We've all found ourselves at a crossroads of some kind at one point in our life, which has resulted in our needing to make a hasty decision.
Without much time to think, we often feel the need to ignore logic, and simply go with our gut.
Generally speaking, these decisions aren't terribly consequential, even if we might come across some new information down the line which makes us feel better about our decision.
In some cases however, making a decision based purely on our instincts may have proven to be a life saving situation.
In spite of the fact that the life or death stakes were completely oblivious to us at the time.
"What’s a time where trusting your gut quite literally saved your life?"
Hidden By Grass
"I almost drove through a big patch of tall grass on my dirt bike just for fun, but at the last second hit the brakes and turned around."
"Didn't know why."
"Next time I went there, turns out there's a 75 foot cliff over a river right behind it that I would have just flew off at top speed."
"Because of the scenery, you couldn't tell at all looking head on to it."
"I still don't know what made me stop back then."- Quiet_Stranger_5622
Always Safety First
"I was working in the sales office at an engineering company."
"I was asked to record the serial numbers off a stack of large steel plates on the shop floor."
"I had to get someone with crane operating experience to lift the top plate so I could read the one underneath."
"The guy lifted it directly upwards about 6ft."
"I was just about to lean underneath the plate when a little voice inside my head said 'don't do that mate, get him to move the overhead plate to one side'."
"Just as I thought that, the clamp holding the plate failed and it fell to the ground, just in front of me.'
"It must've weighed about a tonne."
'If it'd fallen on my head, I'd have been killed instantly."- dineramallama
Hanging With The Wrong Crowd
"My GF met up with a work friend at a bar."
"This girl was with a guy who gave me seriously bad vibes."
"He was fake friendly but his eyes were crazy."
"My GF didn't see it."
"I wasn't having it."
"I told her I was leaving, and she really needed to come."
"We fought, I left, she came running after."
"Next morning, we find out the guy stabbed someone in the chest and killed the guy."
"I straight up said I told you so."
"He was f*cking crazy."
"Gfs friend spent the night in holding too."
"I don't know if it saved my life but it saved me one helluva bad time."- S_204
Active Robbery
"My boyfriend at the time and I were house sitting for his uncle."
"My boyfriend was at work and I was bathing our son before bed."
"I had the bathroom window (facing the backyard) very slightly cracked, and heard a cough from outside."
"This house was in a residential neighborhood so it could have been a neighbor, but I suddenly felt anxious and scared and something told me to go make sure the back door was locked."
"I left my two year old son alone in a towel in the bathroom and ran to the back door."
"As i placed my hand on the doorknob locking it, I came face to face with someone through the glass, who had his hand on the outside doorknob."
"He started pounding on the door and juggling the doorknob saying he was looking for someone and i just told him no, they're not here."
"He kept jiggling the doorknob and i ran to my son and grabbed my cell phone to call for help."
"Remember Im house sitting tho, and this was in 2004/2005 when they had those flip open phones, not a smart phone where you can just look at a map."
"So i had no idea what the address was, or where the house phone was."
"Anyways, i call 911 from the bathroom on my cell, while hearing loud pounding on the back door."
"The dispatchers tells me to find a house phone, piece of mail anything with address."
"I locate the house phone and call 911 from that. so have no idea how police got there so quickly, but just as I hear the back door glass break, the guy on the phone tells me to cover my sons head with a blanket and run out the front door into the backseat of the police car."
"I ran out the front door and saw 6 or more police cars all with guns drawn and straight into the waiting cruiser."
"After they arrested the guy, they ask me if the machete on the back porch belonged to the owners of the house."
"The guy had a machete and had I not trusted my gut that the cough sounded a little to close, and to check the back door, he would've walked right into an unlocked house to a 19 year old female and her young son alone."
"Turns out he had been robbing houses and had a backpack full of stolen things, and was high on meth."
"Anyways, super glad so followed my gut on that one."- Liketheweatherpnw
Listening To Nature
"One time I was hiking after a storm and my intuition told me to freeze."
"I listened and a large tree just fell down across the trail in front of me, right where I would have been if I didn't stop."- LogicalFallacyCat
Home Alone And Feeling Uneasy...
"I had a sense something was wrong in my house but no reason why."
"I went around looking but couldn’t find anything wrong or anyone in there."
"Felt so freaked I stayed at a friends place."
"Ended up being a carbon monoxide leak."
"Could’ve saved my life."- Responsible-Bet-7485
Questioning Unsafe Work Conditions
"Not necessarily saved my life, but saved me from getting seriously hurt."
"I was a temp worker at a warehouse, worst 9 months of my life, I wanted to die."
"One day, my boss who had no training on the forklift told me to climb up on a ladder and move something out of the way of the forklift, and my gut said 'tell her to turn the forklift off first' so I did."
"She scoffed and said it was unnecessary so she got this other guy to do it because I was being 'difficult'."
"Well, she moved the fork up and smashed his fingers against the ceiling breaking every finger on his hand besides his thumb."
"The badass just went 'ow!' and was like eh, bout time i retire anyways, huh?"
"He was like 70."- xarthos
When In Doubt, See A Doctor
"Extreme pain went to ER."
"Gangrenous appendicitis."
"Could have died."
"Thanks gut."- SternLecture
If You Can't Trust Your Gut, You Can At Least Trust Your Dog
"I had gotten my first black lab."
"He was about 10 months old when we went to a local park early in the morning to walk the trails."
"We had just finished a long trail and were resting."
"I was sitting on a bench."
"My dog's hair stood up and he started to growl."
"When I looked up, I saw a man walking towards me."
"His eyes didn't look right."
"I knew he was high."
"When my dog growled, he stopped."
"He gave a smirky smile and asked if my dog would bite."
"I told him he definitely would if the guy came any closer."
"He hesitated for a moment, and then he turned and walked away."
"To this day I am certain he meant to harm me."
"If I hadn't trusted my dog, I hate to think what would have happened."
"I gave him lots of hugs and treats that day."
"He died many years ago, but I think of him often."
"And I believe that when I cross over, he will be there waiting for me."
"He was the best dog I ever had."
"I still love and miss him greatly."- angelangelica16
It's never a fun feeling when you have to make a decision without any real time to think.
But if your gut is steering you in one direction, it's probably the right thing o head that way.
As sometimes there's nothing you can trust more than the hairs on the back of your neck.
Organized religion is somewhat targeted by the lack of scientific evidence surrounding it.
But, regardless of one's stance, the lack of any conventional evidence behind it is also what makes it beautiful.
That people don't need proof of some sort of higher power, all they need is their faith that it exists.
Of course, unequivocally believing in something despite no significant evidence can also be dangerous, as that is more or less how conspiracy theories are born.
As a result, the things people choose to believe or believe in, despite having nothing to back it up, can be a hilarious, terrifying, and completely eclectic collection.
Redditor UnbentJohnson2 was curious to learn of the many things people have no doubt in their mind are true, with nothing to back them up, leading. them to ask:
"What do you KNOW is true without evidence? What are you certain of, right down to your bones, without proof?"
Think Twice Before Throwing Out School Projects...
"Back when I was 10 there was a competition for school kids to write a treatment for an episode of 'Doctor Who', with the best one being developed into a full episode in the next series and the winner receiving a writing credit."
"I was a huge fan of DW at the time and the competition was actually run through schools, so my teacher made the entire class do it, but I was very excited."
"I began writing a story about the Doctor landing on a planet full of defective cybermen, who's programming had gone awry and had been left on this asylum planet to rot."
"The Doctor lands there in response to a mysterious distress call from a woman and attempts to find and save her while avoiding the dangerous dysfunctional cybermen and the looming threat of planetary destruction at the hands of the normal cybermen."
"I finished my short treatment and gave it to my teacher to submit."
"Unfortunately it turned out the competition was very strict about the formatting of submissions and mine was returned because I had used the wrong formatting in some way, it seemed like a weird reason."
"I was a bit disappointed and that was the end of that."
"But then, a year or two later, there was an episode of DW called 'Asylum of the Daleks', which seemed incredibly similar to my story except with Daleks."
"So incredibly, eerily, similar in fact, that to this day I am absolutely convinced that Steven Moffat saw my script and came up with a formatting excuse so that he could remove me from the competition, steal my story, change the bad guys and claim it as his own."
"I have zero evidence, I don't even still have the treatment I wrote, or any letter from the BBC about my submission, and yet I know in my bones that Steven Moffat stole his script from 10 yr old me."- vanhet
Trendsetter
"Back when I was 18 I got my first tattoo, the Squaresoft logo on my upper arm."
"It was 2001 and I was also on my own in a new state."
"I was and still am a huge rpg fan and it’s the height of my geekdom."
"Well, I sent in a picture of me and my tattoo with a short letter about me and my favorite games to Official PlayStation Magazine."
"They published my letter and photo along with the caption 'We don’t know whether to be impressed or frightened'."
"The very next month they started a 'Tattoo of the Month' section and I am absolutely sure 100% that I either started that or was the story that proved the concept, the test."
"Unless someone can come from that team’s time and tell me I’m not, I’ll always believe I was the start of that."- ThatSquareChick
Happy Ice Cream GIF by DrumstickGiphyGotta Catch Em' All
"That my cousin stole my holographic 1st edition Charizard Pokemon card back in the early 2000's."- axxonn13
A Cute Face Can Help You Get Away With A Lot...
"My brother deleted my game save on purpose."
"He was old enough to read, he knew what he was doing."- Raichu7
Law Of Physics
"For every sock that goes missing a Tupperware lid appears."- countryroads8484
Animation 3D GIF by eyedesynGiphyAt Least He Kept Up Office Morale...
"That my last boss secretly hated me even though we had, on the surface, a very positive relationship."- mejok
...Unlike This Guy
"My ex-boss used Covid as an excuse to make me redundant because I was the only member of his team to be hired by someone else and not him."
'F*ck that guy forever."- box_frenzy
They'll Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse
"There’s a travel agency that’s been around in my town for as long as I can remember."
"I wholeheartedly believe it’s a front for the mob."-NeighborhoodNerd0·
godfather GIFGiphySome Would Say There's Plenty Of Evidence Here...
"We’re all too in over our heads."-doinkxx
Talent Is Heredetary... Most Of The Time...
"That a LOT more famous actors than we realize are secretly the children of other famous actors from the previous generation."
"I call it the Hollywood Bastard Theory."- DarthToothbrush
Coincidence? Or Karma...
"If I'm stuck in traffic and switch lanes because the other lane looks like it will move faster, the lane I just switched from will automatically go faster."- mlime18
driving changing lanes GIF by South Park GiphyThe Risks Of Putting Something In Writing
"Getting a name tattooed on your body is a curse both on you and the person whose name is on you for as long as you wear it."- h00paj00ped
Constant Self Doubt...
"My cat is in a constant superposition of having recently eaten and being starved to death. "
"At least, that’s how she acts."
"Also, any of my feelings about myself."
"Can’t contradict or disprove those no matter how hard you try."- ColourfulFunctor
Something To Be Said For Building Up Immunity...
"That being sick with a bacterial infection as an infant and almost dying is the reason why I am never sick despite being a super unhealthy person."- A__SPIDER
Tired I Feel Sick GIF by Muffin & NutsGiphyIt can be hard not to raise an eyebrow at people who believe in something with no evidence to back it up.
However, we can supposedly all agree that that's not quite as troublesome as people who continue to believe in something in spite of AMPLE evidence to the contrary.
People Explain How A Gut Feeling About Someone Turned Out To Be Spot On
We all have an internal voice that warns us about an impending situation and it's up to us to chalk it up to nerves or take action.
And while our brain can tell us not to go to a specific time and place, sensing disaster ahead, our "gut" can also tell us to avoid interacting with certain people.
Do we ignore them?
Or take heed?
Curious to hear about when gut instincts were accurate, Redditor puzzlehead989999 asked:
"What’s an uneasy gut feeling about someone that turned out to be spot on?"
Bus Stop Buddy
"A guy would always walk around near my bus stop never really doing anything nor going anywhere. Looks like a normal guy but could never shake the feeling that something was off about him."
"And then last week actually the guy attempted to rob my ass, (pretty sh*t job at it tho) man asked if I had any money on me and what phone I had."
"I tell him cus honestly my phone is kinda sh*t and who carries any good amount of money to the bus, he then proceeds to flash his gun and say, 'if you was lying I would've had to hurt you' then he walked off."
"Haven't seen him since, what pissed me off more was that my bus late by an hour."
– NeanderSkellThe Bad Roommate
"First time flatting (was 21) and we had a good mixture of girls and guys. One guy gave off some intense vibes."
"He was always incredibly energetic, chatty, figgity and never seemed to sleep. Only good thing was that he kept the flat clean."
"Turns out he was a meth head and robbed us after living there for 3 months. Literally, scouting out the place, getting to know our schedules and what stuff we had so he could rob us blind."
"Scum bag."
– JoeyPea212
Park Predator
"One time when I was about 14 my nan and I were walking her dog in an empty park. It was November and 9pm so it was dark."
"This random man started walking close and instantly I felt uneasy and knew something wasn’t right, he started circling us."
"Anyway long story short once I’m back in the car and my Nan is at the back of the car, we thought he’d gone but he hadn’t and had come sprinting back and viciously attacked her right in front of me."
"If you have a bad feeling, listen to it and get out of there, don’t spend the extra time putting your dog In the back just bring it to the front of the car witb you, it could save your life."
— Major-Duck-8383
No Friend Of Mine
"A friend once invited one of his co-workers to one of our meet-ups, we just wanted to play Magic and chill together."
"I had a really hard gut drop when he arrived and couldn't quite put my finger on why."
"He proceeded to get absolutely wasted, tried to establish himself as the most badass in the room, his girlfriend who he brought along turned out to be 14 while he was in his mid twenties, he tried to force himself on my sister and started to completely escalate when he was stopped by my friends."
"They had to force him out and pin him down while I called the police. He proceeded to punch an officer during his arrest and we later had to appear in court to give our statements."
"At the court date, he had a new girl with him who also looked way too young."
"Best thing is, my idiot friend invited him again. You guys can figure why we aren't close anymore."
– SleepySlowpoke
These acquaintances hid sinister secrets.
Hands Off
"One of my friends would always do weird stuff to peoples drinks 'as a joke' like put pepper in someone’s Coke at a restaurant when they got up to go to the bathroom or even spit in someone’s water at bonfire."
"Stuff like that."
"And I always thought it was super weird his fixation on messing with people's drinks. He had done sh*t like this since he was 7 when we met."
"Everyone knew not to leave your drink unattended around him cause he would f'k with it.
"Long story short, it turns out one of our buddy’s caught him trying to put something in a girl's drink and he got the sh*t beat out of him."
Super weird, we literally would joke as kids that he was going to be the creepy guy at the bar putting roofies in peoples beer."
– Mineysota
Prince Charming
"Had a new guy start working at our job and he was very charming, personable, friendly. Me and another coworker were the only people who didn’t get a good vibe from him, everyone else thought he was great."
"We come from toxic/abusive childhoods, and pick up a lot of cues, things he said, overly friendly etc..."
"He had everyone feeling bad for him cause he wasn’t able to see his daughter. Badmouthing his baby mama."
"He stopped coming into work, turns out he got arrested for breaking a restraining order, that he got for physically abusing his baby mama."
"He was almost textbook narcissistic and manipulative abuser."
"Charmed everyone and everyone was shocked when they heard the truth, me and my other coworker knew our wariness was right."
– Bitch-stewies
Mysterious Neighbors
"New people moved into the house across the road from us. Nice enough, friendly and approachable, but after about 6 months I said to my husband ‘He’s mixed up in some dodgy sh*t.’"
"My husband was all ‘Nah, they’re great, not a chance. Don’t worry about it.’"
"About a year after that, someone attempted to shoot him in his driveway."
– Yanigan
The Strangest 'Wrong Number' Stories | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Before we all had caller ID, wrong numbers phone calls were commonplace. But now that almost everyone screens their calls, it's wrong number texts that have ...Servitude
"Our neighbours had an older lady who lived with them, never left the house and was always in the kitchen working. They spun the story that she was their mother/their children's grandmother and she lived with them to help around the house."
"We took this at face value but it never seemed right, they would go away for a month every year and she would be left in the house, not allowed to leave for the month they were away."
"It sounds terrible now but we actually affectionately nicknamed her 'the slave' because she seemed to always be working around the house. Turns out they brought her over on a 3 month visa, didn't allow her to leave and held her a slave in their house for 8 years."
"Our (now ex) neighbours have both just been found guilty of holding a slave for 8 years and various other charges."
"To clarify where I am from this is not common. My neighbours were the first prosecution of a domestic slavery case."
– thisis--myusername
Not Who He Seemed
"A couple months ago I met this guy and we got to chatting. Right around the same time we met I started having the weirdest changes."
"For some reason I lost my appetite completely, lost interest in a lot of my normal hobbies, and just felt generally restless. I had literally no idea what was causing it since everything in my life (work, family, personal) was going great but again it started at the same exact time I started talking to this guy."
"He really seemed like a good, genuine guy and I liked him a lot."
"A couple weeks later, I realized he wasn’t really who I thought he was and things ended as quickly as they started. After we went our separate ways, everything went back to normal and I could eat and I felt normal again."
"I’ve never had anything like that happen before. So strange, but it was like my body knew something was off before I did."
– fluffbuttgoose
It's fascinating how we all have built-in sensors signaling to us that it's best to avoid certain people.
While it's ultimately up to us to listen to our gut or ignore it completely, it might benefit us to proceed with caution because usually, our gut instincts are spot-on.
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We all have that inner voice, that small and most auspicious person that knows when we as a whole are about to head into some hazardous situation. Most of the time we tend to ignore that voice. Those signals trigger our greatest asset, our gut instinct. Which is connected to that voice. Listen closely, it can save your life.
Redditor u/OddAmbassador4 wanted everyone to share.... When has your gut instinct saved your life, or helped you avoid something horrible?
Whether you call it instinct, intuition, juju, gut feelings or whatever - most of us have a word for that feeling when you just know something.
Most of the time that intuition saves us from things like bad dates, or that iffy tuna in the fridge - but sometimes it swoops in to save you from a whole lot more.
Reddit user CommanderDinosaur5 asked:
When did a gut feeling save your life?
And yeah... a lot of people are only still here because that little tug in their gut said something wasn't right. A few of these stories feature times when mom just knew something was up. So what have we learned? Listen to the juju, folks. Especially if it's mom juju.