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To intuitives, what are some times you exhibited psychic behaviors?

3K views 49 replies 32 participants last post by  Cuttlefish 
#1 ·
I'm an intuitive, and one time, I had a dream my friend was going to get into a masters program and the next day I told her that, and later that day she said she got an email that they were going to post the results that day and she got in... she said it was scary how I predicted that... she's a sensing.
Also, I've had weird times when I read people really well. For example, I knew someone had their dad passed away without anyone telling me, knew someone's wrist was broken and told them to go see a doctor and their wrist actually was broken, could tell a friend was suicidal in the past without them telling me, had a really bad feeling in my stomach right before a friend called me crying and said her brother's friend died, and I used to be affected by people's auras and energies.

What are some times you were really intuitive/psychic/read people really well/sensitive to others' energies?
 
#2 ·
I used to have this happen all the time but I seem to have grown out of it. I do not see auras any more and my intuition does not kick in nearly as often as it used to. When I was younger my intuition was non-stop. It still appears nowadays but only when I really need it to.

I think my intuition has become less frequent but more reliable. I do not remember when but at some point I stopped having blind faith in it and started to be more critical of it. I think it is better now because I seek to prove it and clarify my intuitions now before saying anything or taking action. I think I have shifted from being an N dominant type to preferring to have some S to support the N with now. It has to make sense. I seek to find the source/s of my intuitions now as well and see if they make sense. Finding the sources of my intuitions is ridiculous amounts of fun. I feel like a detective and it is fun to realise all the parts that created the intuitions, all the things that at some level must have seeped into my unconscious mind for the intuition to appear.

I still pay attention to my intuition now but I am more critical of it. Being more critical of it seems to make it appear less often but when it does I know I can trust it more because it has passed certain criteria that I must have developed or built internally.
 
#4 ·
What are some times you were really intuitive/psychic/read people really well/sensitive to others' energies?
If you don't mind, I don't want to get into many details, but I do this often. Probably daily. And it's a pain in the a$$. Here are some of the more uncanny ones:

- When I was younger I knew I was meant to have a sister. When my parents had their second child and it was a boy, I was really confused. Then, my mom and dad decided not to have any more kids. But 10 years after I was born, they conceived my sister.
- I recognised and "knew" that a guy was going to be my first boyfriend from the first time I saw him. This happened 2 years later.
- At age 9, I visited a house that I "knew" I was going to live in later. I ended up moving there when my dad married the owner of the house 6 years later.
- I knew the genders of both of my kids before I had them & was "told" what to name them in very direct ways.
- I predicted the Boston Marathon.
- I predicted Robin William's death in detail except I didn't know it was him; I just knew it was a male celebrity, but the details were staggering.

For what it's worth, I'm not so certain that this sort of thing is related to being an "N" type. My best explanation for how I do this is that when I was a young child I grew up in a very dysfunctional household and I had to develop a "high alert" state about my environment to survive. I think I still retain that defence mechanism and that's what explains these sorts of things today.

Sometimes I have thees hunches and they usually tend to be correct about 80% of the time. I know I'm right very very seldom, though. But when I do, I'm certain of it. It's like I'll meet someone, or be in a situation, and it'll cause my brain to "itch" or something. It feels "uncomfortable" in there until it "clicks" and I know. And then, suddenly, some of my behaviours and experiences around that situation make sense to me. These are the only times I share them with people.

The most recent one, the man it involved didn't seem to like it at all so I really hope I'm wrong about that one, if only so that he'll not be so cranky later on when it happens lol.
 
#5 ·
I'm posting on behalf of two people I know... My INFJ mother did the exact same thing to me. She predicted an event that had a low probability a month in advance that she saw in a dream and whilst the result surprised everyone, she was sitting pretty. She also picks up the phone when I'm about to call her. On one occasion, she was quite stressed and worried about someone whilst in a train station... she told me that she closed her eyes and saw a vision of said 'someone' walking down a set of stairs with a large amount of luggage. After she opened her eyes, she saw the real thing exactly as she imagined it. She's done many more things like that but I can't remember them all. On a side note, she also claims she can talk to ghosts in her dreams... a recently departed relative came to her one night soaking wet and cold, so they went to check on their grave and sure enough, the photograph was drenched, the colours had bled and the protective cover to keep it from getting wet was severely damaged. Creepy... She's been having dreams like that since she was a kid. I occasionally see passed relatives in my dreams too, but I don't think mine mean anything, nor have I had scarily prophetic dreams.

I also know an ENFJ who can instantly sense someone's "perfume" as she calls it and therefore knows whether they are a good or bad person. She approached me once and just started a conversation out of the blue, like I was a friend she'd know for ages and then went on to explain how she can sense a person's personality by their "perfume". Like my INFJ mother, they both believe they've seen/sensed ghosts and strongly believe in spirits, though the ENFJ recons she's actually seen shadows of dark spirits following her around. Chilling stuff right there... :confused: I can't honestly relate to any of that though, but I believe them since the two don't know each other, and it can hardly be a coincidence that what they both describe is similar.
 
#6 ·
Reading all these personal accounts about intuitive's seemingly psychic behaviors is so interesting and cool!

I wonder though - how does it happen? I feel like there might be a logical explanation instead of just "magic"?

I think it might be due to how Intuitives take in information from the external environment. They may not realize that their brains have picked up all these various pieces of information and stored it away for "future use". Then, suddenly it gets pulled into their awareness and they think they have an "aha" moment. Details that were actually always there but not brought to awareness yet. Also, I guess the notion of relating seemingly unrelated things might have to do with this method of storing information until a "trigger" links and connects it, and surfaces it.

This isn't too far off from how I make my Sensor predictions in a way, but my method is not so "random" seeming. It's more obvious and I'm more aware of it, and most of the time, I know how I get to my predictions.
 
#9 · (Edited)
It could be just be smarts/knowledge and processing speed. I am good at reading things [via] intuition - but I also learned a great deal from academics, study and information for grounds, which is what makes my "insights" so impressive. Not because they are kooky/physic powers, but because they seem intellectually intriguing, even if substantially off base.

The only reason my (intuition) is accurate is because I have trained it to be over the years to be sensitive to particulars, while overdosing myself on data to strengthen the direction and learning how to apply/link my intuition quickly, starting from a child, where I made fun of excessive/random knowledge gain in comparison to other children, I remember I always did more, the unnecessary, and beyond the amount to gain knowledge, which was just a burning desire unexplained. It is "still there" like the time I scraped my knee. I started "exercising" my intuition abilities as a infant instinctively once born with [enabled] "N" genes that needed a fuel.

The rest is luck/experience, the times where I just said X would occur and it just happens, is not that impressive to others, just weird. I am sure there are many other specimens that were thinking of similar one way or another that never came to light. If you told me a fat guy was going to die of stage 4 cancer tomorrow or I was going to trip over my own feet tomorrow, I would shrug it off. Many specimen(s) make similar predictions/random dreams that come true by chance, which is uninteresting. It sound(s) like magical-thinking in this case.
 
#10 ·
Can you distinguish your intuition from a combination of Thinking and Sensation? In your post it seems that what you refer to as intuitive "insights" is in fact Thinking connecting information together that you've learnt or read while studying. You shrug off people that make similar predictions/random dreams that come true by chance as uninteresting but my understanding is that it is this "chance" that makes intuition what it is, perhaps this is moreso of intuition in the extroverted attitude.

I am asking because you type as an INTJ and they are supposed to lead with "Ni" (even though they pick J in dichotomy?) and in this post you shrug off intuition and refer to it as "magical-thinking" and you have made it sound like your "intuition" is actually a combination of Thinking (connecting information together) and Sensation (the information you have observed). I am curious because I also am suspicious of the intuition of others. Do you ever feel hypocritical in the sense that you have faith in your own intuition (that you say you have trained) but shrug off the intuition of others? How do you know they have not trained their intuition more than you?

I did not even know it was possible to train my intuition. I did not even know there was a name for how I perceive the world until I discovered this personality theory. I thought the way my mind worked was common sense and that every one elses mind worked similarly. The way you describe your intuition sounds a lot like general knowledge but I thought intuition was supposed to be knowing something without knowing how you know. If you have studied a lot and have amassed a large amount of general knowledge then how is this intuition? Are you talking about intuition in general? Is it Jungs intuition (the everyday understanding of the term)? MBTI intuition (not anything like the everyday understanding of the term)? Or some other understanding of intuition? Is it just N? Ni? Ne?

I do not want my post to sound like I think intuitive types can not learn or else they are not intuitives. I think intuition is different to what you are talking about.
 
#13 ·
What are some times you were really intuitive/psychic/read people really well/sensitive to others' energies?


There have been so many over the years!

Several dreams foretelling what’s going to happen, such as a serious accident or death!

Feeling the precise moment someone close to me has passed away.

Just *knowing* someone is evil/dangerous, despite them not having outwardly said/done anything.

The most recent example occurred last Summer. I went to an airshow with my partner. He had paid to go on a small vintage plane at the show. I had a really bad feeling I couldn’t shake. I have no fear of planes or flying, and my bf goes on flights on vintage planes all the time. There was even an extra seat, and he offered to buy it for me. Normally I would jump at the chance, but I just *knew* something wasn’t right.

Normally I watch him on these flights, take video of the takeoff, landing, etc. This time, I chose to wait in the car. I was so anxious about this feeling, that I couldn’t bare to watch.

The plane crashed shortly after takeoff!

No one died, but he was seriously injured, and rushed to hospital.

Always trust your intuition!!!
 
#20 · (Edited)
As others have said, intuition in jungian terms is a method of perceiving the world, not "psychic powers." Jung described Ni users as being "uncanny capacity for smelling out the future" on a macro level, but also describes a person who is much less canny in day to day life, predictions or otherwise (Link TL:DR. Jung describes a Ni user who lived in a brothel but failed to realize this, because that isn't how Ni hunches work). We've all made weirdly on target guesses about things. The other night, I had a dream about being invited to swim at my friend's apartment's pool, which ended up coming to pass the next day. I didn't psychically predict the future, it was a coincidence, which contrary to popular belief are statistically normal occurrences.

For the record, since he's been brought up in this thread Sherlock Holmes is almost certainly best described as a sensor (depending on the adaption) for reasons outlined here here and here
 
#21 ·
@Rebelgoatalliance

First, thanks for the link - I had been looking for that for a while. I couldn't remember where it was from.

Second, while I agree with you on almost everything that you say, I still think it is wise to stay open to the possibility that there is something more than where science has gotten us thus far. If there weren't, it would be sad to think we have discovered it all. I bet even in the situations where it may seem like a total spontaneous occurrence of uncanny coincidence there could be several factors that we have not stumbled upon yet at play.

At the beginning of this thread I posted a list of my experiences. I don't think I'm psychic any more than I think you or anyone else on this forum are. I know there's an explanation for it; I am as yet unsatisfied with the ones supplied thus far. : )
 
#22 ·
That's fair.

I'm not totally opposed to ideas like ESP, my Grandfather had an out-of-body experience after a car accident*. I can't really say what I believe about what "really," happened. It could have been a phenomena unknown to science as far as I know, I just don't think it can be conflated with intuition in the way the word is used in personality typing.

*It may have been a full-blown near-death experience, I can't remember, although he was fine and is still alive now at about 92. He has some interesting spiritual beliefs that seem kind of surprising from an old army sergeant, and I think they stem from this event. He told me that he thinks that the deceased can "spectate" after death, and I have no idea if he's right or not because I haven't died, so I just requested that he not spectate while I'm on the toilet.
 
#28 ·
Intuitives =/= psychics

I'm open to entertaining the possibility that people who possess psychic abilities may have a higher chance to identify as intuitives, but it could be personal bias at play.

What is more probable is that intuitives *could* be more open to the possibility of paranormal phenomena existing in the first place. Though one could argue that thinkers will be more likely to explain away such phenomena as something normal/in the physical realm.

Overall, I don't think there's enough evidence to prove or disprove the OPs original assumptions.
 
#30 ·
Maybe you subconsciously picked up on a pattern of when the radio will play a specific song or type of song. Sometimes you are right and sometimes you are not (resulting in numerous but not all occasions where you will hear the song play). I always wondered if this is how Intuitives brains worked - they are not aware that they have already "picked up" on certain patterns until it comes into usage and then because they do not know where it comes from, they ponder about it and one cause could seem to be psychic powers.

Not saying that psychics aren't Intuitive. Some very well might be. I wouldn't know or be able to prove this though.
 
#32 ·
I think I'm going to have to wait a really long time to find out if I'm right about any of my major intuitions.
 
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#33 · (Edited)
I also see intuition in this context as subconscious pattern recognition --> a calculated guess/prediction rather than anything actually 'psychic'. The trippy part for Ni dominant me is it's presented to, and/or accepted by, my conscious mind as knowledge/fact/truth (rather than probably/likely, which is the way I normally/consciously think when I'm calculating probabilities). Some examples of my experience:

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First one I strongly recall was as a kid. I was playing with a friend at a park. She found cigarettes in this bark-mulch/ground covering stuff. I had no interest and continued talking and moving on. Still investigating her find as we walked, she lamented there were no matches or lighter inside the package. Without thinking, I immediately & confidently stated: "they are over there, next to where you found the cigarettes".

As soon as these words fell out of my mouth I was mortified. "How could I know?" I thought, and "why did I say that?". I felt so embarrassed -- I'd just lied/made up a story, seemingly for no reason no less. I was about to apologize and explain how I had no idea what came over me but my friend, who had acted quickly on the news and was already hand-deep in bark/mulch, suddenly victoriously held up a lighter (in addition to the corners of her mouth).

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A more recent example was at a bookstore (one I hadn't been to before). Upon arrival I stuck my face in a book. My friend, who had some admin to do, grew bored of standing in the long line and came over to lament she just needed to speak to the manager (said while actively looking around, presumably for the manager). I lifted my head and, without thinking & with more certainty than I had any right to, stated "that's the manager there" [person moving across the other side of the store]. And then I looked back down and kept reading (I no longer question my intuition in these contexts).

Baffled, my friend asked how I knew.
"Idk, maybe it's the way they move quickly, with purpose & vibe like they own the place"
"But you had your head down, reading!"
"Periphery vision I guess"
[It turned out that person was in fact the manager]

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On a separate note: I use my intuition with my job which involves processing a lot of fast-changing/incoming information. Once I feel 'plugged in' I can have an experience where it feels like the trend 'wants' to head in X direction (and it ultimately does move that way). I'm aware it's just subconscious processing of information I've seen (whether I recognize I've seen it or not). A lot is written about the value of intuition in this field.

The hard part has been learning to rely on it with work (and/or where I have to communicate my reasoning to someone else). So I tend to take the subconscious --> conscious information and then backtrack to try to work out it's validity (even though it's presented with certainty already).

When it comes to serious things "bc Ni said so" isn't going to cut it, not even for myself, which is interesting -- it seems the nature of intuition is it's too cloaked to be trusted/taken seriously (reminds me of the "show your work!" math mantra that was the bane of my existence for a time...)
 
#37 ·
I also see intuition in this context as subconscious pattern recognition --> a calculated guess/prediction rather than anything actually 'psychic'. The trippy part for Ni dominant me is it's presented to, and/or accepted by, my conscious mind as knowledge/fact/truth (rather than probably/likely, which is the way I normally/consciously think when I'm calculating probabilities). Some examples of my experience:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
First one I strongly recall was as a kid. I was playing with a friend at a park. She found cigarettes in this bark-mulch/ground covering stuff. I had no interest and continued talking and moving on. Still investigating her find as we walked, she lamented there were no matches or lighter inside the package. Without thinking, I immediately & confidently stated: "they are over there, next to where you found the cigarettes".

As soon as these words fell out of my mouth I was mortified. "How could I know?" I thought, and "why did I say that?". I felt so embarrassed -- I'd just lied/made up a story, seemingly for no reason no less. I was about to apologize and explain how I had no idea what came over me but my friend, who had acted quickly on the news and was already hand-deep in bark/mulch, suddenly victoriously held up a lighter (in addition to the corners of her mouth).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A more recent example was at a bookstore (one I hadn't been to before). Upon arrival I stuck my face in a book. My friend, who had some admin to do, grew bored of standing in the long line and came over to lament she just needed to speak to the manager (said while actively looking around, presumably for the manager). I lifted my head and, without thinking & with more certainty than I had any right to, stated "that's the manager there" [person moving across the other side of the store]. And then I looked back down and kept reading (I no longer question my intuition in these contexts).

Baffled, my friend asked how I knew.
"Idk, maybe it's the way they move quickly, with purpose & vibe like they own the place"
"But you had your head down, reading!"
"Periphery vision I guess"
[It turned out that person was in fact the manager]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a separate note: I use my intuition with my job which involves processing a lot of fast-changing/incoming information. Once I feel 'plugged in' I can have an experience where it feels like the trend 'wants' to head in X direction (and it ultimately does move that way). I'm aware it's just subconscious processing of information I've seen (whether I recognize I've seen it or not). A lot is written about the value of intuition in this field.

The hard part has been learning to rely on it with work (and/or where I have to communicate my reasoning to someone else). So I tend to take the subconscious --> conscious information and then backtrack to try to work out it's validity (even though it's presented with certainty already).

When it comes to serious things "bc Ni said so" isn't going to cut it, not even for myself, which is interesting -- it seems the nature of intuition is it's too cloaked to be trusted/taken seriously (reminds me of the "show your work!" math mantra that was the bane of my existence for a time...)
That was a very detailed and descriptive account of how you use your Ni! For me personally, I found it very helpful to read about usage of Ni in this manner, since I never really understood the usual, vague descriptions of Ni (although I understand it can be hard to describe something so subjective/abstract). I guess you picked up patterns and cues of "what will come next" throughout life and applied them to situations that fit the general "mold". Similar to Ti in a way, also similar to Si in a way, but also different haha.
 
#36 ·
Some of the weirder experiences of Ni is having predictive dreams. One came to pass yesterday. I was standing somewhere, and a number of things were going on, and I suddenly remembered a dream I had several years ago that matched that very moment down to inexplicable detail. That's happened a handful of times in my life, so far. It could be coincidence, or maybe I'm imposing the moment onto the dream and fabricating that those details occurred in the dream. In any case, sometimes waking moments become entwined with dream experiences, and I have trouble discerning the source of this pattern.

On a more mundane level, I also tend to 'know where things are' without much forethought or direct observation, as Dare explains.
 
#39 ·
I don't believe in psychic powers, intuition just looks at patterns a person has observed in the past to make predictions that follow those patterns. But as for when I've had a great intuitive prediction, I can't think of anything specific. But one rather annoying thing is I can turn the tiniest, tiniest, tineist details about a story into experience-ruining spoilers, especially with games. I drive one of my friends mad because I won't let him say anything at all about a game I'm planning to play in our group chat, but seriously. Someone can tell me who their favourite character in a game etc is, and my brain will automatically use that to predict and spoil something about the story. I can turn a character's prominence on the internet or on Google results into a spoiler. I can turn simple character fanart into spoilers. I'm just familiar with too many tropes and common story patterns and elements that if I hear just one tiny detail my brain can use it to predict things based on those patterns, and it can ruin a game for me. I avoid trailers for things like plague because I can just work out too many things prematurely that I don't want to know yet.
 
#40 ·
What are some times you were really intuitive/psychic/read people really well/sensitive to others' energies?
Recently I had a precognitive dream that my cousins child was going to die.

I dreamt I would meet my boyfriend and his best friend, and knew the exact nickname for his best friend before I even met the guy or anyone told me.

Ive seen auras, and have been through a whole weird connection with another person. I could telepathically speak to him.
In fact, I learned how to communicate telepathically with strangers too. Its not something I like to think about too much, though, because it caused mass hysteria at some point.

Im clairaudient, and hear voices speak to me on occasion. Not often enough to be schizophrenic voices, and it sounds like real people, speaking directly into my ear, but no ones there.
or whispers across a house.

I can be rather empathic at times, but I usually choose not to reveal when Im having one of those moments.

I have precognitive deja vu moments all the time, though.
 
#41 ·
I’ve never encountered this where the intuitive simply doesn’t remember something. My elder brother is an intuitive and has such things happen. His memory is hazy though. He will have flashes of insight that cannot be explained. Until I remind him that basically the exact same thing happened previously and he’s describing what happened next. He doesn’t remember the event, though, so he isn’t consciously aware of the fact that he is simply describing a rerun.
 
#42 ·
I make "good guesses" a lot. I wouldn't call it "psychic" it is just I seem to know things that I don't always consciously know before anyone else does. I'm also not afraid to go out on a limb and make predictions based on what I already know. I'm a knowledge vacuum. I accumulate a lot via both conscious and subconscious means. A lot of times, a specific situation will cause me to remember a reference that comes in handy.
 
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