“Ever have a hunch, an instinct or an intuition? Research psychologist Dean Radin, Ph.D., claims that hunches might actually foretell the future. The University of Oregon’s Ray Hyman, Ph.D., however, isn’t so sure.
Alex, a university colleague, was cleaning his double-action, six-shot revolver in preparation for a hunting trip later in the month. In this pistol, when the trigger is pulled the hammer is cocked, the cylinder revolves, and the hammer falls on the next chamber, all in one smooth motion. For safety’s sake, Alex normally kept five bullets in the revolver, with the hammer resting on the sixth, empty chamber.
Before cleaning the gun, he removed the five bullets and set them aside. When finished cleaning, he began to put the bullets back in the cylinder. When he arrived at the fifth and final bullet, he suddenly got a distinct sense of dread. It had something to do with that bullet.
Alex was bothered about the odd feeling because nothing like it had ever happened to him before. He decided to trust his gut, so he put the bullet aside and positioned the pistol’s hammer as usual over the sixth chamber. The chamber next to it, which normally held the fifth bullet, was now also empty.
Two weeks later, Alex was at a hunting lodge with his fiancee and her parents. That evening, unexpectedly, a violent argument broke out between the parents. Alex tried to calm them down, but the father, in an insane rage, grabbed Alex’s gun, which had been in a drawer, and pointed it at his wife.
Alex tried to intervene by jumping between the gun and the woman, but he was too late—the trigger was already being pulled. For a horrifying split second, Alex knew that he was about to get shot at point-blank range. But instead of a sudden, gruesome death, the pistol went “click.” The cylinder had revolved to an empty chamber—the very chamber that would have contained the fifth bullet if Alex had not set it aside two weeks earlier.
Had Alex actually predicted the future, or was this just an extraordinary coincidence? There are several possible explanations for why such “intuitive hunches” sometimes play out. One is that on a subconscious level, we are always thinking and coming to conclusions, but that these register only as hunches to our conscious mind. Another is that we pick up telling cues from body language, subliminal sounds or peripheral vision without being consciously aware of doing so. A third is that for each amazing coincidence we remember, we forget all the times we had a hunch and it didn’t pan out. A fourth possibility is that we modify our memories for our own convenience, creating a connection where it may not have existed. And so on. These sorts of prosaic explanations probably account for many intuitive hunches. But they don’t explain them all.”
This article – all 6 pages of it – is continued here.
However, my question is – do you think sixth sense is something real? Do you have an enhanced sixth sense or know someone that does?
(And could whoever that person is please tell me when I’m going to learn to rollerblade…)
