowing, the greater it can work.
After reading the following stories, you’ll see how important it is to listen to your intuition. Fear is actually a gift that could save a life.
44. Something Seems A bit Off
I’m a member of a local Facebook group to help moms find babysitters. One of the admins was a mid 20s man who babysat for tons of kids in the area and specialized in caring for nonverbal and children with special needs. His posts always gave me (and some other members) a weird vibe but he was loved by this group as a whole. He was just arrested for harassing 2 children and for possession of inappropriate paraphernalia. Bail is set at 2 million. It’s estimated that he babysat for over 500 children in our area. Who knows how many he harassed.
43. The Fake Phone Call
When I was 19 I was walking home at midnight from a tram stop and I got the feeling I should pretend I was on the phone. A minute after doing so a car pulls up next to me on the empty road.
It's four guys all leering at me, the one in the passenger side starts saying things like, 'How about we take you for a good time' in a weird tone.
I try to keep it cool because I didn't want to look frightened to encourage them that I am vulnerable and start telling my 'friend' there's a group of guys in a car harassing me and describing the car. I hear the driver say to his mate something about my conversation on the phone and then they take off. I ran home faster than Usain Bolt with 000 now ready on my phone should they change their mind and come back.
A couple of months later I hear on the news that in my area there was a group picking up girls and assaulting them. The description matched the car and the guys in it that followed me that night.
I had the sense after my encounter to tell my work what happened and refuse to do night shift any more unless they paid for my taxi home. I shudder to think what may have happened if I hadn't pretended to be on the phone that night.
42. Michael Or David
My mom used to own a handmade crafts consignment shop. She had me watch it for her every once in a while. One day this guy comes in. Looks sketchy. Like the kind that chooses homelessness as a lifestyle. He had just socks on and a bag. He seemed out of it. We talked for a couple of hours. He went on and on about how the universe feels like it's not real and about different planets or other universes. Obviously way out of touch with reality.
He didn't seem like he was going to hurt me. I never felt threatened, however, I got this really strong gut feeling. Like this guy was just off somehow. He told me he didn't like using names. I can't recall why exactly. But I asked if I could come up with a name to call him. He was fine with it. I thought for a moment. I really wanted to pick one that really felt like it matched the guy. I kept coming back to Michael. I wasn't sure if that was bias or not since that was my favorite name.
The only other name I considered was David. I went with Michael. Eventually, I had to ask him to leave 'cause I needed to close. Later I told my parents all about this guy and they told the owner of the building. He banned the guy. They were annoyed that I didn't kick him out sooner because of that strong feeling I had.
The owner also saw the guy and didn't like the looks of him. A couple of weeks later, the owner sent an email to my parents. It was a police report. This guy had broken into someone's apartment and was found standing over the bed of a little girl. He hadn't done anything at the point they found him. So no one knows what he was going to do. But creepy. The weirdest part that really got to me was his name was Michael David something (can't remember the last name). I had guessed his name spot on.
Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash
41. How To Save A Life
Have a friend that would essentially answer a text message during anything, he was that attached to his phone. He didn't get back to me one day and I noticed his FB hadn't been updated yet. I tried hitting him up a few more times, something didn't feel right. Told a few friends, most wrote it off as nothing, because this guy always seems happy. He lives like an hour away, finally I get someone to go with me to hang out with him, worst case, we'd say we were gonna be in the neighbourhood that's why we were hitting him up.
Had we not done that, he was going to end his own life that night. We showed up and he just started crying immediately and saying that he needed help. We outright intervened and helped our friend. He was always so active on social media as a way to hide his sadness. It chills me to this day that if maybe I don't write him and get a strange odd feeling, that a friend might not be here today.
40. A Cop Attacker
I used to clean vacant houses for a living. One day I was working at a house near the end of a dead-end street and there were maybe 6 or 7 houses on the one side of the street before an intersection with a stoplight so it was a pretty heavy traffic area. I was cleaning out the property just fine when my Spidey-Sense went off the charts. I was inside the house but I pretty much dropped everything, got in my car and started to drive outta there.
On the corner, I saw a weird-looking guy that had a nasty feeling about him. When I got home it was all over the news, that guy was now known for attacking cops, making the start of his career right on that street corner about 15 minutes after I hoofed it. Told my boss that I wasn't going to go back to that property. He understood.
39. Perceptive Teacher Helping Students
4 students of mine won the 1st prize for a project they did and we all got a free trip to London.
We had spent the day sightseeing and were exhausted so we got an ice-cream and sat on a bench in a park to relax. A couple of minutes later I notice this couple walk by slowly, staring at us. My spidey-senses go mental. I do not like these people for some reason. She walks by and sits on the bench next to ours and he sits on the bench across from hers. They aren't talking, just looking at each other. And that is when I notice her reaching into her pockets. I jump up, grab my students and run out of the park.
My poor students are confused AF and wondering wtf is wrong with me, when all of a sudden we hear screaming. Turns out she attacked a couple walking through the park, trying to rob them.
It scares the heck out of me knowing that had I not gotten my students out of there, we would have been attacked and robbed.
38. Listen To Your Biological Warning Mechanism If It Goes Off
There is such a thing as a feeling of "impending doom" when your body is like - "Yo, you are about to die" - it is a real thing.
I had not been feeling well, and all of a sudden I sat up and had a distinct feeling of you are going to die soon if you don't do something. I drove myself to the ER and on the way was getting chest pains. I went in, told them and they took me to the back. After some tests, there were a lot of people around me injecting me with a lot of different stuff.
Turns out I had a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in my lung) which at any second could have gone to my lungs and ended me then and there. The doctors said if I had left it any longer I would have been finished.
Thanks brain!
37. A Mother Knows
I was 26 weeks along in my pregnancy and stopped feeling the baby move - like something was legitimately wrong. Went to L&D (Labor And Delivery) and they say everything is fine, the baby is moving perfectly, and the nurse even chastised me for paying attention to kick counts. I tell her I can see that the baby is moving on the monitor but I don’t FEEL it at all, and I had been feeling her plenty in the last 2 months.
She asks if I want an ultrasound so I can “feel better”, and I say no because I’m embarrassed. My ex-husband tells the nurse that we do want the ultrasound sound, and then tells me I shouldn’t feel ashamed for my concerns.
I get the ultrasound, see the baby moving and feel even more stupid for ‘wasting’ resources. Everything looks fine and they discharge us.
That night, my midwife calls and says I need to go to see a perinatologist first thing in the morning, just for a second scan, everything is fine. The next morning I went for the scan and found out I had reason to be concerned.
In the 6 weeks since I had my 20-week anatomy scan, my placenta had developed a rapidly growing tumor called a chorioangioma -vascular tumor of the placenta. I was told to go check into L&D immediately. I was put on monitors and bedrest, a ton of tests and scans every day. The fact the tumor hadn’t been recognizable 6 weeks before and now was about as big as the baby was pretty scary, and outcomes are pretty dire.
On the 4th morning in the hospital, I was rushed into emergency surgery, her profile had dipped below the threshold for the test and she needed to be delivered or she would pass away. She was worse than they thought when I was rushed into surgery, her little heart had been struggling so hard to get blood, the tumor was effectively shunting it away from her and her body/development was not as it should have been. She was resuscitated several times after birth and had a complicated first several months.
I distinctly recall the surgeon calling for a camera, and several exclamations of how LARGE my placenta was, the tumor was 15cm x 8cm x 7cm. It had to be removed in several pieces and ended up getting sent to 2 major research hospitals. I was occasionally addressed as the “chorioangioma mom” because our case attracted quite a few specialists. My chorioangioma is the largest on record without adverse fetal outcome, at least that’s what I was told.
If I hadn’t gone when I did, and if we didn’t get the ultrasound, my daughter wouldn’t be alive. She is doing much better now, spent 101 days in the Intensive Care Unit and is just small in stature (as far as I know).
Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash
36. Something Doesn’t Feel Quite Right Here…
I had a student in an adult course I was teaching. She was bright, responsible, and quiet in class. Then every week I'd get these incredibly personal, long love letters from her about how she just knew I was checking her out, and how thrilled she was because her marriage was in shambles and she needed love. I had never once spoken to her, and she was obviously not seeing reality. I tried multiple times to bring her back to the real world and shut her down.
The semester ended, I reported her, but nothing happened and I never heard from her again. YEARS later, the same month I moved to a different neighborhood, a woman just a block away from my new house took the lives of her husband and herself. Guess who it was...
35. Listening To Inner Suspicion
One night during finals my junior year at university I received a text from my father at 1:30 am.
"I love you."
My heart sunk. My family is not affectionate. My family doesn't say "I love you." My father does not text me. For some reason, I woke up 3 mins after receiving the text while my phone was on silent. I called to see if he was okay. No answer.
I immediately got in the my car and tore off to my dad's place. I let myself in and found him in bed with a handful of medication and a loaded weapon on his nightstand. He immediately broke down in tears and I held him for what seemed like an hour.
I saved my father's life that night and have always checked in on him since. He's in a much better place now.
34. Don't Bring The Motorcycle
A few years ago I was out drinking for a friend's Bachelorette party. I knew I was too inebriated to drive, so I called my then-boyfriend for a ride. As I was hanging up the phone, I thought to myself that I should ask him to drive his car instead of his motorcycle, but I didn't say anything.
On the way home, we were sideswiped by an inebriated driver in a suburban. The front wheel of the motorcycle got caught in the wheel well and she dragged us down the street for about a block and a half. The only reason she stopped was because a cop pulled her over. She was so out of it she didn't even notice that she ran us over.
To add to the "trust your gut" thing, my boyfriend only had one helmet, and I tried to get him to wear it, but he insisted that we weren't going anywhere until I was wearing it. My head hit the pavement pretty hard, but he didn't. If I hadn't been wearing the helmet things would have gone much differently that night.
33. Warning Signs Before The Weird Feelings
I was walking home late at night and I jokingly told my friend were gonna get robbed due to just a weird feeling. Few minutes later bang! Me and my friend get robbed. I kind of jinxed myself by making that remark, but in the back of my head walking home at dark that day was not meant to happen. Firstly it was my brother’s birthday but I opted to go to play for a football match instead, secondly, my parents offered to pick me up due to it, being late at night but being the ignorant guy I declined. Sometimes there are warning signs before those weird feelings.
32. They Knew They Should Have Left Early
Years ago, I was staying the night at someone else's house, maybe an hour from where I lived. That night I was so tired but I couldn't get to sleep -- I was super anxious all night, which was very unusual for me, and I just couldn't relax. I came so close several times to just grabbing my things and driving home in the middle of the night but I convinced myself not to.
Turns out I should have. If I'd gone home that night I would have had the chance to say goodbye to my dad before he passed away that next morning.
I still regret that to this day, and I promised myself that the next time I get a feeling like that I'll listen to it.
31. Change In The Air
My mom and dad were at some sort of festival when my dad felt some sort of change in the air, like something bad was going to happen. He and my mom got out of there quickly, wouldn't you know it, some inebriated dude with a weapon started firing at the crowd.
30. New Drivers Can Still Detect Car Issues
When I first started driving I got the old family car. After a couple of months, I noticed it had this weird shake whenever I was in park. I told my parents and they ignored me, as I probably would have if my brand-new-to-driving child complained to me about the car feeling weird. At one point my mom got annoyed with me asking and told me to ignore it because "cars aren't meant to sit in park."
Turns out three out of the four engine mounts had completely eroded away.
29. Anxious Feelings Can Be Accurate
Last month, I work in Domino's and the delivery driver was out on two different deliveries which can take a while, but I started feeling anxious, felt like something is off even though he only left 5 minutes before that. Called him and he didn't pick up, my boss called half an hour later and told me that the driver had a serious accident and I will have no driver for at least 2 hours, he was in the hospital for a week but I was so stressed because he had a heart attack a month before that and he wasn't supposed to be working, he's fine now.
28. She Thought She Made A Good Guess
Something similar happened to my cousin. When his mom got pregnant, she was sleeping with two men. She told the one she thought would be the best father that the baby was his. While he was growing up, our family would make snide comments like "Hey, it could be worse, you could have been so-and-so's kid." Yeah, turns out he was, in fact, so-and-so's kid. His mom went to visit him at work on his 21st birthday to tell him the truth. He doesn't speak to anyone in the family anymore and nobody can seem to figure out why.
27. Nerves Can Talk
I worked at a fast-food restaurant and I got an antsy phone call from my dad telling me to come home ASAP. There were storms on the way and he was nervous about the timing. I thought he was being paranoid until I got this really uneasy feeling as well. Every nerve in my body was telling me to get home RIGHT NOW.
I ticked off the manager when I left without mopping the floors. I rushed home and I had barely gotten into the door for two minutes before a tornado hit our house.
Looking back on it, if I didn't leave when I did, I would've been driving along the road the tornado followed and I probably wouldn't be here.
I got written up at work for leaving without completing my tasks but a write-up is better than being dead.
Pixabay
26. A Strong Forewarning
For some reason, everything kept falling on this one day, July 16. I had appointments rescheduled to that day, there was a barbecue that got moved to that day, everything kept landing on that day. I said to my boyfriend at the time, everything is pointing me to this day, something is going to happen. Well, that morning I took my friend to her appointment. It ran a bit late but I could have still returned to work, but I didn't want to go to the bbq so I went home early instead. I got home about 3 hours earlier than I usually do, just in time to witness my father have a massive stroke. I knew something was going to happen that day. And on top of that, I got pregnant a month after my father passed away (So two months after the stroke) and my daughter was born on July 16, one year later.
25. Just Please Move Over Really Fast…
1987 I was driving north on the 101 in California around 2 AM in the middle of nowhere (when I was in college). My entire family had been in a car accident and was in the hospital in the bay area. I decided to stay in the fast lane so I would wake up if I dozed off and hit the "bumper lights" that stick up on either side of that lane.
As I was driving had a bad feeling my life was in danger. Out of the blue a voice, coming from the passenger side of the car, said: "Move over to the other lane." I was so startled I said out loud "What?!?" It repeated itself: " MOVE OVER TO THE OTHER LANE!" So... I didn't think I just changed lanes.
As SOON as I completed my lane change a car, going SOUTH (Wrong direction) at least 100MPH, came over the rising hill in front of me and ZIP went past me. This was before cell phones. I pulled over at the next exit and found a payphone to call the highway patrol. They said they had heard of this inebriated driver and had been trying to locate him for a while. I sat in my car a good 15 minutes to finally stop shaking and continue on. Will never forget that experience as long as I live.
24. Dismissing A Possible Call For Help
I was vacationing in Mexico with my family when I was 11. I was alone on the beach. I thought I heard screams from far out in the water, but I couldn’t be sure. I kept building my sandcastle. The screams were my mother, crying for help. She and my father and younger brother had been caught in a riptide. My father didn't make it while keeping my nine-year-old brother afloat long enough for rescue to arrive. If I had acted when I heard those screams, my dad would still be alive.
23. Flower Shop Shelter
I had a funny feeling on the bus on the way back from college to where I was living. The next day, same feeling. Found out there was a guy watching me from the back of the bus. I changed my routes that week and somehow he always appeared on the same bus as me (even if I was taking different ones).
Told my parents who just brushed me off as paranoid, they were too busy with their divorce, until on Friday that week I decided to hop off at a different stop which was a lot more busy than mine, and the guy tried to grab me by my backpack, I ducked, ran into a flower shop, told the salespeople a creep was following me and had tried to grab me, they let me in the back, where I called my mum who came to pick me up.
Thankfully after this, I was able to get a car, to this day I'm hyper-vigilant in any sort of public transportation!
22. Speaking Up To Avoid An Injury
My mom works at a power plant. During some routine maintenance, they needed to cut through a high voltage cable. For reference, this is the mainline that runs from the generator to the outside world. So it would pretty much end you so fast that you wouldn't even have time to know you were done.
Well, the supervisor orders the cut, and a big part of safety is that the guy in danger verifies everything prior to cutting. The contractor isn't allowed to verify and is told to just cut into it. He refuses and gets reprimanded by his supervisor.
Turns out the cable was, in fact, still live.
The supervisor was fired on the spot. Paperwork was filled out. The contractor was given his job back and a small bonus for taking actions to avoid a major safety incident.
21. The Sleepover Ended Early
Back in college I was home for the summer and had the unsettling feeling to drive across town to go and crash at my parent’s house... for whatever reason, I just didn’t want to stay at my friend’s place. I got home around 3 AM, crashed on the sofa, and woke up at about 4:30 AM to my father saying in a very mumbled voice, “I think I need to go to the hospital”.
His voice and terrible motor functions (could hardly walk) put me in automatic ‘uh-oh-mode’. Broke every traffic law I could getting him to the hospital. He had a stroke. Made a full recovery, thankfully. But I was the only family member in town, let alone driving distance.
It really makes me wonder sometimes.
20. Something Does Not Feel Right
Not me but my wife.
She had just given birth to our first child and we had been discharged home to rest and settle down (3 hours after delivery). As I'm settling down to bed she is checking the child and saying that something isn't right, we call the hospital and are informed that everything is fine, all sounds normal and not to worry. Wife still isn't satisfied so keeps calling the hospital and being told the same thing. After a few more calls they say that a midwife can come later in the day or to take him to A&E if we want to waste our time. Wife is determined something isn't right so we head over to A&E to get the child checked out.
The on-call pediatrician arrives, takes one look at our son and runs off with him telling the nurse to lead us to ICU. As we arrive he has flatlined and a horde of doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to resuscitate him, were taken to a side room and told to prepare for the worst. Thankfully they got him going again and after 11 days in intensive care, we could take him home again.
If we had been any later getting to the hospital our son would have passed away in our home or the car. The wife's intuition was spot on and I'll never second-guess her again.
19. A Huge Stone Will Work
I was walking into my apartment. I was in a bad mood, and I think a bit inebriated, and I was feeling anxiety with each person I passed.
Right before I turned into my complex there was this guy who passed me going the opposite way. My body shied away from him as it had been shying away from everybody else. But his attention seemed to lock onto that movement and I felt him eyeing me out of the corner of his eye as we passed.
Suddenly I felt a big fear of this guy, as I turned into the courtyard of my building.
On a sort of autopilot, my body stopped over and scooped up a big rock - about the size of a grapefruit - from the garden. I picked it up and turned around and stood there.
The guy comes around the corner (he has turned around to follow me) and stops dead. I stand there, and he looks at me. I'm focusing on feeling the weight of the rock on my hand.
"What are you doing with that?" he says.
"I'm just standing here".
"Why?"
"I live here. Do you?"
"... No" he says, and goes on his way.
I knew that guy was going to turn around and follow me. I'm glad I trusted my gut.
18. Warned Through A Dream
In 2010, the daughter of our long-term family friend began a steady relationship with a guy. The family was constantly talking about how kind he was, but when I saw pictures, he absolutely gave me the willies. Shortly after their relationship began, I had a vivid dream in which the girl, Mariah, was being hurt by the guy. I called up my mom and asked her to call Mariah's mom, to see if she was okay. She did and everything was alright... Until five years later, on Mariah's wedding night. Immediately after the ceremony, when she and her new husband got back to the hotel room, he attempted to strangle her, because, as it turned out, he had made a tremendous life insurance claim in her name.
17. Don't Push Your Luck
In high school, a couple of my friends and I were downtown partying. Generally just being stupid irresponsible dumb teenagers. Then someone invited out us to a party across town. We were all set to go and got in the car when suddenly I just got this awful feeling and told everyone we were already being irresponsible and shouldn't push our luck and we should just go home. Managed to convince everyone to go home, so we did.
The next day in high school we found out another guy who we weren't even hanging out with ended up going to that same party super inebriated, wrapped his car around a tree and died instantly. He was on the same road we would've been driving on. During lunch, all of us just sat in silence knowing that could've been us. It almost seemed like it should've been us.
16. Waiting An Extra Second In Traffic
When my Mom was pregnant with my older sister, she and my dad were sitting at the light. Light turns green, but he feels this huge, overwhelming pressure to not go just yet. Like something whispered to him, 'Hang on a second, don't go just yet.' So he sits and waits, and a second later a guy comes FLYING in from the side. If he hadn't waited, the guy would've T-boned him at 70+ mph and I wouldn't have been born to be writing this comment. Thank God he waited.
15. Almost Caught Or Bullet Dodged?
It was near Halloween time when my friends and I were telling ghost stories. My friend said she was going to tell a story about her parents' first date. She said she didn't like telling the story since it was actually true, but we prodded her on.
"To cut to the chase, the parents had spent a nice, if awkward first date, and around the time that they would have said 'good night,' the male in the situation - my friend's dad - suggested that they go for a midnight hike up Provo Canyon. He apparently knew the place, since he had done a fair amount of rock climbing in the area. So the two drove up the mouth of the canyon, got out of their cars, and started hiking under just the light of the stars since it was a new moon.
"At some point, he started getting a bad feeling... because it was getting to be quite late. He ignored the feeling and pressed on. In later [rehearsing] of the story, the woman would say that she felt the same feeling at what was probably the same time, though she didn't know the trail like he did. A minute later, the feeling came back to him. He ignored it again and started walking a bit of the way into the trees when his foot hit something soft in the middle of the path. Under the trees, it was too dark to see just what this soft thing was, and the feeling came back stronger than ever. Instead of finding out what his foot had bumped into, he and the woman both agreed to hightail it out of there...
"Years later, after being married for some time, they were watching an interview with the criminal Ted Bundy. In response to a question asking him to describe the time that he felt the closest to being caught, he explained about the night that he lured a girl into Provo Canyon, and had just taken her life when he heard some people coming up the trail. He explained how he hid in the trees just in time, only to watch some guy walk right into the body, and for some reason, just turn around and walk away.
14. Pocket Dials
I got this very very long pocket dial voice mail from my then wife's phone when I knew she was out with friends. I listened to it for a while because I thought it would be fun to eavesdrop and tell her something later that she said to maybe freak her out and then reveal she left me a huge voice mail. As I was listening I got a distinct impression that she was flirting even though I couldn't understand anything she said because it was all muffled. I saved it for later and then after tracking a couple more weird "outings" she was having, drove right up beside her car at a local restaurant where she was getting together with a DJ from one of her weddings (she was a hotel wedding planner).
I wasn't even mad. I had an incredibly clear sense of clarity about our relationship from the last 8 years and we separated right away and divorced a year later. I then met the girl of my dreams, have kids and a life that even I can't believe how lucky and blessed I am. And everything I learned from that marriage, I apply to my new one and we have a super healthy, honest and loving marriage that makes my previous marriage seem ridiculous. Best voice mail ever!
13. Trust Your Gut
I was on a 3-week camping vacation last year in Newfoundland. We had driven out from Ontario and were making our way across the province. Our tires were getting worn out, and we hydroplaned in a few places. One day I told my husband we needed to get our tires replaced immediately because I had a bad feeling. He agreed that they needed replacing, but wanted to wait until we hit a larger city because he didn't want to get ripped off by a small-town garage.
Later that day we hydroplaned off the highway, spun 180° and landed 2 meters down in a ditch. I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. All 3 of us were okay, thankfully.
12. Pay Attention To The Details
I was in high school and I was driving home one night, late for curfew. I recall that I was going 39 mph on a 35 mph road when I saw the lights start flashing in my rearview mirror. "Man," I thought to myself as I pulled over. "Now I'm going to be late and get in trouble for getting another ticket." I had a lead foot back then and had been pulled over many times.
I put it into park as the car pulled up behind me. The headlights were blinding and it wasn't until he got near my car that I could even see him walking towards the driver's side of my car. As I said, I had been pulled over a few times and as I watched the officer approach, I thought to myself "These police lights look different than usual." They were playing off the sun visors and ceiling of my car in the way that police lights do, but not like what I was used to seeing. Suddenly, everything felt wrong.
The officer was almost at my window when for some reason, I looked at my passenger side mirror. I saw him immediately: someone was sneaking up on the other side of my car! I didn't hesitate a second. I threw it into drive and mashed the pedal to the floor. My car wasn't fast, but it was fast enough to get me out of there before they could get back into their car and follow. I turned off my headlights and turned into the nearest neighborhood. As soon as I was a few houses in, I pulled into a semicircle driveway and cut the engine. A couple of tense minutes later, I saw a car (I don't know if it was them or not) drive slowly by and keep on driving.
I waited a few more minutes then as stealthily as I could, drove out of the neighborhood and back to my home. As soon as I got into the house, I told my mom what had happened. It was pretty clear that she didn't believe me, but she gave me a pass and let me go up to bed. The next morning, she woke me up with tears in her eyes. The morning news was abuzz with the story of two men who were caught after savagely attacking and robbing a woman who they had "pulled over." That could have totally been me, but for the fact that I recognized that something was off and something telling me to check my side mirror.
11. The Subconscious Mind Picks Up On More Than We Give It Credit For
I came home one day, walked into my apartment and came to a dead stop. Something was off, but I couldn't immediately tell what it was. Door was locked like normal... nothing was out of place. There was nothing that I could see that would make me think something was wrong.
I did some looking around and still couldn't find anything wrong... until I found a note on my counter saying that maintenance had stopped by to make sure a leak from the floor above hadn't also affected my apartment. I still have no idea what caused me to know that something was different, but clearly my subconscious picked up on something out of place.
10. Almost Picked Up A Criminal
I used to pick up hitchhikers in the 80s & early 90s.
One day I saw two women who looked rough hitchhiking on the side of I-295 in Jacksonville, FL. Based on their appearance, I thought they were leaving an abusive situation or something. I pulled over to pick them up.
As they walked up to my van, they exchanged creepy looks - sort of an “Are we gonna do this?” expression. I got bad vibes and drove off right as they were reaching for my door. I felt bad later and beat myself up for it. What if they really needed help?
A few days later, I saw sketches of them on the news. It was Aileen Wuornos (the criminal from the movie Monster) and her girlfriend. The guy who picked them up after I drove off... he didn't get out of it alive.
Trust your gut!
9. Great Work?
I got a meeting request once with no explanation or prompting. Just a "Meeting with [myBoss] and [Cost Account Manager]" for one week away. I immediately assumed that I was going to get fired.
I had no reason to think so, as I had just received glowing reviews on my yearly assessment, as well as a big fat raise. I can even remember the night before thinking, "I may as well enjoy this board game, as I'm going to get fired tomorrow, and things are going to get hectic."
Turns out, I was right (well, not strictly. It was a contract non-renewal notice, which meant I had like 6 months to find a new job)...
Turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to me. I loved the job, but my love for that job blinded me to just how messed up that work environment was. Ended up jumping into a bigger pond on a significantly more prestigious product where the engineers actually know what they're doing.
Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
8. Roses Are Red
Flowers kept disappearing from the church where I did organ practice. So, the pastor asked me to "keep an eye" to see if I noticed anything unusual during daily practice sessions.
Mid-afternoon, after area schools got out, I noticed a boy would come into the open church on his way home to pray and listen to the organ. But then, from the mirror on the console, I saw him taking flowers from the altar area just before he left. Finally, I asked him why.
Turns out he was taking them to his grandmother's grave in the cemetery adjacent to the church. With tearful eyes, he said "his family couldn't afford flowers, and he wanted to do something special with the ones leftover from Sunday services and bring them to her grave because his grandma had loved flowers when she was still alive."
Photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash
7. Hey Bro
Had an urge to call my brother, we didn't ever talk on the phone. Not that we weren't close, we'd catch up when I came back into town. By catch up, we would spend every night out with both of our groups of friends. We have a very close family.
I call and one of his "roommates" answers but I didn't recognize the voice, I ask for him. He asks me who it is, not completely odd since I never call, I tell him JB. Silence for 10 seconds and I'm told, "He can't come to the phone, JB, I'll have him call you." The way I was told was very odd, nice but dismissive, especially since I know his roommates. Oh well, maybe he'll call later, I head out to a chili cook-off.
Come home and my roommate says, very somber, you have a message. He stands by me while I play it back. "Hey JB, it's Mom your brother passed away."
Went up for the funeral and dropped by his old house. I asked his good friend, "Why didn't you just tell me when I called?" He got wide-eyed and said "That was you? We thought it was Johnson! You never call." Johnson shares my first name, Johnson was a friend of my brothers who would call regularly. I called just as the police arrived, the officer answered the phone. Officer asked them who is JB they assumed it was Johnson not me, his brother, his friends didn’t think to grab the phone and let me know
Photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash
6. Worst Teacher Ever
I had that feeling around a technical theater teacher. He smoked and didn't care if the kids in his class did, cursed like a sailor, and a myriad of other "laid back" things that seemed really cool to his high school students.
I was a senior year transfer student and had done a lot of backstage work previously including a couple of professional...ish (paying gigs, but like off-off-off-off-we'll pay you in pizza for the extra rehearsals off-broadway) shows. His laid back attitude when dealing with stage work, lighting, and pyrotechnics (even the dinky little stuff they let into high schools) gave me a really bad gut feeling.
And sure enough, he was assaulting his students.
Photo by Peter Lewicki on Unsplash
5. Not A Fighter
First time in Winnipeg. Going to a pawn shop. Turned onto the main street and something subconscious started going off in my brain. DANGER! The general area, people's movements, whatever.
I parked and got out to go search for a game system. All my alarm bells were going off that something about this area was not okay.
A fight broke out seconds later. Nothing too serious (fists, no weapons). I went into the pawnshop. Inside were construction guys. Tough looking Russian dudes in suits. A group of sketchy-looking users, and a biker gang. Or something like it. They were younger. EVERYONE knew each other and were just hanging out in this place of business, and people were coming and going into the back room like it was nothing. There was a wall of Playstation 4's and XBOX360's. (Context: every other pawnshop in the city was out of stock.)
I KNEW it was a criminal meet-up. Substances, weapons, electronics... don't care. (Later confirmed by several local shop owners.)
Anyway, as I bailed, a second fight broke out. I got in my car, and left the city and will never go back.
Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash
4. Just Under 127 Hours
I love hiking. I read hiking Subs, magazines, browse gear websites, watch YouTube videos, etc. At one point I was able to hike 3-4x a week. I’m always excited for a hike and as soon as I get to the parking lot all my real life troubles seem to fade away. Literally feels like a weight off my shoulders.
Except one day last summer, I was in the parking lot gearing up with a buddy. We got our packs set and boots on and set off for the trail. The second my foot left the parking lot I was overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of dread. I couldn’t explain it even to myself and I commented to my friend that it was odd that for some reason I just REALLY did not feel like hiking today. It was odd because the weather was near perfect sunny conditions and we were by the water with a nice breeze. I’ve also done this exact trail 3 times and have pretty much memorized everything about it.
Anyways we hike for maybe an hour and decide to climb some rocks. There’s not much else to it so it may seem anticlimactic with that build up but I was going first ahead of him and a grabbed a MASSIVE rock to pull myself ahead, the kind of rock that’s so big you just assume it’s part of the mountain.
It wasn’t. As soon as I put my weight on it this rock came loose and I immediately pushed all my weight to keep it steady while my buddy moved out of the way. I checked the trail below for children or passerby’s as the trail is very popular before maneuvering away and letting the rock go. As soon as I turn my head back to the rock it slips and I have no idea how but I managed to move my entire body out of the way of danger. It fell maybe 50 or so feet to the trail and shattered. The adrenaline was pumping so I didn’t feel anything except an odd wet feeling on my left hand. Why is my hand wet I thought.
Soon as I looked there was blood leaking out and FAST. It ended up being only a minor injury when I made it to the ER (shattered pinky bone) but the amount of blood and visible bone was ridiculous. I almost passed out but luckily realized I’m miles from a road and bleeding so I made a tourniquet out of my shirt and luckily my buddy had a towel to apply to the wound to stop the bleeding.
I called the park control who actually decided to dispatch a coast guard unit to assist me since we were so close to the water. The bad news was there was a solid 1/4 mile of strictly off-limits section that was absolutely NOT safe for anyone to attempt to climb as it was full of loose rocks. I was bleeding like crazy and with the adrenaline pumping I didn’t even think I just acted. I literally slid down these boulders like water trickling down a stream as I had one hand incapacitated and the other was stopping the bleeding so I kind of just had to lay against the rock and slide down it basically to avoid dying. The drop was very far and in hindsight I could’ve easily lost my life trying to get to that damn boat when I should’ve just walked the 3-4mi trail back to my truck.
Anyways the rest is short. Coast guard picks me up and calls an ambulance and I safely make it to the ER.
3. Footprints In The Snow
When I was 15, I hung out with some friends after school and got a ride home that night. No one had been home all day, so there were no lights on inside or out. The friend that drove me home didn’t stick around to see if I made it in, so as I’m starting to make my way up the walkway to the front door, I sense someone waiting to meet me there.
I calmly stop after taking a couple steps and say “Nope!” loud enough for the potential criminal to hear me, then briskly turn around and walk swiftly down the street, cut through a neighbor’s backyard to get to the next street over, make my way to the nearest payphone, dial the police and tell them I think there’s someone trying to rob the house.
I get back when a police officer arrives and he shines his flashlight around the door and sees footprints in the snow leading from around the house. He follows those and sees they are around the entire house. There was in fact, someone waiting for me to open the door that night. I laugh at the thought of their surprise to have some teenage girl acknowledge them from a distance and tell them not today.
2. Under Fire
Been a firefighter for 4 years now and I remember back when I was on my third or fourth fire ever (I was 18 at the time) we had this huge 3 story house catch of fire at about 7 am. I was with the first truck there and we were the first guys in the house. Our Lieutenant said it was just a small fire and to go in and knock it down. He had already surveyed the area around the house. Which was really messy.
I could tell something was off right at the start. I had a bad feeling in my stomach. Me and this guy who had been a firefighter for about 5 years went in and I noticed it was really hot. Like REALLY hot which was weird as we couldn’t see and fire and the smoke outside indicated that it was a relatively small fire. We moved in further and everything suddenly got really dark with smoke and even hotter. I stopped and thought a second and remembered to use my other senses since I can’t see and realized my feet felt hot. Almost like they were on fire. Bad sign as it shouldn’t be that hot near the bottom of the floor. I knew we had to back out soon
Suddenly our captain who is now at the fire tells us to “Get your butts out of there now!” Followed by the air horns on the trucks being sounded (Used for only emergencies to tell the people inside to get out immediately)
Turns out there was a basement fully engulfed in flames below us and was seen by another firefighter who happened to see it from a small basement window. (This is unusual for houses to have basements here in the southeast) Another crew was inside by the time they called for the evacuation and they also made it out. The fire went on for about 7 hours afterward due to the size and that the water main which supplied us water had broken.
I was later told and saw that the floor we had been standing on where I felt the intense head had collapsed into the fully engulfed basement below within about 1 minute of us leaving.
Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash
1. Gut Feeling
Lived an hour south of my dad. Called to check in on him since he'd been sick that week. He sounded bad so I insisted on coming up to take him to the hospital. My dad being stubborn said no and that my stepbrother was there if he needed anything. Husband and I got in the car and went up anyway. Got there and stepbro wasn't even home. Eventually, dad lets us take him to the ER. He had a pulmonary embolism and was told he wouldn't have made it through the night if he didn't go in.
