Hunches: Can They Have A Grain Of Truth?

We all had the feeling at times that we knew something was going to happen, right before it happened. We call this sensation by the name of foreboding. Presentiments, therefore, are a form of premonition, but they do not refer to great events, but to personal situations. I am the assumption that something will happen in a certain way.  

In popular culture, there is a lot of talk about forebodings. It is said, for example, that a mother’s heart is never wrong. This statement refers to the fact that, on the surface, mothers are able to identify what is convenient or not for their babies. There are also expressions such as “I feel it” or “I stink”, which have to do with the presumed possibility that it is possible to see beyond what is visible.

Forebodings lie halfway between intuition and premonition . They are supposed to act as a kind of radar. They inaccurately sense that a positive or negative event is about to happen, that one path leads to a happy ending, while another leads to great difficulties. They allow us to guess that a pleasant event is about to take place or, conversely, a tragedy. However, do hunches really exist? Are they as accurate as many people claim?

Testimonials about forebodings 

Ivan Tozzo is the vice president of Chapecoense, a Brazilian football team that was the victim of a terrible plane crash in Colombia in 2016. As a managing member of the team, one of his obligations was to accompany the players during the matches of the Liga Sudamericana. However, before boarding the plane which then crashed, Tozzo had a presentiment. He decided not to leave without knowing why. This decision saved his life.   

A former guerrillero from El Salvador, named Francisco Cerquera, relates that one night he was entrusted with guarding the southern area of ​​his camp. Unlike other times, on that occasion he was afraid to the point of inventing a severe stomach ache to be absolved from the task, which they assigned to another fighter. That same night the army attacked them from the very place that Cerquera refused to guard.

In social networks, a mother, Martha Fernández, talks about her experience. He says his son came home late, but not always at the same time. Once, still early, he felt severe anguish. The hours began to pass and his son did not return. At dawn she received a phone call telling her that she was in the hospital. He had been run over. The mother assures that she began to experience such anguish an hour before the accident.

There are certainly many other evidences of similar phenomena. Can we take these tales as a basis for saying that presentiments exist? Science has also asked itself this question. In fact, several experiments have also been carried out to find the truth. An interesting concept emerged from them, that of “anomalous anticipatory activity”.

The anomalous anticipatory activity

Northwestern University, USA, analyzed 26 studies from different parts of the world, the central theme of which was forebodings. These studies had been published between 1978 and 2010. When asked if it was possible to have a presentiment, the researchers gave a clear answer: yes. According to their investigations, on some occasions humans actually anticipate what will happen.

The reason for this lies not in any magical force, but in the unconscious. Researchers claim that the unconscious has much broader and deeper information and knowledge than the conscious. Some physiological measurements indicate that the organism responds before the stimulus becomes conscious. A study from the University of Washington confirmed this with an experiment carried out in 2005.

Dr Julia Mossbridge, chief research officer, indicated that if people are in tune with their bodies, they spot a dangerous situation up to 10 seconds earlier. Mossbridge states that these phenomena cannot be considered presentiments, in fact such reactions are called “anomalous anticipatory activity” and, she adds, it is not “normal” in the sense that it is not applied to all subjects. However, it is laboratory verifiable.  

According to Mossbridge, this phenomenon cannot be explained with our current knowledge of biology. The measuring instruments show changes in the respiratory, cardiac and pulmonary systems seconds before a dangerous event occurs. At the present time, however, the reason is unknown. Northwestern University researchers indicate that quantum biology may be able to explain it. The study was published in  Frontiers in Percepction Science .

Although it is not possible to give credit to all the feelings and thoughts that invade us, many times they are so intense that we cannot ignore them. Let’s call it sixth sense or intuition, in any case all the sensations that help us protect ourselves or enjoy the moment are welcome.