Does The Sixth Sense Really Exist?

We’ve all sometimes felt the feeling of knowing that something is happening just before it happens. It is called intuition, or the sixth sense. 

They are a kind of preconceptions, but not in big things but only in small ones. When we predict something to happen in a certain way.

In popular culture, people like to talk about the sixth sense. It is said, for example, that the mother “knows”. It refers to how mothers seem to be able to tell what is good or bad about their children.

We also say things like “I feel it” or “I sense it”. These expressions refer to the supposed possibility that we will be able to see farther than just what is before our eyes.

The sixth sense is halfway between intuition and foresight. We consider it a kind of radar. Somehow it notices signs of when something good or bad is happening. That road leads to a happy ending, while that other one leads to problems.

Does the sixth sense really exist? Is it what we think it is?

Evidence of the sixth sense

Ivan Tozzo is the deputy general manager of the Brazilian football team Chapecoensen. The team was involved in a terrible plane crash in Colombia in 2016.

As a leading member of the team, one of his duties was to go with his team to the South American Football League finals. But before the bad-lucky plane took off, Tozzo felt his sixth sense.

He decided not to travel, not knowing the reason for it. And that decision saved his life. 

A former guerrilla soldier from El Salvador, named Francisco Cerquera, recounts a night when he was tasked with guarding the southern area of ​​the camp.

Unlike other times, he was scared that night. He was so frightened that he found out he was suffering from terrible stomach pain so that they would give the task to another soldier instead of him.

That same night, the army attacked their camp in the very area he refused to guard. 

Once again, a mother named Martha Fernández repeated her experience on social media. She said her son comes home late at night, but not always at the same time.

Once upon a time, he felt restless. Hours passed and his son did not come home. At dawn, he received a phone call saying his son was in the hospital.

Someone had driven over him. The mother said she began to feel anxious an hour before the accident. 

There is certainly many other pieces of evidence of similar events. Can we use some of these stories as a basis for confirming the existence of the sixth sense?

Science has also asked the same thing. In fact, some experiments have even been done to find the truth. There is an interesting concept that has emerged from it: the concept of “unusual anticipatory events”.

Unusual anticipatory events

Northwestern University of Illinois underwent 26 studies examining a possible sixth sense. The studies were published between 1978 and 2010.

Faced with the question of whether a sixth sense is possible, the researchers gave a strict answer: yes. According to the results they get, there are times when people actually predict what will happen.

It’s not magic. It is our subconscious. Studies have shown that the subconscious has knowledge and wisdom that is deeper than the conscious mind.

Some physiological measurements showed that our bodies respond to irritation before we are aware of it. A study by the University of Washington confirmed this in an experiment in 2005.

Dr. Julia Mossbridge, director of that investigation, showed that  if people are in harmony with their bodies, they will detect a dangerous situation as much as 10 seconds in advance. 

This researcher argues that we cannot regard these phenomena as the sixth sense. He calls such reactions “unusual predictive events”. He confirms that it is not “normal” in the sense that it is not true in all cases. In other words, it is laboratory verifiable.

According to Mossbridge, we cannot explain this phenomenon in our current understanding of biology. The measuring instruments showed changes in the respiratory, heart and lung organs seconds before something dangerous happened. 

But at the moment we are still unaware of its cause. A research team at Northwestern University suggests that it may be possible to find explanations for quantum biology. This study was published in  Frontiers in Psychology: Perception Science .

While we cannot give credit to all the feelings and thoughts within us, they are sometimes so powerful that we cannot pretend that they do not exist.

Whether we call it the sixth sense, intuition, or mute feeling,  we should welcome all emotions that help us, protect us, or allow us to enjoy the moment.