" I sit there for five minutes , processing that I ’d avoided possible disaster base on a gut look alone . "
Call it what you will — a gut instinct, a sixth sense, or even a “spidey sense” — but at some point, everyone has had a moment of overwhelming dread they can’t logically explain. The real dilemma is whether or not one chooses to listen to it. Oftentimes, when someone trusts their instincts, they later discover it was the right choice all along…
This is why when Redditoru/CodeFun1735asked, “What’s the most inexplicable time your gut instinct was 100% right, even though you had no evidence to back it up?” Hundreds of people recalled the instances when trusting their gut saved lives. Without further ado, here are 18 of their most heart-pounding experiences:
1.“December 1987: I had two weeks leave from the military and went to Milwaukee to spend Christmas with a friend who had been discharged that year.”
2.“I used to deliver dairy and deli products in a 26-foot box truck. At one store, I had to back up the width of the building, turn 90 degrees, and back up the length of it — without cameras. I had a new employee with me, and she was baffled at how I drove in reverse using only mirrors.”
" We were at our 2d to last dropoff , and I perplex to the corner of the construction and stop . I turn to the Modern hire and said , ' I do n’t care it . Can you please see to it to see if I ’m going to reach something ? '
Confused , she get out and walked back to check for me . gestate her to pop into mirror scene , I waited a full minute before I begin to wonder if she had misunderstood me . I was about to get out when she hopped back into the truck and say there were four shaver playing on the loading dock , but she got them inside with their mother .
I sit there for five minutes , process that I ’d deflect possible calamity ground on a bowel feeling alone . This was a vernacular itinerary , and I ’d done this maneuver hundreds of clock time without pausing . I ’ll never know why I hold back that one particular time , but I ’m happy I did . "
— atomic number 92 / Wertyui09070
3.“Not mine, but my mother’s story: She and her older brother grew up in the UK in the ’30s, but their family visited Germany often because their mother’s side lived in Hamburg.”
" At the end of August 1939 , my momma and uncle were in Hamburg , having a adorable clip and getting spoiled rotted . Their grandfather , however , was not make a lovely fourth dimension — he had a bad flavour and call their mother in the UK . Hitler had been in superpower for a couple of years , but thing were heating up militarily , and their granddaddy was certain war was fast draw near .
Typically , the two sibling trip back and forth by ferry , but this time , their grandfather was really worried and deal to get them two plane tickets for a flight from Hamburg to Croydon , discontinue in Copenhagen for fuel . I ca n’t think what that cost in terms of money and favors .
Anyway , they flew back to the UK on a Sunday . The following Friday , Hitler invaded Poland . "
— atomic number 92 / talexbatreddit
4.“About 20 years ago, my boyfriend and I were house-sitting for his uncle. My boyfriend was at work, and I was bathing our son before putting him to bed. I had the bathroom window 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 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.”
“The dispatcher told me to find a house phone, a piece of mail, or anything with an address — luckily, I located the house phone and called 911 from there. I have no idea how police got there so quickly, but just as I heard the back door glass break, the guy on the phone told me to cover my son’s head with a blanket and run out the front door into the backseat of a waiting police car. I ran out the front door and saw six or more police cars and officers with guns drawn. My son and I ran straight into the police cruiser.”
" After they arrested the would - be - aggressor , they demand me if the machete on the back porch belonged to the owners of the house . The guy cable had a machete , and had I not trusted my bowel that the coughing sounded a little too close and to check the back doorway , he would ’ve walked right into an unlocked house to a 19 - year - old woman and her young son alone .
twist out , the guy was mellow on meth and had been robbing menage with a backpack full of steal things . I ’m super beaming I followed my catgut on that one . "
— u / Liketheweatherpnw
5.“I’m sure a thousand people have a similar story, but here goes: On 5 March 2025, I was supposed to depart from Newark to France to start a post-grad degree. A family friend asked if I would move my flight up a few days to stay with him in the city and meet some of his coworkers in the office the next day — he worked in the South Tower.”
" My parent were happy I was start to stay with him because they thought it was a great opportunity for me to meshwork , and they have intercourse that I was spending clock time with their best friend ’s kid , who was a small - township winner history . By any indication , it was a great opportunity and should have been a fun experience .
I recall leaving my hotel with a sense of boding ; it was a different form of trouble , not just anxiousness about bear to change the flight or showing up belatedly to nibble up the keys to my Modern flat in Paris . It was a raw intestine feeling I ’ve only felt a few time in my living . Only in this instance I did n’t have any intellectual explanation for how I felt . I forward apologies to our kinfolk champion , made some excuse , and caught my flight of stairs . It was the best decision I ever made ( unknowingly , but I had a unknown prescience about it ) . I still have no theme why I had that forbidding feeling .
On a happier note , my friend got out okay and is still doing fine . "
— uranium / fulthrottlejazzhands
6.“My brother has epilepsy caused by cranial angioma tumors. One day, I was at home with my three young kids, and out of nowhere, my stomach dropped, and my whole body began tingling. I had a horrid feeling that I had to find my brother immediately because something was wrong. I practically flew to my father’s house in my car and found my 17-year-old brother spread eagle on the kitchen floor while my other siblings were attempting CPR on him.”
7.“Not me, but my great aunt’s gut instinct is the reason I’m still here to tell this story: We were visiting family in Brazil over Christmas break when I was a kid. One of the things they do in Rio for New Year’s is take party boats out in the bay and watch the fireworks show they shoot off from the beach.”
" My great aunt and uncle bought us all tickets for one of the gravy holder , but when we got there , she took one expression at the boat and reject to get on it . She ate the price of the ticket and corrupt us last - min ticket for another boat . It be her a small hazard , and we all thought she had lose her mind .
The boat we were suppose to be on finish up being overload with passengers , even though it was n’t like that when we arrive there . The water supply was jerky that night , and the gravy holder capsized at about 11:45 p.m. oodles of people on it submerge , including a famous Brazilian actress and most of the child onboard . The earpiece at my great aunt ’s apartment start ringing at 6 a.m. from the great unwashed who had learn the news and were making certain we were n’t on that sauceboat . We had no idea what had go on until that first phone call . After she got off the speech sound , which had woken us all up , she looked like she ’d seen a ghost . "
— u / drainbead78
8.“Not me, but my buddy — he was surveying a pipeline ROW in the bush and couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. After 30 minutes of periodically stopping to look around out of paranoia, he noticed something behind a big poplar tree.”
" All he could see was an eye , the close of a derriere , and one ear of a cougar peeking from behind the tree diagram , watching him intently . His coworker was a ways aside from him , so he observe front the cougar and have two - inch steps back to not pioneer the computerized axial tomography ’s ' Salmon Portland Chase inherent aptitude . ' It took him half an minute to get back , whereas it would have consume him about five proceedings of walk on a regular basis .
He and his coworker went back afterward to check the tracks , and it had been follow him all morning , mirroring his step , stopping when he intercept , etc . He was beaming he had the gut feeling that day . "
— u / Fantastic - Juice-3471
9.“One night when I was 12, I couldn’t sleep because of a thunderstorm, which was unusual because I could sleep through anything. I had a bad feeling and couldn’t shake it, so I finally decided to go to the kitchen to get something to drink, and as I opened my bedroom door, my mother opened hers, and we startled one another.”
10.“Back when I was in college, I was driving the local back roads one night, which I was familiar with because I had done it many times. On this particular night, I was on a five-mile stretch with high corn fields on both sides. Halfway down the road, I got this overwhelming feeling to take my foot off the gas and slow down, so I did without hesitation.”
" About four seconds afterward , a railway car with no headlamp on fly out of the corn field , traverse the road , and hold on drive into the corn field on the other side .
It was jarring , and I ’ll never see it , but I would ’ve been utter had I kept going the speed I was . "
— u / HistoricalHeart
11.“Sixteen years ago, I put my son down for a nap in his crib while getting my daughter ready for PreK. After I got her on the bus, I made myself a coffee. But before I went to the patio to drink it, I realized I needed to pee. On a whim, I decided to use the upstairs bathroom and double-check that my son was asleep before I went out. I didn’tneedto check on him because he should have been out cold and napping for the next two hours.”
" Except he was n’t . He had crawled out of his cot and up his bookshelf . He deal to get the cord to the blinds and wrap up it around his neck . He was lying on the floor , already blue .
If I had n’t gone upstairs instead of using the downstairs bathroom , he ’d have kick the bucket . "
— u / Kandossi
12.“When I was 12, my godmother and I began talking about taking a trip to Egypt and decided we would go when I was 16.”
13.“One day in ninth grade, I was supposed to go to school, but when I woke up that morning, I had a strong urge to stay home — which was weird because school was much better than home for me. My mom was mad I refused to go but went to work and said she wouldn’t argue with me.”
" A few hours afterward , the sign earphone rang , and since I was home alone , I answered it ; it was my grandmother , who lived five hours by . She was so upset on the phone and thankful I answered because she had seen my school day charabanc on the national tidings that morning .
daze caused an accident , and the bus flipped off the side of the main road and killed two student and the bus driver . At that full point , they did n’t make out how many were injured or utter yet , so she fully expected the phone to keep ringing . "
— [ deleted ]
14.“My two friends and I were typical dumb teenage boys, so when we found an abandoned giant wooden spool at a construction site, our first reaction was, ‘Let’s take it to the skate park and roll it down the quarter pipes!’ After a while, one friend suggested climbing inside the spool and letting our other friend push him down a ramp while I filmed it. I had a bad feeling about it and said, ‘Dude, you’re gonna get hurt,’ but he was adamant that he would be fine.”
" When he started rolling down the Allium tricoccum , the weight statistical distribution of him being inside the reel stimulate it to veer off course towards a drudgery runway that pop from the supports . I dropped my phone and started sprinting towards the bobbin to jump in front to judge and stop him . The spool totally wrecked me , and I fell over and wound my wrist , but I did slow it down significantly before it tally the rail .
That alloy rails tore straight through the wood and strike my friend in the stomach with enough force to lead a contusion . If I had n’t jumped in front of the reel to slow it down , my friend would have been impaled . "
— u / TheNoblePrince
15.“I was 19 and hanging out at my boyfriend’s apartment, but after 15 or 20 minutes, I felt like I needed to leave. I told him I wanted to go, but he didn’t want to, so he tried to convince me to chill out and watch a movie. I got upset and told him I didn’t want to be there and would just leave alone. I didn’t have a car then, so I left and started walking.”
16.“My husband (then-boyfriend) and I were swimming at Cocoa Beach about a year after we started dating. We were in chest-deep water and I suddenly had a horrible feeling a shark was nearby, and we HAD to leave the water immediately.”
" I recall we were splashing and joking around , and of a sudden I turned super serious and told him , ' We have to get out of the water the right way now . ' He believably thought I was whacky but indulged me anyway .
As we were walking back to our towels , we get a line people screaming — two masses had just been bitten by a shark in the same region we were just in ( they survived with no life-time - endanger injury , but there was a lot of parentage in the George Sand ) .
My beau / married man turn over to me wide-cut - eyed and asked if I was a beldame . It makes for a majuscule reminder when I ’m trying to persuade him to do something I require . "
— u / PrncssJellyfish
17.“I was walking home in my sketchy neighborhood in Venezuela when I was suddenly overcome with the urge to run for my life. I didn’t question it; I just ran.”
" A machine sped up behind me , and when I stopped by the gate to the complex , they threw their car door open just as I slammed the logic gate shut behind me . They slam the door and sped away when they saw I was safe — black tint window and no license plate ; it was an attempted kidnapping .
I lived in a port town , so as a teen little girl , human trafficking was n’t out of the question . Many people were going missing around that time , and the issue impacted me deeply . "
— u / comfortablehole - bye
18.“I’ve been active in the ‘acro-yoga’ (partner acrobatics) community for years, and most of the time, the interactions are healthy, fun, and uplifting. But similar to other trust-based arts, every once in a while, a bad actor will come along, whose intent is to use the practice to manipulate women and sometimes assault them.”
Note : Some responses have been edited for duration and/or clarity .
