My Intuition Is So Spot-On It's Freaky Sometimes

For whatever reason unbeknownst to me, I’ve always had strong gut feelings that are rarely wrong, as well as vivid dreams that often come true. To put it plainly, my intuition is freaking on point. And although some might believe that to be a gift, as do I at times, please believe me when I say it can also feel like a bit of an uncontrollable curse too.

These gut feelings and premonition dreams aren’t always something I can grab by the reins and steer to meet my needs. And they don’t consistently come to me so I can make a difference in what’s meant to play out in another’s life or my own. This intuition is just that — intuition.

Sure, it can be a blessing. Like that time when I was a teen and couldn’t shake a gut feeling screaming at me to wear my damn seatbelt mere moments before I was in a car crash. I was the passenger in the car where we rear-ended a SUV going 60 MPH. The SUV rolled over the top of us, and I lived to tell the tale with mere bumps and bruises. Yeah, that was a huge blessing.

But most of the time, I’m often at the mercy of this world and the heavens above. Sometimes, I know awful things are about to happen, but I don’t always know what that something awful will be. Even as a kid, some of the things I “just knew” were completely random and much of my intuition circled around another’s death.

Knowing something tragic might happen based off of my feelings or dreams makes it difficult to live with when my suspicions come true.

When I was seven, I told my mom that the founder of Wendy’s, Dave Thomas, had died. Well, my mom went to work and told a co-worker what I’d relayed to her. One might say I picked up on this tidbit of info from the news of his cancer diagnosis, but we were a family that didn’t watch the news. Ever. Not to mention, it wasn’t true, at least not yet. Little did my mom or I know, he hadn’t passed away when I told her he’d passed away… his death happened two weeks later, and we only found out after my mom’s co-worker called to jokingly say, “Okay, y’all are some freaks for knowing that!”

I don’t know how I know “things,” I just do. And it’s not something I have ever asked for or have ever really desired. It just is what it is. But it has its downfalls too. Knowing something tragic might happen based off of my feelings or dreams makes it difficult to live with when my suspicions come true.

In 2016, I dreamed that one of my children passed away in our home. The dream was clear and vivid, awaking me in a sweaty state of pure panic. One week later, my four-month-old daughter died from SIDS. Let’s just say, I spent months, maybe even years, wondering if my dream was a warning. Could I have done something? Why didn’t I take my subconscious seriously? How did I subliminally know something so awful was about to happen?

Knowing something tragic might happen based off of my feelings or dreams makes it difficult to live with when my suspicions come true.

I still don’t have the answers to these questions, but I ask myself them every single day. Somehow, I knew I was going to lose a child. In the depths of me, I just knew. But I couldn’t piece it all together until after the fact, until all was said and done, and I couldn’t change what had already happened. And because of this one dream, I’ve learned not to take my intuition with a grain of salt. I can’t revolve my life around it, but I can’t help but wonder if these dreams and off-putting, gut-feelings are a way that I’m prepared for tragedy. Ya know, due to past experiences.

Just last year, a couple of my closest friends were pregnant together. And somehow, in some way that I can’t even fully comprehend, I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that they were both going to miscarry. How horrible of me to think that way, I know. But it wasn’t a thought… not really… it was a definite feeling I could not escape. Of course, I never spoke such awful words aloud. And even though I’ve had frequent run-ins with gut feelings that are often true, I didn’t want to believe this one would come true. Yet, it did. My friends miscarried their babies within three days of one another.

In 2016, I dreamed that one of my children passed away in our home. The dream was clear and vivid, awaking me in a sweaty state of pure panic. One week later, my four-month-old daughter died from SIDS.

Cue the feelings of wondering if I could’ve made a difference, or if I would’ve sounded bonkers, for saying something.

But these gut feelings and dreams of mine aren’t magic. They aren’t psychic, and they are not a form of prophecy. I don’t know what they are, really. Perhaps gathered knowledge and expectations drawn from past experiences, hyper-awareness of the world around me, or thoughts and feelings about another person that don’t quite add up. The brain is a complex and misunderstood thing. Therefore, it’s difficult to pin-point exactly how and why I can acknowledge the possibility of what’s to come before it actually does.

These dreams and instincts aren’t solid enough ground for me to draw conclusions from. Because if I were to stop living my life every single time I had a “bad” feeling about someone or something, or every time I dreamed my life or another’s was about to go haywire, I would be scared to live. My actions would be fear-driven.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, told The New York Times that instincts can fail us under such circumstances. “After 9/11, many Americans stopped traveling in airplanes and drove on highways instead. I looked at the data, and it turned out that in the year after the attacks, highway fatalities increased by an estimated 1,500 people,” he said. “They had listened to their fear, and so more died.”

But what about when our intuition isn’t from fear? When it’s completely random like when I was seven and believed Dave Thomas had died two weeks before his actual death? Or how do I explain a dream in which I saw my friend’s life in shambles, she and her mother wailing, and then a week later I hear the news that her brother died by suicide? What then?

If I’m being truthful, I’m still not sure. I’m still figuring it out. But what I am certain of is that I’d be a damn fool to completely dismiss my intuitions after all this time.