# Intuition VS Paranoia



## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Been thinking about this, even googled it and found quite a few random articles on it. So far, none providing a solid solution.

All my life I placed my trust in my instincts. But many times, I find myself confused on whether it's paranoia or intuition. The paranoia did serve me well, leaving me several steps ahead of those who wished me harm. But it was an unhealthy way to live. As the years went by I tried to separate the two, and I considered my intuition subconscious information provided that my conscious mind fails to pick up, and leave it for my rational mind / logic to discern. Yet it seems at times I am still confused.

In social interaction, sometimes I pick up signals, and once I confronted a friend about it, which he denied that I shouldn't think that way, but I was quite sure I offended him, body language, everything... but was it paranoia? Or was he just denying it to be polite and attempt to hide his reaction? It's a long time ago though so I dunno...

The times I'm wrong about my intuition is when I misjudge the signals as something else, hence I learnt to use my rational mind. But how do we know if the signals are from our intuition or if it's just paranoia and we are wasting our time thinking too much about it trying to make sense of things?


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## Lostinthought61 (Nov 5, 2013)

when we were hunter gathers intuition saves our lives, intuition kept us alive and those who had a stronger level of intuition stayed alive longer. Then farming came along, with property and walls and stuff and soon our intuition sat on the back burner. Don't underestimate it


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## sa58 (Feb 26, 2018)

Intuition and a rational mind work together.
If your intuition tells you something is going on
then you use your rational mind to find out and confirm 
it.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

But how to discern it from paranoia? How do you know if it's really a gut feeling, or just your fear?


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## Ynot (Aug 26, 2014)

I think intuition arises from a rational fear, whereas paranoia is irrational for the most part. So if your rational mind tells you there is something to be aware of that is intuition. If you are afraid of something and you can't figure out why, that is usually paranoia. Like being afraid of the dark.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Ynot said:


> I think intuition arises from a rational fear, whereas paranoia is irrational for the most part. So if your rational mind tells you there is something to be aware of that is intuition. If you are afraid of something and you can't figure out why, that is usually paranoia. Like being afraid of the dark.


How about in a social situation, like the example of my old friend:

I had a hunch I offended him, I can't remember exactly, but everything from his face to his body language, conveyed that. He denied it of course, quite convincingly, making me question my intuition. I always use this example when I question the accuracy of my intuition. I have also come to the conclusion to use my rational mind to discern, but sometimes I wonder if I get it mixed up in paranoia.

At work, I guess I do fear making the wrong decisions and having not just myself but my colleagues suffering from it. Sometimes I am right, but other times, I am wrong and I don't chalk it up to a lack of intuition but misread signals that I'm lucky I 'channeled' through rational processes before reaching conclusions. Is this paranoia? A close friend believes it is. Hence this thread.

If so I am looking to find a way to discern intuition against paranoia, I hate to have the only real thing I trust to be clouded by my own fears.


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## Ynot (Aug 26, 2014)

RandomDude said:


> How about in a social situation, like the example of my old friend:
> 
> I had a hunch I offended him, I can't remember exactly, but everything from his face to his body language, conveyed that. He denied it of course, quite convincingly, making me question my intuition. I always use this example when I question the accuracy of my intuition. I have also come to the conclusion to use my rational mind to discern, but sometimes I wonder if I get it mixed up in paranoia.
> 
> ...


First off don't be afraid to make mistakes. Second off learn from them so you don't make the same mistake twice. All I can say, is run whatever you are afraid thru your mind. If it makes sense there is a good chance it is intuition. If it doesn't it is probably paranoia.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

RandomDude said:


> But how to discern it from paranoia? How do you know if it's really a gut feeling, or just your fear?


Probability.

A 30% chance event is instinct. A .3% event is paranoia.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Ynot said:


> First off don't be afraid to make mistakes. Second off learn from them so you don't make the same mistake twice. All I can say, is run whatever you are afraid thru your mind. If it makes sense there is a good chance it is intuition. If it doesn't it is probably paranoia.


But sometimes it makes sense to me, rationally and I get it wrong. Find out I end up thinking too much.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

john117 said:


> Probability.
> 
> A 30% chance event is instinct. A .3% event is paranoia.


I wouldn't take a shot at 30%, unless the consequences are minimal. If consequences are more dire, I tend to go at the 80% range with backups, 98% all in.

30%... intuition, it can do better than that right? Or will we always be limited by our own humanity?


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

People have lots of built in "intuitive" and automatic reactions. Some of those are great - they make you leap out of the way of an oncoming car. The let you recognize that a hostile person is about to attack you - or warn you to get out of a situation where a group of people are planning to do you harm.

They also cause endless problems - they can make you suspicious of people who look or speak differently (not your *tribe*). They can make you react with hostility or aggression to someone who is annoying you - OK in the Paleolithic, but not so good today if the person annoying you is your boss or a police officer. 

While I understand the attraction of intuition, I try to avoid using it because when it goes wrong, it can go REALLY wrong.


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## wild jade (Jun 21, 2016)

You can only know for sure after the fact, and even then it can be tricky. 

Intuition has saved my hide more times than I can count. Much more than paranoia has caused me any trouble. I always try to listen.

If your friend is denying it, I would let it go. That doesn't necessarily mean you were wrong, though, just that it's not worth the angst about being right.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

wild jade said:


> You can only know for sure after the fact, and even then it can be tricky.
> 
> Intuition has saved my hide more times than I can count. Much more than paranoia has caused me any trouble. I always try to listen.
> 
> If your friend is denying it, I would let it go. That doesn't necessarily mean you were wrong, though, just that it's not worth the angst about being right.


True, not so sure even today I believe him. Still, sometimes the signals get overpowering, especially with some attention to detail, red flags everywhere but my conscious mind says, 40% it's what I feel it is, 60% they are just having a bad day. I have to remind myself that, and many times, it's the latter with rational reasoning winning out, even though the signals were right to stand out.


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## WilliamM (Mar 14, 2017)

Be fearless. Then all you have left is intuition.

I know, fear keeps us alive, but hey I’m still here after years of adrenaline rushes. My wife says I’m just lucky.

I admit, without reaching that fear threshold I can’t get the adrenaline rush, so it’s all just talk. But fear isn’t something lurking in a conversation with anyone. The only place I’ve ever found fear was in the face of defeat or death.

If your friend can’t fess up, to hell with him.


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## Tatsuhiko (Jun 21, 2016)

I think intuition is usually correct. We've become so "intelligent" that we often talk ourselves out of it, or rationalize. 

I once heard an interview with a woman who related the story of a night she rode the subway home from work, like she usually did. She got off at her stop onto the platform and walked past a man. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She'd never felt this before. She'd heard the expression, but didn't know what it meant until it happened to her. But she walked on past and didn't look back. The man robbed her a few minutes later. Her "animal" knew something was wrong with the man. Her human did not. 

I've noticed that my intuitions about people's feelings become stronger after I've had a drink or two. It's almost as if the alcohol helps me overcome the intellectual noise that blocks the intuition.


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## notmyrealname4 (Apr 9, 2014)

,


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## WilliamM (Mar 14, 2017)

Note, someone could talk themselves out of their instinctive reaction with logical arguments and therefore believe their instinctive reaction was wrong most of the time when in fact what was wrong was the logical argument.

I still say trust the instinctive reaction first.

I am certain any logical arguments used to counter instinctive reaction must be flawed. Instinctive reactions come from someplace deeper, and I am sure better at real understanding.

And it is true that when I was young I thought logic should be the more important part of the puzzle of life. I’ve decided that was very misguided thinking.


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## purplesunsets (Feb 26, 2018)

In my experience and my "research" into the two: paranoia is deeply connected to fear while intuition is not. If, in the situation you feel strong feelings of fear and reactivity, it's probably paranoia. However, if you have this little voice or some inkling that something is off, without the strong feelings of fear and reactivity, it's probably your intuition! 

To give you an example... one night, I had this very weird feeling that I should check my ex husband's phone. There was no fear or anything, just a feeling that there was something there for me to see. In a matter of minutes, I found a conversation he'd been having with a woman and after confronting him, soon learned he'd cheated on me. In the following years, there were moments that I reached for his phone out of fear, or questioned him...but I never found anything.. Of course, he may have gotten better at hiding things, who knows, but I felt less in control and more crazy with paranoia... Intuition always feels like a wise ol' owl pointing you in a direction .


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Struggling with this still, like, intuition picks up the signals, but what if the signals picked up are wrong, like, someone can mistakedly give off the wrong signals right?

Hence the need to apply rationality and probability, and then making a consensus appropriately no?


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## NextTimeAround (Dec 15, 2011)

I'm trusting my intuition and gut feeling more and more. If what I know for a fact covers only 60% or more and the rest of the needed puzzle pieces are plausible, I still go with it to protect myself That is, to say no, to be more careful with what I say and so on.... It also helps that with a lot of life experiences, I am less surprised now when people behave badly ..... selfishly, rudely, unfairly, sometimes illegally (like the guy whom I was dating who wanted to borrow my car ....... I really do believe now that he wanted to loan my car to his ex gf. That is AT LEAST, borderline illegal.)

It's interesting that even when you confide in close friends, it's as if they have some stake in an issue you're having -- say something due to work or with people that they don't even know -- and they call you crazy for leaping to conclusion. Of course, when they have similar issues and jump to conclusions on the basis of a few known facts, they say "this time it's different."

For example, it's taken me decades to realise that my sister was playing informer with a guy who was stalking me. He befriended her and her husband at the time. But seriously, when someone regularly shows up to places where you are and it's not work or any other place that you go to regularly, that's not dumb luck or dumb coincidence, that person is getting their information from somewhere. 

When I was mentioning this to a close friend, she wanted to deny it. Although ironically, as a mother herself, she is having to jump to conclusions regularly about people with whom her kids in contact with ...... since all we know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.


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## NextTimeAround (Dec 15, 2011)

Not to mention, that ourboundaries are based on assumptions or averages.....

for example, it's not every time that you down a dark alley that you will be robbed or knifed to death ..... but then why chance it.


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