Intuition

Instant Access

Intuition is the experience of accessing, immediately and without conscious logical reasoning, an answer or the anticipation of an event — like a premonition that presents itself as internally coherent with reality, whether related to a hidden past or present, or to a future perceived as certain.

It is like going from point A directly to point D, without passing through the intermediate steps — at least not consciously. The information seems to arise already formed.

It may manifest as mental images, words that suddenly appear, or simply as a diffuse feeling that something will go right or wrong — often accompanied by emotions such as enthusiasm, fear, or anxiety. In other cases, it appears more subtly, as what I usually call a “sense of alignment,” when the answer simply feels right.

Thus, in my understanding, intuition seems to be grounded in unconscious information, accompanied by a sensation and/or emotion that guides my decisions and actions. It may or may not prove correct. However, the focus here is to describe the experience of intuiting itself, regardless of accuracy.

I have had many intuitions that did not materialize, but naturally, the most striking ones are those that turn out to be true.

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Intuition vs. Concern and Desire

I may imagine a situation and feel fear, firmly believing that everything will go wrong, but this does not mean I am predicting a negative event — it is simply the expression of a concern. Likewise, I may believe that I will achieve what I want and feel enthusiastic; still, this is not intuition, but merely the expression of my desire.

Phenomenologically, it is possible to distinguish between the two. However, in some experiences, they may blend together, creating uncertainty as to whether it is intuition or simply concern or desire.

In general, in intuition, the information seems to come to me — like a mental image accompanied by a sensation or emotion. Sometimes, it arises only as an emotion without a clear reference: that feeling that something good or bad will happen, without knowing exactly what, because it is not tied to anything specific.

In concern and in the desire for something to happen the way I want, there is a more active elaboration: I mentally construct the situation based on past experiences and prior feelings, and then react emotionally to it.

Even when this process appears as intrusive thoughts — which arise spontaneously in my mind — I can often recognize that, since it relates to something about which I already have strong feelings, it is concern or desire — although I may sometimes confuse them with intuition.

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Description

Temporal Intuition

I frequently experience a type of “temporal intuition,” related to the duration of activities, time of day, people’s ages, and movie release years — and I am usually accurate. I often joke that this is my “useless mutant power,” and that my codename in the X-Men would be “Mr. O’Clock” :D

Mr. O’Clock

In these cases, intuition does not arise as an intense emotion, but as a subtle “sense of alignment” between what comes to mind and what would actually be the correct answer.

This sensation seems to be associated with small physiological adjustments: my breathing quickly becomes more centered, as if the air flows without touching the walls of the nostrils during inhalation. There is a brief pause, followed by a slower, more focused exhalation, and the body feels more grounded, stable, and secure — especially internally — possibly due to this breathing adjustment, which also involves subtle muscular changes (for example, in the throat).

This sensation leads me to strongly trust my guess, although I am not certain that the bodily manifestation of this sensation always occurs in this same way.

(Perceiving what these subtle sensations mean in bodily terms is one of the aspects I find most interesting in these phenomenological observations. When I say “I feel a sense that something will go right,” “I feel a sense of familiarity,” “I feel an aesthetic harmony,” etc., this may often seem abstract. However, based on my observations, I believe these experiences are always embodied and can be identified if we pay attention to the small adjustments that help generate them.)

Sometimes, a “time” simply appears in my mind — as if I subvocalize it spontaneously or see a digital clock mentally. Even the color of the digits seems to contribute to entering this more centered and stable internal state, associated with the “sense of alignment”.

When this sensation does not arise, I may test other possibilities, adjusting my guess based on minimal reasoning, where certain cues become more evident.

If, when forming a new guess, this embodied “sense of alignment” appears, I begin to trust it. This does not mean I am always correct, but it indicates that I feel confident enough to state the intuitive answer.

When I am right, there is always a pleasant surprise — precisely because I do not know exactly how that information formed in my mind or which cues I actually picked up.

I speculate that some of these cues may be related to ambient light, although I am also accurate in artificial lighting contexts. So perhaps it is more related to an internal sense of the passage of time, whose functioning I cannot fully explain — nor precisely identify the elements I unconsciously use to arrive at the guess.

This sense also allows me to estimate travel time well, which makes me consistently punctual.

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Examples

The other day, I decided to test this intuition. I remembered that the last time I checked the clock it was 10:53. The image of 11:05 came to mind, but I did not feel the “sense of alignment”. I tried 11:06 — nothing.

When I thought of 11:07, the sensation arose clearly, along with the breathing and bodily changes described earlier. The numbers appeared in my mind in shades of yellow and brown. I immediately looked at the clock: it was 11:07.

(Still, I usually consider that I did well if I allow a margin of error of five minutes more or less ;D)

Interestingly, when I try to demonstrate this “ability” to others, I am not as precise as I usually am. The fear of being wrong leads me to overthink, which seems to block my intuition. Even when a mental image of the time arises, it may already be influenced by the apprehension of getting it right. (I intend to explore this drop in performance under observation in another text.)

While writing this text, I ran several tests. At one point, I thought: “I woke up at 7:15. It must be 8:02 now.” I felt the “sense of alignment”, checked the clock, and it was 8:03 (within my margin of error, haha). At another moment, “14:47” appeared directly in my mind — and I was correct, even though it had been a while since I last checked the time.

In two other attempts, I was wrong: once by 23 minutes over and another by 10 minutes under. I suspect that, in these cases, the desire to be correct was already interfering with the intuitive flow.

This ability sometimes seems to “lose calibration,” especially when I travel or shortly after returning from a trip — even without a time zone change.

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Other Temporal Intuitions

When I finish a meditation session, I often estimate how long I was sitting. The last time, I thought: “I think it was about 32 minutes.” — and I was right.

The same happens with people’s ages (I am usually accurate even when someone looks older or younger than they actually are). I also often guess the release year of movies.

The other day, I remembered a movie and intuited that it was from 2007 — I was right. Then, while watching another, I thought it was from 1996 — also correct. This happens quite frequently. When I am wrong, it is usually by one or two years — even with movies released long before I was born. I think that, in some cases, I may be accessing remnants of memories that are no longer conscious.

In other cases, I notice something in the image quality, atmosphere, colors, or filming style — although I cannot specify exactly what. Sometimes, even without knowing the movie, just by seeing a brief scene, the year arises in my mind, and if I feel the alignment, I take the guess and check afterward.

Because of this, whenever I get it right — which happens often in these situations — my wife jokes that I should guess lottery numbers :D

I usually reply that it does not work that way: lottery numbers are purely random, whereas my correct guesses — even if they resemble guesses — seem to rely on internal and external cues that I cannot fully identify, as they are integrated through unconscious processes. These “numbers” belong more to the domain of temporal intuition than to chance.

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Character, Intentions, and Actions

I also experience intuitions about people’s emotions, intentions, character, and possible actions. I believe this is based on facial expressions, posture, tone of voice, and situational context — but without deliberate analysis of these elements; sometimes, however, some of them seem to stand out and become more conscious.

It is as if something within me integrates this information and produces a feeling: intuition.

For example, sometimes someone appears friendly, but I feel that they are pretending — not merely trying to be nice, but simulating good intentions while actually holding the opposite.

I may notice slight tension around the nose — something like a subtle wrinkling associated with contempt — that persists even when the person is smiling. Or a way of speaking that does not sound natural.

However, even when intuition comes with a “sense of certainty”, I try not to fully accept it as such. I give the benefit of the doubt and observe further to verify whether it is confirmed or not.

On one occasion, I felt that I was about to be robbed. I experienced a “cold shock” in my stomach — a fear response. I doubted my intuition and felt guilty for judging someone that way. One minute later, the robbery was announced.

I do not know exactly what I picked up at that moment. Perhaps a subtle tension in the robbers — even though, on the surface, everything seemed quite normal. Rationally, there were no clear signs of danger. Still, the “shock” arose, accompanied by the thought that something felt off — and despite my rational doubt, the intuition proved correct.

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Moments of Major Change

I also have intuitions related to broader changes — a sense that something is about to happen: transformations, disruptions, inventions, something “in the air” that may alter the course of things. These experiences follow the same pattern described earlier and are based on things already in motion, even if still in early stages, but which I perceive as having the potential to evolve rapidly.

This happened, for example, in the early moments of the spread of COVID-19, when it had not yet been declared a pandemic and many still believed it would not be serious.

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Conclusion

I have tried to describe how, for me, the experience of intuiting arises. Since intuition emerges without an explicit structure of reasoning, it becomes difficult to identify which cues are being considered by unconscious processes.

Even so, when information suddenly emerges accompanied by this subtle “sense of alignment” — which gives me confidence to make a guess — or by a more intense emotion perceived as a signal of something positive or negative, I recognize it as intuition, regardless of whether it is later confirmed.