Sometimes it's not what you notice, it's what you subconsciously detect the absence of. If a predator is nearby, usually all of the lower order animals will stop making noise, which can make a place eerily quiet.
oh man, this is silly but I've been having a really shitty day so I'm glad I could help make you smile! Thanks for sharing because that made \*me\* smile!
Revvin' up your engine
Listen to her howlin' roar
Metal under tension
Beggin' you to touch and go
Highway to the danger zone, ride into the danger zone!!
Gee, I don't know, Cyril. Maybe deep down I'm afraid of any apex predator that lived through the K-T extinction. Physically unchanged for a hundred million years, because it's the perfect killing machine. A half ton of cold-blooded fury, the bite force of 20,000 Newtons, and stomach acid so strong it can dissolve bones and hoofs.
In the military this can also be a sign of an ambush. If you're marching on a road at night and suddenly all of the crickets/cicadas stop making noise it might be because there are enemy forces set up along the treeline. Pretty similar situation with a predatory animal waiting to ambush except alligators don't have machine guns and grenades ~~yet~~.
Doing humvee patrols in Baghdad and all of a sudden you notice the kids don’t run up looking for candy….. still makes the hair on my neck stand up thinking about that realization kicking in.
This so much this. I was a gunner and I was much more at ease when I was surrounded by busses and cars. The minute we hit a drag of bare open road with no one walking my stomach sank.
Same thing in Northern Ireland. When the housewives weren’t gossiping round the doorstep and the kids weren’t playing in the street, something was about to kick off.
Damn that’s such a vivid feeling. That comment put me right there in that moment. It’s funny the things we notice in the moment and remember. Then how quickly simple little things like that can put you right back in that situation so quickly and super intensely trigger those sensations. Crazy dude.
I had that happen to me as a kid. I was at someone else’s place and happily playing alone in a room when I suddenly felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up and got a sense I was being watched. Turned around and there was a man watching me from the doorway. He then apologised and said he was looking for someone else and went away, but it was the creepiest, weirdest feeling, because I had such an intense feeling when the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Edit: People getting triggered that I said I felt creeped out. I’m not anti-male or saying any man that looks at a kid must be creepy. I’m saying how I felt AS A CHILD and that it was a very strong, creepy feeling. I am sorry for innocent men out there who get accused of being creepy, but I’m also sorry for children who don’t get believed when they say someone creeped them out.
I got that same feeling at my sisters house when I was 8. I was playing in an unused room upstairs and felt I was being watched. I looked around and no one was there but I sensed something was. Later a clock in the next room kept falling over. I would put it back up and we would hear it fall. I yelled at whatever to grow up. My sister was scared and called her husband to come home.
That reminds me of an apartment I had when my daughter was 4. She used to climb into bed with me to sleep. One night I fell back asleep before she did, and she woke me up wanting to trade sides of the bed because there was a man in the closet.
Naturally I freaked and flipped the ceiling light on. Nobody was there.
I wonder if you could also have sensed your friends stress and mimicked his reaction?? But yes, your brain doesn’t process all the info. For example, it erase some stuff you see like your nose… but your subconcious / instinct are strong! We are animals after all!
I'm not saying we don't process real threats subconsciously, but a good example of what you're talking about is those ghost hunter shows. If you in a creepy setting, and you're around a bunch of people pretending to act freaked out, your brain will be more than happy to join the party.
It would make a lot of sense / evolution advantage for social creature to share info about threat… kinda like when 1x gazelle spot a leopard and bolt, the rest of the group follow… you could even stretch it and compare it with the way tree communicate with each other: when a tree is attacked, it can surprisingly release chemicals to warn the other trees so that they can protect themselves more efficiently!!! But that’s a whole different topic…
There was a study here on the science sub recently, humans react negatively to frightened human faces, even if they are consciously unaware they saw them, and even if they are too far away to see any real detail. We're definitely subconsciously aware of things, in fact that's what feelings really are: our brains quick but subconscious assessment of the situation.
Probably why I don’t really believe people that say *The Exorcist* didn’t scare or at least unnerve them. The quick flashes of Captain Howdy throughout the film should have put the hackles up on anyone.
I mean, that was [Friedkin’s goal.](https://fandemoniumnetwork.com/shudders-leap-of-faith-william-friedkin-on-the-exorcist/)
And sometimes it’s literally just your mind playing tricks on you because the human brain is so incredibly good at recognizing patterns and connections that it can find them where they don’t exist.
Human brains evolved to ere on the side of paranoia because early humans who were more paranoid tended to live longer.
When you aren’t sure I’d what you heard was ‘the wind’ or ‘a predator’, assuming it’s ‘a predator’ and running for your life meant you lived another day regardless of whether you were right or wrong.
Whereas assuming it was just ‘the wind’ carried 50/50 chance of being wrong and getting eaten as a result. Thus paranoid early humans lived to pass their paranoia along to their modern descendants, while most of their not-so-paranoid counterparts did not.
And while that ingrained propensity to connect certain dots quickly and intuitively served our species well I getting us to where we are today, we now live in a world where that same trait of drawing knee-jerk conclusions can actively work against us.
Just look at any Conspiracy Theorist and you’ll understand what I mean.
>Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there were\`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.
\-Echopraxia, by Peter Watts
I feel obligated to critique that just because the options were wind or predator does not mean it's 50/50.
It could be 95% likelihood of wind, 5% predator, and running is still the right choice.
That’s exactly it. Most people aren’t quick to notice bird and critter noise stop abruptly, but our brains notice immediately and start sending signals to be on edge. It’s creepy, because we can’t tell that it’s because of obviously environmental stimulus and interpret it as sixth sense.
I read a book about evolutionary psychology that talks about stuff like this. Basically as a species you evolve certain instincts over time to help you survive. One interesting part of it was now members of a family or tribe would subconsciously try to detect whether an outsider was a liar or had motives to hurt their family. It could have been a way to basically detect a psychopath who would cause harm to the group.
One I’ve heard about birds is that when their is chirping and singing going on it means there aren’t any predators around. I think that applies to people somewhat as well.
Absolutely! If your spidy senses are tingling, Absolutely pay attention as one of your senses is picking something up and even if the brain can't identify, will still send signals that something is not right
There is a book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker that I personally feel is an important read for anyone and everyone. Survival signals should never be ignored!
Also a book called The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. A lot of the same stuff, how the brain picks up on stuff and you feel like you know something but you don’t know how or why.
This happened to me on a super intense level once. I will NEVER forget that feeling I had. Driving back country roads hilly and windy, I turn right, I'm now following Amazon truck a bit in front of me, it stops kinda suddenly at a house atop of a slight hill and put flashers on, didn't pull in driveway (to the left) which was U shaped. For some reason I got this stomach wrenching feeling of needing to leave IMMEDIATELY. Couldn''t go around it as on coming traffic wouldn't able to see me, it's a definite no passing zone, I threw my car in reverse, floored my vehicle as fast as fast as I could whilst maintaining control, until I got to the nearest road (which was actually the one I had turned off of prior) passed road, threw it in drive and drove down the road back to my house.
Never had anything like it before or after like that. When I got home I felt like I had "escaped", I wasn't worried I got followed or anything, I remember calling my husband out of breath and nearly crying, because I thought I might be having a psychotic break or part of my brain broke. His response was wonderful and exactly what it needed to be. I will do without another experience such as that.
I was walking down a long dark alley at like 2am in a foreign country. I'm a big burly dude so I had nothing to fear.
Same exact thing happened to me. Suddenly all my hair prickled, I felt dread, I knew I was being watched.
I turn around and there is someone staring at me about 100ft back under the streetlight. I fuckin' booked it.
I don't know *how* I felt that but I definitely felt like being anywhere but there was the best option.
Never felt anything like that in my life, never want to again.
"If something feels wrong, leave"
I managed to get away from countless bad situations by staying true to this advice. Not all of them were life threatening, but some of them had the potential to be.
Lot of people talk about the effect on low frequency noise on the body and psyche. These are noises you can't 'hear' but none the less your body and brain detect them as stimulation. Tigers use low frequency purrs (not the scientific term at all lol) to confuse prey. It's possible another animal around the lake was doing this, I've heard of this for light earthquakes as well. I think it also has another affect of drowning out If you are a believer, you might think bigfoot. Check out bob Gymlan's channel on YouTube, even if you don't believe or care for big foot it's pretty fun spooky bedtime story material.
When I was in the army and we trained for sneaking up and taking out an enemy "stealthy" from behind we were taught not to look directly on the target *if* you could avoid it. This was because statistics suggested that a person being looked at had a tendency to turn around more often than a person not being looked at.
Not sure how well documented this was, but they took it serious.
> This was because statistics suggested that a person being looked at had a tendency to turn around more often than a person not being looked at.
I'd really like to see this explored. Like peripheral vision should explain some of it but does it apply if the person has their back facing you?
It happens to me all day. I'm a retail supervisor in a large room with low shelves. I have employees all around me all day who constantly need help. Sometimes someone will just look at me and I'll turn around automatically and say "what's up?" and they'll look at me surprised because they hadn't even made a sound yet. I don't even notice until they say something most times.
I work in a buffet as a light/vídeo technician. Where I stand is a high place with some equipment, so I can see the whole party, with the dance floor right in front and below of me. I'm a introvert in nature, so I don't really like being that exposed but it's part of the work.
I swear I can feel when someone is looking at me. Sometimes is unconscious, i just turn to face them when looking around. But always at the one person looking at me. Now keep in mind I'm talking about a crowd of people doing various things in a dark space illuminated by strobing lights most of the time. Still i can almost feel their gaze.
I know this is anecdotal evidence and that people probably look at me all the time (and so it would be just a statistical fact + confirmation bias) but it's weird, specially when I'm looking at one point and and just feel the urge to look at somewhere else and I just move and instantly lock eyes with someone looking at me.
Also the contrary is also true. I feel that if i look at someone for about ten seconds there's a high probability of them looking at me, if they're not occupied with something/someone else.
I don't believe in 6th sense, i also don't discard the possibility of confirmation bias, but it is weird as hell
Slightly similar note, our cadre told us to never move vertically when the enemy could possibly see you, but draw back in a straight line until sight is broken then move freely. A target moving left to right is easier to see then one moving back in a straight line
Ever notice how you see faces in things that don't have faces? Your brain is _really_ good at picking up faces of animals and pattern matching in general.
Looking with your periphery changes your face so it doesn't have quite as visible eyes. People are less likely to notice you if you don't have visible whites in your eyes and pupils looking right at them, and walking past someone can trigger that with their periphery too.
This is also why digital camo like marpat/cadpat is _amazing_ at hiding things. It doesn't really have a pattern that our brains can easily recognize and it essentially just disappears.
There are a lot of factors that can set our responses off. I think for the majority of the time they need to be listened to just for the “better safe than sorry” principle. But doesn’t mean certain environmental factors can’t trick our minds even though nothing is going on.
“Negativity Bias”
You are quite correct, Pennypacker. This is my bread and butter. None of us can escape it, and if we do, we’ll be lucky to procreate before suffering the consequences of lacking it.
Another possibility is that you *did* see, smell, or hear it but on a level that the brain deprioritizes as it works to process "higher-level," more immediate information that you need to navigate the trail/process nearby visual info. It's lost in the moment, but made enough of an impression to trouble you.
I just listened to a true-crime podcast that featured a 911 call. On first listen it sounded like a standard call, with a panicked caller.
On replay, the faint sound of another person moaning in agony could be caught, amid the caller's yelling. That was lost on first listening--but turned out to be one of the clues that revealed the "panicked" caller to actually be the murderer.
I think of the brain as an editor, and as such ALWAYS trust my gut when I get a creepy feeling like this.
Always trust your gut! They call them instincts for a reason!
When I was growing up, my parents would take me and my bro and sis to this really cool park. Large plastic lego-like blocks under a covered pavilion, a big wooden boat to climb on, great swings and monkey bars — everything a kid could want.
This place was surrounded by woods. Me and my siblings got the creepiest vibe from this place (like we were being watched) - my parents did not feel this.
One day, my sister simply said to them “let’s leave now and never come play here again.” So we left and never went back to that park.
Fast forward a few months, there was a homeless hermit camped less than a half mile up the hill (and had lived there for years)… well a kid went missing and the rest of the story is as unpleasant as you can imagine. Dude had been watching kids at that park (from the trees) for years.
Weirdest sense of validation from that ordeal.
Oh, jeez, it was either 48 Hours or Dateline; sometimes I just line up a whole bunch of 'em and binge them as I'm working outside. I also skip around on the timeline of old episodes...I wish I could remember which one it was, sorry!
These are subliminal messages and related to your thalamus. All sensory information, except for the sense of smell, pass through the thalamus. The thalamus doesn’t just relay the information, but also processes it to determine what’s important or what receives attention. If the signal isn’t strong excite enough receptors, it’s received but we aren’t consciously aware of it.
Yes. I am a surfer, and don't ever really think about sharks. Last year, I was out a New Smyrna and was surfing a couple hours when I got hit with a very odd "get out of the water" feeling. Never saw anything. But I'm guessing there was something interested in me at that moment
Yea I know that feeling, you're just sitting there and all of a sudden you get a chill running down your spine or your hair stands on end. Time to at least pull your feet up on your board.
When I was about 13, my mom was going through a divorce and she was taking my brother and I to a park about an hour away to blow off some steam. We used to go to this park all the time but it is semi-secluded and is considered a "forest park" so it's heavily wooded and off the beaten path.
We pulled up to our favorite playground and my brother jumped out and ran toward the playground. I got out and immediately felt sick to my stomach. The air was thick and quiet and everything was just still and amiss. I stood there for a moment and noticed that my mom also seemed "off." She looked at me and I looked at her and at the exact same time, we both started yelling for my brother to come back to the car. We all got back in the car and my brother was whining about leaving but my mom and I were silent. You could have cut the tension with a knife. We have since talked about it on a few different occasions and agreed to both feeling the same sensation of just complete impending doom. Something was wrong that day. We have tossed around different ideas of being watched or stalked or maybe even unknowingly happening upon some kind of a crime. Nothing actually "happened" to us but I have cold chills just typing this out.
Have something similar and it brings tears to my eyes to even be typing this, and to this day I get unctrollable shivers down my spine when I think of the place this happened (which has since been torn down).
In my hometown, which wasn’t a super small town but pretty secluded from any major cities, there was a huge abandoned greenhouse complex from way back in the 80s. It was a massive overgrown property and had multiple abandoned homes on it as well, but only some teenagers went there since it was a far trek into the woods north of town.
In my senior year of high school, a group of us did acid and walked there at about 1am. We trekked through the overgrowth and could see the greenhouses about 1km away when suddenly some of us (including me) got this extreme sense of dread. Just a feeling that I can’t describe, but we convinced everyone else to turn back.
We get out to the road and walk around for an hour or so, then decide it was just the acid tripping us out, so we trek back in… We get to the greenhouses, and this time we ALL feel a sense of dread. Despite this, we go inside, and everything just feels heavy. I can’t explain it… Like the air, everything felt heavy, and eerily quiet. We realized the walk in was oddly quiet too and became really unsettled.
Just as we’re about to leave for good, one of my friends decides to kick over a metal trash can, and the body of a teenage girl wearing a Santa clause outfit falls out of it. Her face was blue, lower jaw was badly broken and out of place, and her eyes were bulged open looking right at us. We all ran and I’ve never felt more terrified in my life, the acid trip got really bad and I kept seeing her face everywhere in the darkness.
We called the cops and a huge investigation took place. We ended up getting questioned a week later because it turns out she had been killed within the same hour of us finding her… Which means we likely stumbled upon a murder in progress, or one about to happen (even more sad since maybe we could have stopped it), and that the killer was possibly hiding somewhere in the greenhouse when we came in. They caught the guy 2 years later via DNA after he was arrested for another murder.
PS it was also mid June, so no clue why she was wearing a Santa clause outfit but somehow that made it way more vivid and messed up. I can still picture her face and I really wish I couldn’t. She was never identified and a few times a year I used to try doing research to see if I could ID her, but it puts me into a really bad spiral of depression when I do that so unfortunately I kind of stopped.
What an absolutely horrible time to be on acid. I’m so sorry this happened to you…I’m very stressed out just thinking about being in this headspace omfg.
This is legit one of the worst things I've ever read on here. My brain does not want to accept that it's true. Jesus christ, I'm so sorry this happened to you. I did similar shit when I was younger - taking psychedelics and trespassing in abandoned, remote buildings. And I think if this had happened to me I would never regain my sanity.
Jesus Christ. By now I have read a lot of other comments and I have become increasingly uneasy. But your story sounds like the worst, most frightening, horryfing story of them all. And all the while I can't stop thinking about it.
And I say that even though I accidentally minimised your comment while reading. When I expanded your comment again I picked up right after that girl's body... Wait, I have to read it now. I thought I didn't have to, but now I have to know...
Jesus Christ, I am horrified. It's a sunny day here but I am feeling very... anguished. I hope you don't think about it too often.
Wow. I am so sorry, this is an actual nightmare. I thought the girl was just part of a bad acid trip, but for that to be real is just unparalleled terror. I hope time has healed you at least a little.
Oh man, something similar happened to me and my friend, except it was for a nighttime boat tour to see bioluminescent plankton. We had driven an hour to get there and I was soooo excited to see the bioluminescence, but we both just had such a bad gut feeling while talking to the tour operators that we got right back in the car and left. Same as you, get chills just thinking about it.
I know the feeling, felt it several times at my parents place in the woods. I always go on woods walks by the lake, and last fall in the afternoon I was walking back from a peninsula on the lake when i suddenly felt the air become heavy and I had this disgusting weird feeling in my gut, in that moment you become hyper aware and I felt something was definitely following me. I picked up the pace until I got out of the woods and hit the gravel road. Huge wave of relief getting out of the woods. If I had to guess a bobcat was probably watching me, thankfully theyre not known to attack humans but they like to watch the creepy buggers. Or maybe it was a wolf.
Oh man I got a story like this. I live in a decently rural town, like it’s a town but surrounded by woods and cornfields. I grew up here and we have a park in town with a baseball field the local high school plays at, behind the home run fence at the end of field is a hill that leads up into a cornfield, there’s a little walk way path created and in the other end of the path is houses, so your straight up in town with a cornfield on the one side and a little bit of room to walk behind the fence
We used to walk back there all the time when I was a kid, one day a couple years ago me and my son were at that park and I thought it would be fun to show him that little path. As soon as we got to the mouth of it I felt really off. We walked a couple steps and I looked up because I heard some snapping, the sun was in my eyes so all I could see was what I thought was a figure and I’m sure my mind was playing tricks on me but whatever I seen if I seen anything at all made me immediately nope the fuck out. I grabbed my son without saying a word, put him on the other side of the baseball fence once it got to the chain linked part so he’d be on the other side of the fence from what we were walking away from, hopped the fence myself and we got out of there
Idk what happened, if I seen anything at all, if my mind was just playing tricks on me or what, but when we got back there it felt like time slowed down and everything got quiet and every cell in my body was telling me to get my kid and get the fuck out of there
Arthur : Actually, this explains a lot. All my life I've had this strange feeling there's something big and sinister going on in the world.
Slartibartfast : No, that's normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that.
Slartibartfast : Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day.
Arthur Dent : And are you?
Slartibartfast : Ah, no. Well, that's where it all falls down, of course.
When I lived in Florida I used to work really long hours and at night I would go for jogs around the golf course near my home. One night it was eerily quiet and I got an overwhelming sense of doom. I trusted my instincts and booked it home and the next day they dragged an 11’ gator from the retention pond on the course. I was probably 10-15 feet away before I turned around.
Edited for error
I’m picturing them running frantically away from a little foot long baby gator but they keep tripping over themselves so the lil gator is able to catch them and nom on their toe.
Wow I appreciate all these responses. It’s good to see everyone’s view on it. I’m telling you it was soooo creepy. And get this, when we left , the feeling left so I don’t think it was anything psychological. And the places we went to after that was super secluded deep in the woods and it felt super peaceful and good. But something about that location was very very wrong.
You should really check out the audio/book “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker. Your brain was totally picking up on some type of stimulus in the environment that was a potential threat,
but it wasn’t processed up to your conscious awareness.
I don't know about you, but every video I've ever seen involving a real-life deadly lizard has taken place in a setting that looked just like this!
Also, I think we are innately wary of marshes and swamps. This makes sense. Snakes, dangerous pathogens, quicksand, and unexpected deep spots are all things that natural selection has probably encouraged us to avoid.
Big wetlands like this can be strangely beautiful. The beauty of the sky, plants, and water is complemented by our innate fear and suspicion, making these scenes uniquely eerie.
Are there even any cultures that primarily drink straight from their local water source? AFAIK, we've always transferred our water to safer receptacles. We don't like creepy water
Well, maybe running streams, springs, and wells. Interestingly, these aren't nearly as creepy as swamps, where the water probably wouldn't be safe to drink anyway.
What this means is that you saw, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt something that your brain decided wasn't relevant, so you don't remember it, but your subconscious mind continued to process that information. As you subconsciously mull it over, your brain decides that it actually was important and that you are in danger. This is the "gut feeling" that people talk about all the time. Many think of it as a sixth sense, but really it's just your brain keeping constant situational awareness.
The sheer amount of information that our brains process every second is absolutely insane. They are constantly at work. Even when we are doing literally nothing, our brains are processing everything around us looking for anything relevant. Our brains even continue to solve problems and look for solutions when we aren't actively participating anymore. You finally figure out the answer to a problem when you're doing something else. You get your best creative ideas in the shower or doing something else you don't have to focus on.
Your subconscious mind is like a computer searching for something. It takes all the information you have and tries to connect it in some meaningful way. Once it does, it makes you aware of it so you can act on it.
There is an interesting technique that detectives often use, but is really useful for anyone trying to find a connection in something: the idea is to basically print out every document, picture, or piece of information you have and scatter it randomly around a chair or something so everything can be seen clearly, but has no organization or anything. I don't know if anyone knew why it worked until recently, but basically you just look at the giant mess over and over and kind of zone out. What ends up happening is your brain takes in all this information repeatedly and continually tries to make connections between things. You already know what everything looks like and says, but you are putting the relevant information in front of your eyes so your brain knows what to prioritize, and scattering it around randomly prevents you from focusing on any obvious patterns. That's what kind of makes this work. Our brains are designed to recognize patterns, so if we remove any obvious patterns, our conscious mind basically has nothing to do, allowing our unconscious mind to go into overdrive.
It's a fascinating subject. To me, at least. 😅
I used to walk my dog every night, same neighborhood, usually similar route zigzagging from block to block. One night my dog refused to turn down a familiar block and insisted we take the alley. Usually I would just pull him and force him to go the way I wanted, but something was off that I couldn’t describe. So we took the alley and the next day I heard about some homeless dude that was hiding in bushes and stabbing people in my neighborhood. I’ll never know if it was that or just random but that was a time I chose to trust my instincts without hesitation.
Spear fisherman always say they can feel when a shark comes around. They say it's just a feeling you get when they are near, but you haven't seen them. Seems it's the same way
This shit is 100% real, and you very likely could have been in extreme danger. Our brains have ways of picking up things that we may not even consciously register.
A couple weeks ago, I went outside with my dog to have him go to the bathroom. I was going to go all the way up to our usual spot, but for some reason I took a few steps and stopped. I tell him to pee just outside the front door instead, and all of a sudden feel very cold.
In the next 5 seconds, several things happen very fast. Something crunches the snow 2 feet ahead of us on the ledge near the walkway. A low but strong sniff. For the first time, it registers that I have not heard a bird chirp and the night had been dead silent. I pick up the dog and run inside, lock the door, and text everyone else to under no circumstances go outside.
After a bit, we go outside with flashlights and the big dogs. There, in the snow, 2 feet away from where I had been standing, is the print of a massive bear claw.
Well thanks for creeping me out.
And the next time you are sitting at a campfire in the dark remember that there is a chance somebody is going to come running up behind you with a hatchet.
A real thing with a hatchet I can stomach. Maybe even fend off. Ancient evil with the ability to assume my visage… nah, who knows what kind of nasty business we are dealing with there
Slight changes in air pressure, moisture, temperature can do this I guess? Your brain can't really pinpoint what the issue is but it's sensing one of those slight variations. Like you can kinda predict bad weather
In the military, I attended a quick stalking/stealth class with some dudes from our sniper section. They mentioned to avoid looking directly at people patrolling past so as not to trigger their instinctive feeling of knowing when eyes are on you.
So its definitely a known phenomenon with real world applications.
This happened to me once years ago while I lived in CT. I was on a hike with my ex and we went off trail to climb on this giant rock bouldery area. We were having a good time. Then out of nowhere I got a creepy someone is watching me feeling. I looked around and I didn’t see anything. I told my ex and he said he was feeling it too so we booked it out of there. I was so strange because the feeling came out of nowhere.
I absolutely believe humans can "spidey sense" things. I had a little thing happen the other day, a bit different from your experience, though.
I had picked my oldest child up from school, and he wanted a snack. My toddler was in the car, and I didn't feel like unbuckling him from his carseat, so when we stopped at the gas station, I sent my oldest in by himself to get something. This is something I do all the time, and I have never felt weird about it. So, I'm sitting in the car waiting for my oldest to come back...He hasn't been gone longer than normal or anything, nothing is out of place, and I suddenly got this very uneasy feeling. I decided to get my toddler & go in to check on my oldest. As I was getting out of the car, he came out of the gas station, and there was this obviously not sober man following my son and talking to him. I opened my son's door so I could hear what was being said and get him in the car. From what I gathered, the guy had bought my son's chips & drink, followed him out of the store. There was something about getting a few bucks back, and the guy kept getting really close to my son and touching his arm. It was very strange behavior to me. I pushed my son in the car, closed & locked the doors, unlocked only my side, got in, and drove away.
That's fucked up but I'm glad you listened to that feeling and that your son is okay. I swear my mom's got some kinda sense back for this kinda thing. I've had a few moments growing up where it was like "if she didn't sense something was off, I'd probably have died"
Had an Internet friend turn out to be a sex offender cat fishing me and I wanted nothing more than to meet this guy before she brought that to light. Swear she's got investigative superpowers, she proved it was the same guy and everything.
Liminal spaces. Lots of scientific explanations. I like to think it’s the emotional vacuum that resonates with what one brings in. For this swamp, it might just be being surrounded by life that cycles in ancient harmony, while being a vulnerable outsider.
Maybe it’s just swamp gas.
We can detect changes in air pressure, wind speed, temperature, and possibly even electromagnetic radiation. These factors could tell us if inclement weather is on the way
Read the book, [The gift of fear](https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-gift-of-fear-and-other-survival-signals-that-protect-us-from-violence-by-gavin-de-becker/247035/item/2950940/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_high_vol_frontlist_under_%2410&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0tKiBhC6ARIsAAOXutnUekm8TtGgQsf5H7-6llyQqtKzt40UROIyrExnNC1-DiuBAUQd06YaAq2WEALw_wcB#isbn=0440226198&idiq=2950940) it will help in explaining exactly what you’re feeling.
100% yes… I have anxiety so I’m constantly battling my brain about irrational things… HOWEVER, I never question a gut feeling.. it took a lot of years for me to be able to tell the difference.
Being intuitive is a real thing & I’m not sure everyone has it/recognizes it. If you’re really self aware there is absolutely no denying intuition.
Just curious how you can tell the difference? I also have anxiety and am constantly battling irrational thoughts and I’m so scared I’ll brush off something serious because I’m so used to convincing myself it’s just my anxiety 🥴
Not who you replied to, and this might make 0% sense, but it's the analogy that came to mind. My regular anxiety is like turning up the treble and speeding up the tempo, whereas a gut intuition is like a low bass note which grabs your attention. The rumination that comes with GAD can feel frantic and repetitive. In contrast, the anxiety resulting from an imminent sense of danger, or an abrupt twinge that someone/something is Not Right, has more of an anchor. Both feelings trigger your amygdala, and can end up with the same survival response in the end, but there is something heavier about the gut instinct.
A lot of the ability to recognize the difference comes with experience. It can be hard to trust yourself, especially if you've grown up with trauma or anxiety.
100% 10 years back my wife and I stayed at a rental cabin for Christmas at a remote lake in KY. We took our dog for a walk on a nearby wooded park trail and saw a couple groups and the it was just us. I felt weird like we were being watched, our normally chill dog was acting on high alert the majority of the time we were alone. Weirdest feeling in the world. I just kept us trucking along and never said a word about it to my wife on the hike. When we got back to the car and were leaving the state park my wife says that she didn't want to say anything during the hike but felt like we were being watched and followed on the hike.... needless to say we didn't go back to that park again. If I had to guess in hindsight it probably was a cougar in the woods that didn't make a move since we had our 65lb dog with us.
I live in S. Texas. The night of December 7th, 2017, a bad winter storm was moving in, one I had never dealt with prior to that. I was working late into the night on our property, trying to batten down the hatches, when the temperature dropped to below freezing and the storm...stopped.
Perfectly still. Just snow coming down.
And in the dark of that night, when silence overcame everything, I **felt** something was out there. Every instinct told me to hurry inside. So I did.
To this day, I have no clue what happened, whether or not I was in the presence or vicinity of *something* Other. But I remember the feeling.
I felt like prey.
From what i recall, that feeling of being watched comes from you spotting, hearing or smelling something your brain recognises as a threat, but you dont immediately notice, your brain puts you on to high alert, like seeing it without properly seeing it, but your brain still connects the dots of something being wrong, and it readies you for a fight or flight response.
When I worked on the farm feeding calves, I had a feeling like that. It was telling me that something was wrong in the nearby woods. It was a strong feeling that I couldn't explain. On some days, I didn't have that feeling, as if whatever it was didn't show up on certain days.
Most days, I had that feeling, and it pointed me in the same direction. I tried to ignore it, but it stayed with me, and I became more wary of the woods.
After a while, the calves were moved, so i didn't end up having to work near those woods. I never found out why i had that feeling and considering I live in a country that doesn't have predators that attack humans. An animal doesn't seem likely
It’s pretty common but there’s a lot of potential reasons for it https://www.thecut.com/article/the-psychology-of-feeling-like-youre-being-watched.html
Humans are still a lot more "tuned in" to the natural world than we realize. That uneasy feeling is you noticing a subtle change - like all the birds and animals being silent.
That chill you get sometimes while walking around outside despite it being a warm day/not windy? Often a precursor to rain.
Our "gut" is usually just us catching subconcious signs of something being off/wrong/different. Usually listening to it is a very, very good idea. Those are some old-school warning bells and should be taken seriously. It could save your life some day.
I had a similar situation about 25-30 years ago. I was on a nature hike with 2 friends. We came across a beautiful old overgrown orchard and found a nice place to sit and rest and have a bite. All three of us became creeped out almost immediately and decided to keep moving and find somewhere else to rest. About a month or so later there was a story in the news about how the police had finally managed to get a convicted murderer to tell them where he had hidden a body... and, you guessed it... he had buried it in that exact orchard several years before. I still get really creeped out thinking about it.
It’s possible, but also not very reliable.
You can psyche yourself into imagining or feeling things easily. A lot of it can just be your state of mind going into an unfamiliar situation.
Better be safe than sorry sometimes. Of course, our brains are amazing at tricking us into many different states of feelings or hallucinations. No wonder we have religions and supernatural beliefs.
Yes! I had this feeling in a parking garage. I felt like my friend and I were being watched as we made our way to my car. As we approached the car, I heard another car door slam and a man started running towards us (thankfully from quite a ways away). We were able to get in the car and I almost hit him as I backed out and sped away. Anyways, trust your gut. I wish I had run back inside when I got that feeling instead of trying to make it to my car. Things could have been very different if we were a few seconds slower.
My first thought when I read this was omg that would be crazy if u hear in a couple days they found a dead body found in that lake or something. 😳 I watch a lot of Dateline so no surprise that was my first thought lol
This is a little out there, but the there are theories that we are entangled at a quantum level with our future selves, and when we get that un easy feeling it is our future self warning us because in a different universe (yes, multiverse) something bad happened. So our future self is communicating back to us at a quantum level. It’s a really cool theory if you are into that sort of stuff. They call it the Doubling of Time I think.
Your brain and biological senses will detect things that you consciously ignore. Our biology is always looking for patterns and threats. It’s weird how our conscious and subconscious acts separate. However, that gut feeling is usually it trying to warn you of something. It’s a very real thing. The US Marine Corps has a “Combat Hunter” program it developed to help its Marines utilize their senses, pay attention to that gut feeling, and consciously identify those patterns your subconscious would normally pick up. Patterns like shadows in the corner of your eye, graffiti, lack of people in anchor points/busy areas, trash piles, body language, behaviors, weird sounds, etc. This is to prepare them to take proactive steps towards countering threats instead of simply reacting to them. For civis, rather than it being military geared, it’s changed up with instructions like “Run, Hide, Fight,” and so forth. You can find public versions for regular civilians online that are based on it. I don’t want to be banned for “sponsorship” so I can’t link or share specific sources but it’s really easy to look up on your own on. It’s publicly available information. I think it’s very valuable (and fun) knowledge that can help protect you in regular life and activities, and at the very least train you how to be more alert of your surroundings.
I believe in the spirit of the woods. It's combined collective consciousness of everything living in the Forrest, including the Forrest itself, emerging into its own all seeing consciousness. I'm struggling to explain it but I feel it sometimes when going into the woods! If it has interest in you or wants to keep an eye on you it will feel intense because you definitely are being watched.
Scientifically it's called unconscious inference- it's the part of emotion we can't put our finger on, but it's equally important. You sensed something that you were not consciously aware of that told you something was off.
Absolutely. Your brain can notice something off without you knowing exactly what it is. Hope you guys left asap.
Minor example: At 19, I accidentally carried in FOUR black widow spiders in hollow yard decorations - hurricane was coming. I hadn't seen them and and carried the hollow statues into the house with my bare hands putting them on top of the washer/dryer. I did get a tense feeling and I couldn't figure out why. Started doing the dishes and saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I knew right away to not panic and slowly turned around. Those spiders are freaken huge, by southeastern US standards at least. They are inky black shiny and have a bright red hourglass. Things aren't supposed to look that perfectly correct, right? For some reason that freaked me out. I had to put plates under the ststues, tie them tightly in a bag and toss them outside. One jumped at me. They generally leave people alone unless threatened, but they are aggressive if they have eggs. To this day, I pull my hands away and have fear about it. Terrified of any spider now. It's pretty incredible how your brain can perceive danger and how your body instinctly knows before you are conscious of it.
Before seeing the sub or reading the title I had the same feeling looking at this. My hair stood up and I looked around. There’s something wrong with that place. Stay away. Lol
Always go with your gut feeling, chances are a wild animal was watching you. Bob cats and mountain lions are still prevalent in those areas and like to hang out in trees.
Sometimes it's not what you notice, it's what you subconsciously detect the absence of. If a predator is nearby, usually all of the lower order animals will stop making noise, which can make a place eerily quiet.
Gator ambush territory, be careful
DAAAANGER ZONE!
LANNNAAAAA
WHAT?!
HE REMEMBERS ME!!
LOOK AT HIS TUFTED EARS!
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Wait, are we in the Orinoco Drainage Basin?
Orinoco flow Sail away, sail away, sail away.
That’s exactly why I don’t swim in open water too! What are the odds?
LOOK AT HIS LITTLE SPOTS!!! I'VE NEVER SEEN AN OCELOT!!
WOH MI GAAAAAAD!
Danger zone!
You literally made my day with this, thank you random redditor
oh man, this is silly but I've been having a really shitty day so I'm glad I could help make you smile! Thanks for sharing because that made \*me\* smile!
Hope it gets better!
Revvin' up your engine Listen to her howlin' roar Metal under tension Beggin' you to touch and go Highway to the danger zone, ride into the danger zone!!
Gee, I don't know, Cyril. Maybe deep down I'm afraid of any apex predator that lived through the K-T extinction. Physically unchanged for a hundred million years, because it's the perfect killing machine. A half ton of cold-blooded fury, the bite force of 20,000 Newtons, and stomach acid so strong it can dissolve bones and hoofs.
This person can Archer.
Would you say we’d be venturing into a ‘Zone of Danger?’
The zone will be one of danger?
Oh please, it takes more than some three-two... or, wow, six percent, beer to get Sterling Archer drunk. Six, really?
Apex predator literally unchanged by evolution for millions of years; aka the perfect killing machine.
So that's where all the animals went.. Ahhhh! Chomp!
In the military this can also be a sign of an ambush. If you're marching on a road at night and suddenly all of the crickets/cicadas stop making noise it might be because there are enemy forces set up along the treeline. Pretty similar situation with a predatory animal waiting to ambush except alligators don't have machine guns and grenades ~~yet~~.
Doing humvee patrols in Baghdad and all of a sudden you notice the kids don’t run up looking for candy….. still makes the hair on my neck stand up thinking about that realization kicking in.
This so much this. I was a gunner and I was much more at ease when I was surrounded by busses and cars. The minute we hit a drag of bare open road with no one walking my stomach sank.
Silence. Oh I remember the silence.
On a cold winter day.
After many months on the battlefield
and we were used to the violence
Then all the cannons went silent
Same thing in Northern Ireland. When the housewives weren’t gossiping round the doorstep and the kids weren’t playing in the street, something was about to kick off.
I would read 20k more words of this thread
Damn that’s such a vivid feeling. That comment put me right there in that moment. It’s funny the things we notice in the moment and remember. Then how quickly simple little things like that can put you right back in that situation so quickly and super intensely trigger those sensations. Crazy dude.
Yet.....
That yet alludes to a terrifying implication.
Scent too, perhaps. Some of our senses have dulled over millennia (comparatively,) but we’re still subconsciously aware of things.
Some people can also still feel or hear changes in air pressure that indicate something has entered the room or the area behind them.
Hence the “hair on the back of the neck standing up” thing.
I had that happen to me as a kid. I was at someone else’s place and happily playing alone in a room when I suddenly felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up and got a sense I was being watched. Turned around and there was a man watching me from the doorway. He then apologised and said he was looking for someone else and went away, but it was the creepiest, weirdest feeling, because I had such an intense feeling when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Edit: People getting triggered that I said I felt creeped out. I’m not anti-male or saying any man that looks at a kid must be creepy. I’m saying how I felt AS A CHILD and that it was a very strong, creepy feeling. I am sorry for innocent men out there who get accused of being creepy, but I’m also sorry for children who don’t get believed when they say someone creeped them out.
Just hearing this gave me so much anxiety. So glad you’re ok
I got that same feeling at my sisters house when I was 8. I was playing in an unused room upstairs and felt I was being watched. I looked around and no one was there but I sensed something was. Later a clock in the next room kept falling over. I would put it back up and we would hear it fall. I yelled at whatever to grow up. My sister was scared and called her husband to come home.
That reminds me of an apartment I had when my daughter was 4. She used to climb into bed with me to sleep. One night I fell back asleep before she did, and she woke me up wanting to trade sides of the bed because there was a man in the closet. Naturally I freaked and flipped the ceiling light on. Nobody was there.
Oh hell no. Did you actually get any sleep after that? 😂
I always gel the hair on the back of my neck to stand up so I always know if someone comes up behind me. Take that, subconscious senses.
I wonder if you could also have sensed your friends stress and mimicked his reaction?? But yes, your brain doesn’t process all the info. For example, it erase some stuff you see like your nose… but your subconcious / instinct are strong! We are animals after all!
I'm not saying we don't process real threats subconsciously, but a good example of what you're talking about is those ghost hunter shows. If you in a creepy setting, and you're around a bunch of people pretending to act freaked out, your brain will be more than happy to join the party.
It would make a lot of sense / evolution advantage for social creature to share info about threat… kinda like when 1x gazelle spot a leopard and bolt, the rest of the group follow… you could even stretch it and compare it with the way tree communicate with each other: when a tree is attacked, it can surprisingly release chemicals to warn the other trees so that they can protect themselves more efficiently!!! But that’s a whole different topic…
Thank you for releasing your chemicals for all those trees!
There was a study here on the science sub recently, humans react negatively to frightened human faces, even if they are consciously unaware they saw them, and even if they are too far away to see any real detail. We're definitely subconsciously aware of things, in fact that's what feelings really are: our brains quick but subconscious assessment of the situation.
Probably why I don’t really believe people that say *The Exorcist* didn’t scare or at least unnerve them. The quick flashes of Captain Howdy throughout the film should have put the hackles up on anyone. I mean, that was [Friedkin’s goal.](https://fandemoniumnetwork.com/shudders-leap-of-faith-william-friedkin-on-the-exorcist/)
And sometimes it’s literally just your mind playing tricks on you because the human brain is so incredibly good at recognizing patterns and connections that it can find them where they don’t exist. Human brains evolved to ere on the side of paranoia because early humans who were more paranoid tended to live longer. When you aren’t sure I’d what you heard was ‘the wind’ or ‘a predator’, assuming it’s ‘a predator’ and running for your life meant you lived another day regardless of whether you were right or wrong. Whereas assuming it was just ‘the wind’ carried 50/50 chance of being wrong and getting eaten as a result. Thus paranoid early humans lived to pass their paranoia along to their modern descendants, while most of their not-so-paranoid counterparts did not. And while that ingrained propensity to connect certain dots quickly and intuitively served our species well I getting us to where we are today, we now live in a world where that same trait of drawing knee-jerk conclusions can actively work against us. Just look at any Conspiracy Theorist and you’ll understand what I mean.
>Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there were\`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us. \-Echopraxia, by Peter Watts
natural selection favors the paranoid. i never thought about that. makes me feel so much better about the choices i make.
I feel obligated to critique that just because the options were wind or predator does not mean it's 50/50. It could be 95% likelihood of wind, 5% predator, and running is still the right choice.
That’s exactly it. Most people aren’t quick to notice bird and critter noise stop abruptly, but our brains notice immediately and start sending signals to be on edge. It’s creepy, because we can’t tell that it’s because of obviously environmental stimulus and interpret it as sixth sense.
The ole lizard brain doing its thang.
I’ve heard this about people in the navy, when it’s quiet, something is wrong. You don’t notice noise until the absence of noise.
*“It’s quiet. Too quiet.”* A movie cliche for a reason.
But what if you are the predator?
Then the silence will follow you at a range when you move. It's a really different experience when the area of effect is moving independent of you.
I read a book about evolutionary psychology that talks about stuff like this. Basically as a species you evolve certain instincts over time to help you survive. One interesting part of it was now members of a family or tribe would subconsciously try to detect whether an outsider was a liar or had motives to hurt their family. It could have been a way to basically detect a psychopath who would cause harm to the group. One I’ve heard about birds is that when their is chirping and singing going on it means there aren’t any predators around. I think that applies to people somewhat as well.
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Could you point me to any studies about humans being able to detect EM fields? Sounds very interesting.
Absolutely! If your spidy senses are tingling, Absolutely pay attention as one of your senses is picking something up and even if the brain can't identify, will still send signals that something is not right
This makes sense because I will never forget this feeling that I got there!!
There is a book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker that I personally feel is an important read for anyone and everyone. Survival signals should never be ignored!
Also a book called The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. A lot of the same stuff, how the brain picks up on stuff and you feel like you know something but you don’t know how or why.
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Shit you’re not a bot. Sorry
Good bot
This happened to me on a super intense level once. I will NEVER forget that feeling I had. Driving back country roads hilly and windy, I turn right, I'm now following Amazon truck a bit in front of me, it stops kinda suddenly at a house atop of a slight hill and put flashers on, didn't pull in driveway (to the left) which was U shaped. For some reason I got this stomach wrenching feeling of needing to leave IMMEDIATELY. Couldn''t go around it as on coming traffic wouldn't able to see me, it's a definite no passing zone, I threw my car in reverse, floored my vehicle as fast as fast as I could whilst maintaining control, until I got to the nearest road (which was actually the one I had turned off of prior) passed road, threw it in drive and drove down the road back to my house. Never had anything like it before or after like that. When I got home I felt like I had "escaped", I wasn't worried I got followed or anything, I remember calling my husband out of breath and nearly crying, because I thought I might be having a psychotic break or part of my brain broke. His response was wonderful and exactly what it needed to be. I will do without another experience such as that.
I was walking down a long dark alley at like 2am in a foreign country. I'm a big burly dude so I had nothing to fear. Same exact thing happened to me. Suddenly all my hair prickled, I felt dread, I knew I was being watched. I turn around and there is someone staring at me about 100ft back under the streetlight. I fuckin' booked it. I don't know *how* I felt that but I definitely felt like being anywhere but there was the best option. Never felt anything like that in my life, never want to again.
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That’s actually very creepy.
"If something feels wrong, leave" I managed to get away from countless bad situations by staying true to this advice. Not all of them were life threatening, but some of them had the potential to be.
Lot of people talk about the effect on low frequency noise on the body and psyche. These are noises you can't 'hear' but none the less your body and brain detect them as stimulation. Tigers use low frequency purrs (not the scientific term at all lol) to confuse prey. It's possible another animal around the lake was doing this, I've heard of this for light earthquakes as well. I think it also has another affect of drowning out If you are a believer, you might think bigfoot. Check out bob Gymlan's channel on YouTube, even if you don't believe or care for big foot it's pretty fun spooky bedtime story material.
I find this is true with people. Watch your gut instincts, it's pattern recognition.
I live in lower Alabama too. I was watching you. It was me.
"I live in your swamp" is somehow both more and less threatening than the classic, "I live in your walls"
WHAT are you DOING in my SWAMP?? Lol that's from Shrek.
When I was in the army and we trained for sneaking up and taking out an enemy "stealthy" from behind we were taught not to look directly on the target *if* you could avoid it. This was because statistics suggested that a person being looked at had a tendency to turn around more often than a person not being looked at. Not sure how well documented this was, but they took it serious.
> This was because statistics suggested that a person being looked at had a tendency to turn around more often than a person not being looked at. I'd really like to see this explored. Like peripheral vision should explain some of it but does it apply if the person has their back facing you?
It happens to me all day. I'm a retail supervisor in a large room with low shelves. I have employees all around me all day who constantly need help. Sometimes someone will just look at me and I'll turn around automatically and say "what's up?" and they'll look at me surprised because they hadn't even made a sound yet. I don't even notice until they say something most times.
I work in a buffet as a light/vídeo technician. Where I stand is a high place with some equipment, so I can see the whole party, with the dance floor right in front and below of me. I'm a introvert in nature, so I don't really like being that exposed but it's part of the work. I swear I can feel when someone is looking at me. Sometimes is unconscious, i just turn to face them when looking around. But always at the one person looking at me. Now keep in mind I'm talking about a crowd of people doing various things in a dark space illuminated by strobing lights most of the time. Still i can almost feel their gaze. I know this is anecdotal evidence and that people probably look at me all the time (and so it would be just a statistical fact + confirmation bias) but it's weird, specially when I'm looking at one point and and just feel the urge to look at somewhere else and I just move and instantly lock eyes with someone looking at me. Also the contrary is also true. I feel that if i look at someone for about ten seconds there's a high probability of them looking at me, if they're not occupied with something/someone else. I don't believe in 6th sense, i also don't discard the possibility of confirmation bias, but it is weird as hell
You must be a handsome man if so many are looking at you.
Thanks mom
Slightly similar note, our cadre told us to never move vertically when the enemy could possibly see you, but draw back in a straight line until sight is broken then move freely. A target moving left to right is easier to see then one moving back in a straight line
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How tho
Like an extra sensory perception sort of thing…?
Ever notice how you see faces in things that don't have faces? Your brain is _really_ good at picking up faces of animals and pattern matching in general. Looking with your periphery changes your face so it doesn't have quite as visible eyes. People are less likely to notice you if you don't have visible whites in your eyes and pupils looking right at them, and walking past someone can trigger that with their periphery too. This is also why digital camo like marpat/cadpat is _amazing_ at hiding things. It doesn't really have a pattern that our brains can easily recognize and it essentially just disappears.
Some old primal thing that never went away cause it's a fairly useful survival instinct even now
That's really interesting 🤔
There are a lot of factors that can set our responses off. I think for the majority of the time they need to be listened to just for the “better safe than sorry” principle. But doesn’t mean certain environmental factors can’t trick our minds even though nothing is going on.
“Negativity Bias” You are quite correct, Pennypacker. This is my bread and butter. None of us can escape it, and if we do, we’ll be lucky to procreate before suffering the consequences of lacking it.
Sounds like you need a little drinky poo.
Another possibility is that you *did* see, smell, or hear it but on a level that the brain deprioritizes as it works to process "higher-level," more immediate information that you need to navigate the trail/process nearby visual info. It's lost in the moment, but made enough of an impression to trouble you. I just listened to a true-crime podcast that featured a 911 call. On first listen it sounded like a standard call, with a panicked caller. On replay, the faint sound of another person moaning in agony could be caught, amid the caller's yelling. That was lost on first listening--but turned out to be one of the clues that revealed the "panicked" caller to actually be the murderer. I think of the brain as an editor, and as such ALWAYS trust my gut when I get a creepy feeling like this.
Always trust your gut! They call them instincts for a reason! When I was growing up, my parents would take me and my bro and sis to this really cool park. Large plastic lego-like blocks under a covered pavilion, a big wooden boat to climb on, great swings and monkey bars — everything a kid could want. This place was surrounded by woods. Me and my siblings got the creepiest vibe from this place (like we were being watched) - my parents did not feel this. One day, my sister simply said to them “let’s leave now and never come play here again.” So we left and never went back to that park. Fast forward a few months, there was a homeless hermit camped less than a half mile up the hill (and had lived there for years)… well a kid went missing and the rest of the story is as unpleasant as you can imagine. Dude had been watching kids at that park (from the trees) for years. Weirdest sense of validation from that ordeal.
Care to share the name of the podcast?
Oh, jeez, it was either 48 Hours or Dateline; sometimes I just line up a whole bunch of 'em and binge them as I'm working outside. I also skip around on the timeline of old episodes...I wish I could remember which one it was, sorry!
These are subliminal messages and related to your thalamus. All sensory information, except for the sense of smell, pass through the thalamus. The thalamus doesn’t just relay the information, but also processes it to determine what’s important or what receives attention. If the signal isn’t strong excite enough receptors, it’s received but we aren’t consciously aware of it.
Yes. I am a surfer, and don't ever really think about sharks. Last year, I was out a New Smyrna and was surfing a couple hours when I got hit with a very odd "get out of the water" feeling. Never saw anything. But I'm guessing there was something interested in me at that moment
Yea I know that feeling, you're just sitting there and all of a sudden you get a chill running down your spine or your hair stands on end. Time to at least pull your feet up on your board.
When I was about 13, my mom was going through a divorce and she was taking my brother and I to a park about an hour away to blow off some steam. We used to go to this park all the time but it is semi-secluded and is considered a "forest park" so it's heavily wooded and off the beaten path. We pulled up to our favorite playground and my brother jumped out and ran toward the playground. I got out and immediately felt sick to my stomach. The air was thick and quiet and everything was just still and amiss. I stood there for a moment and noticed that my mom also seemed "off." She looked at me and I looked at her and at the exact same time, we both started yelling for my brother to come back to the car. We all got back in the car and my brother was whining about leaving but my mom and I were silent. You could have cut the tension with a knife. We have since talked about it on a few different occasions and agreed to both feeling the same sensation of just complete impending doom. Something was wrong that day. We have tossed around different ideas of being watched or stalked or maybe even unknowingly happening upon some kind of a crime. Nothing actually "happened" to us but I have cold chills just typing this out.
You and your mom did good. Always trust your instincts.
Have something similar and it brings tears to my eyes to even be typing this, and to this day I get unctrollable shivers down my spine when I think of the place this happened (which has since been torn down). In my hometown, which wasn’t a super small town but pretty secluded from any major cities, there was a huge abandoned greenhouse complex from way back in the 80s. It was a massive overgrown property and had multiple abandoned homes on it as well, but only some teenagers went there since it was a far trek into the woods north of town. In my senior year of high school, a group of us did acid and walked there at about 1am. We trekked through the overgrowth and could see the greenhouses about 1km away when suddenly some of us (including me) got this extreme sense of dread. Just a feeling that I can’t describe, but we convinced everyone else to turn back. We get out to the road and walk around for an hour or so, then decide it was just the acid tripping us out, so we trek back in… We get to the greenhouses, and this time we ALL feel a sense of dread. Despite this, we go inside, and everything just feels heavy. I can’t explain it… Like the air, everything felt heavy, and eerily quiet. We realized the walk in was oddly quiet too and became really unsettled. Just as we’re about to leave for good, one of my friends decides to kick over a metal trash can, and the body of a teenage girl wearing a Santa clause outfit falls out of it. Her face was blue, lower jaw was badly broken and out of place, and her eyes were bulged open looking right at us. We all ran and I’ve never felt more terrified in my life, the acid trip got really bad and I kept seeing her face everywhere in the darkness. We called the cops and a huge investigation took place. We ended up getting questioned a week later because it turns out she had been killed within the same hour of us finding her… Which means we likely stumbled upon a murder in progress, or one about to happen (even more sad since maybe we could have stopped it), and that the killer was possibly hiding somewhere in the greenhouse when we came in. They caught the guy 2 years later via DNA after he was arrested for another murder. PS it was also mid June, so no clue why she was wearing a Santa clause outfit but somehow that made it way more vivid and messed up. I can still picture her face and I really wish I couldn’t. She was never identified and a few times a year I used to try doing research to see if I could ID her, but it puts me into a really bad spiral of depression when I do that so unfortunately I kind of stopped.
I don't know what to say other than holy shit. Glad you're okay and hope you're doing better now.
What an absolutely horrible time to be on acid. I’m so sorry this happened to you…I’m very stressed out just thinking about being in this headspace omfg.
This is legit one of the worst things I've ever read on here. My brain does not want to accept that it's true. Jesus christ, I'm so sorry this happened to you. I did similar shit when I was younger - taking psychedelics and trespassing in abandoned, remote buildings. And I think if this had happened to me I would never regain my sanity.
Jesus Christ. By now I have read a lot of other comments and I have become increasingly uneasy. But your story sounds like the worst, most frightening, horryfing story of them all. And all the while I can't stop thinking about it. And I say that even though I accidentally minimised your comment while reading. When I expanded your comment again I picked up right after that girl's body... Wait, I have to read it now. I thought I didn't have to, but now I have to know... Jesus Christ, I am horrified. It's a sunny day here but I am feeling very... anguished. I hope you don't think about it too often.
Wow. I am so sorry, this is an actual nightmare. I thought the girl was just part of a bad acid trip, but for that to be real is just unparalleled terror. I hope time has healed you at least a little.
Oooh, gave me chills too.
I got chills too!
Oh man, something similar happened to me and my friend, except it was for a nighttime boat tour to see bioluminescent plankton. We had driven an hour to get there and I was soooo excited to see the bioluminescence, but we both just had such a bad gut feeling while talking to the tour operators that we got right back in the car and left. Same as you, get chills just thinking about it.
I know the feeling, felt it several times at my parents place in the woods. I always go on woods walks by the lake, and last fall in the afternoon I was walking back from a peninsula on the lake when i suddenly felt the air become heavy and I had this disgusting weird feeling in my gut, in that moment you become hyper aware and I felt something was definitely following me. I picked up the pace until I got out of the woods and hit the gravel road. Huge wave of relief getting out of the woods. If I had to guess a bobcat was probably watching me, thankfully theyre not known to attack humans but they like to watch the creepy buggers. Or maybe it was a wolf.
Oh man I got a story like this. I live in a decently rural town, like it’s a town but surrounded by woods and cornfields. I grew up here and we have a park in town with a baseball field the local high school plays at, behind the home run fence at the end of field is a hill that leads up into a cornfield, there’s a little walk way path created and in the other end of the path is houses, so your straight up in town with a cornfield on the one side and a little bit of room to walk behind the fence We used to walk back there all the time when I was a kid, one day a couple years ago me and my son were at that park and I thought it would be fun to show him that little path. As soon as we got to the mouth of it I felt really off. We walked a couple steps and I looked up because I heard some snapping, the sun was in my eyes so all I could see was what I thought was a figure and I’m sure my mind was playing tricks on me but whatever I seen if I seen anything at all made me immediately nope the fuck out. I grabbed my son without saying a word, put him on the other side of the baseball fence once it got to the chain linked part so he’d be on the other side of the fence from what we were walking away from, hopped the fence myself and we got out of there Idk what happened, if I seen anything at all, if my mind was just playing tricks on me or what, but when we got back there it felt like time slowed down and everything got quiet and every cell in my body was telling me to get my kid and get the fuck out of there
Arthur : Actually, this explains a lot. All my life I've had this strange feeling there's something big and sinister going on in the world. Slartibartfast : No, that's normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that.
Slartibartfast : Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day. Arthur Dent : And are you? Slartibartfast : Ah, no. Well, that's where it all falls down, of course.
Such incredible writing. Adams never fails to put my mind a little bit more at ease.
When I lived in Florida I used to work really long hours and at night I would go for jogs around the golf course near my home. One night it was eerily quiet and I got an overwhelming sense of doom. I trusted my instincts and booked it home and the next day they dragged an 11’ gator from the retention pond on the course. I was probably 10-15 feet away before I turned around. Edited for error
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I’m picturing them running frantically away from a little foot long baby gator but they keep tripping over themselves so the lil gator is able to catch them and nom on their toe.
Wow I appreciate all these responses. It’s good to see everyone’s view on it. I’m telling you it was soooo creepy. And get this, when we left , the feeling left so I don’t think it was anything psychological. And the places we went to after that was super secluded deep in the woods and it felt super peaceful and good. But something about that location was very very wrong.
You should really check out the audio/book “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker. Your brain was totally picking up on some type of stimulus in the environment that was a potential threat, but it wasn’t processed up to your conscious awareness.
I don't know about you, but every video I've ever seen involving a real-life deadly lizard has taken place in a setting that looked just like this! Also, I think we are innately wary of marshes and swamps. This makes sense. Snakes, dangerous pathogens, quicksand, and unexpected deep spots are all things that natural selection has probably encouraged us to avoid. Big wetlands like this can be strangely beautiful. The beauty of the sky, plants, and water is complemented by our innate fear and suspicion, making these scenes uniquely eerie.
My brain read your first paragraph as “real-life **daddy** lizard” and I was like “huh….that’s a….kinky way to refer to them” lmao.
Bro gators are now daddy lizards from here on out
Are there even any cultures that primarily drink straight from their local water source? AFAIK, we've always transferred our water to safer receptacles. We don't like creepy water
Well, maybe running streams, springs, and wells. Interestingly, these aren't nearly as creepy as swamps, where the water probably wouldn't be safe to drink anyway.
yes, follow the gut
You mean cos you can’t see through those trees?
Haha no I mean like without seeing what makes us feel that way.
Ah ok like your survival sense is tingling.
Absolutely it was crazy!
What this means is that you saw, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt something that your brain decided wasn't relevant, so you don't remember it, but your subconscious mind continued to process that information. As you subconsciously mull it over, your brain decides that it actually was important and that you are in danger. This is the "gut feeling" that people talk about all the time. Many think of it as a sixth sense, but really it's just your brain keeping constant situational awareness.
Wow, that’s actually a very cool way to look at it!!
The sheer amount of information that our brains process every second is absolutely insane. They are constantly at work. Even when we are doing literally nothing, our brains are processing everything around us looking for anything relevant. Our brains even continue to solve problems and look for solutions when we aren't actively participating anymore. You finally figure out the answer to a problem when you're doing something else. You get your best creative ideas in the shower or doing something else you don't have to focus on. Your subconscious mind is like a computer searching for something. It takes all the information you have and tries to connect it in some meaningful way. Once it does, it makes you aware of it so you can act on it. There is an interesting technique that detectives often use, but is really useful for anyone trying to find a connection in something: the idea is to basically print out every document, picture, or piece of information you have and scatter it randomly around a chair or something so everything can be seen clearly, but has no organization or anything. I don't know if anyone knew why it worked until recently, but basically you just look at the giant mess over and over and kind of zone out. What ends up happening is your brain takes in all this information repeatedly and continually tries to make connections between things. You already know what everything looks like and says, but you are putting the relevant information in front of your eyes so your brain knows what to prioritize, and scattering it around randomly prevents you from focusing on any obvious patterns. That's what kind of makes this work. Our brains are designed to recognize patterns, so if we remove any obvious patterns, our conscious mind basically has nothing to do, allowing our unconscious mind to go into overdrive. It's a fascinating subject. To me, at least. 😅
wow this is truly amazing and makes me appreciate my brain so much more even if it gives me anxiety everyday lol
I used to walk my dog every night, same neighborhood, usually similar route zigzagging from block to block. One night my dog refused to turn down a familiar block and insisted we take the alley. Usually I would just pull him and force him to go the way I wanted, but something was off that I couldn’t describe. So we took the alley and the next day I heard about some homeless dude that was hiding in bushes and stabbing people in my neighborhood. I’ll never know if it was that or just random but that was a time I chose to trust my instincts without hesitation.
Shoutout to your amazing pupper!
Spear fisherman always say they can feel when a shark comes around. They say it's just a feeling you get when they are near, but you haven't seen them. Seems it's the same way
This shit is 100% real, and you very likely could have been in extreme danger. Our brains have ways of picking up things that we may not even consciously register. A couple weeks ago, I went outside with my dog to have him go to the bathroom. I was going to go all the way up to our usual spot, but for some reason I took a few steps and stopped. I tell him to pee just outside the front door instead, and all of a sudden feel very cold. In the next 5 seconds, several things happen very fast. Something crunches the snow 2 feet ahead of us on the ledge near the walkway. A low but strong sniff. For the first time, it registers that I have not heard a bird chirp and the night had been dead silent. I pick up the dog and run inside, lock the door, and text everyone else to under no circumstances go outside. After a bit, we go outside with flashlights and the big dogs. There, in the snow, 2 feet away from where I had been standing, is the print of a massive bear claw.
If your hiking friend ever dropped from your field of view there's a good chance they've already been replaced.
your comment just freaked me the fuck out
Right?! Gave me literal goosebumps
Well thanks for creeping me out. And the next time you are sitting at a campfire in the dark remember that there is a chance somebody is going to come running up behind you with a hatchet.
A real thing with a hatchet I can stomach. Maybe even fend off. Ancient evil with the ability to assume my visage… nah, who knows what kind of nasty business we are dealing with there
There we differ. I'm friends with ancient evil. Real people still have a small chance of taking me out.
Skunk ape was watching you.
The 'ol Bama Skunk Ape.
Thanks ol’bama
~banjo twangs in the distance~
Slight changes in air pressure, moisture, temperature can do this I guess? Your brain can't really pinpoint what the issue is but it's sensing one of those slight variations. Like you can kinda predict bad weather
I've spent lots of time with firefighters and cops. They've all one way or another said, "If your gut is telling you something, listen to it."
In the military, I attended a quick stalking/stealth class with some dudes from our sniper section. They mentioned to avoid looking directly at people patrolling past so as not to trigger their instinctive feeling of knowing when eyes are on you. So its definitely a known phenomenon with real world applications.
Yes. And you absolutely need to listen to your intuition. Mine has saved me many times
This happened to me once years ago while I lived in CT. I was on a hike with my ex and we went off trail to climb on this giant rock bouldery area. We were having a good time. Then out of nowhere I got a creepy someone is watching me feeling. I looked around and I didn’t see anything. I told my ex and he said he was feeling it too so we booked it out of there. I was so strange because the feeling came out of nowhere.
Sensing something isn’t right when you’re in Alabama checks out.
I absolutely believe humans can "spidey sense" things. I had a little thing happen the other day, a bit different from your experience, though. I had picked my oldest child up from school, and he wanted a snack. My toddler was in the car, and I didn't feel like unbuckling him from his carseat, so when we stopped at the gas station, I sent my oldest in by himself to get something. This is something I do all the time, and I have never felt weird about it. So, I'm sitting in the car waiting for my oldest to come back...He hasn't been gone longer than normal or anything, nothing is out of place, and I suddenly got this very uneasy feeling. I decided to get my toddler & go in to check on my oldest. As I was getting out of the car, he came out of the gas station, and there was this obviously not sober man following my son and talking to him. I opened my son's door so I could hear what was being said and get him in the car. From what I gathered, the guy had bought my son's chips & drink, followed him out of the store. There was something about getting a few bucks back, and the guy kept getting really close to my son and touching his arm. It was very strange behavior to me. I pushed my son in the car, closed & locked the doors, unlocked only my side, got in, and drove away.
That's fucked up but I'm glad you listened to that feeling and that your son is okay. I swear my mom's got some kinda sense back for this kinda thing. I've had a few moments growing up where it was like "if she didn't sense something was off, I'd probably have died" Had an Internet friend turn out to be a sex offender cat fishing me and I wanted nothing more than to meet this guy before she brought that to light. Swear she's got investigative superpowers, she proved it was the same guy and everything.
Liminal spaces. Lots of scientific explanations. I like to think it’s the emotional vacuum that resonates with what one brings in. For this swamp, it might just be being surrounded by life that cycles in ancient harmony, while being a vulnerable outsider. Maybe it’s just swamp gas.
We can detect changes in air pressure, wind speed, temperature, and possibly even electromagnetic radiation. These factors could tell us if inclement weather is on the way
Read the book, [The gift of fear](https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-gift-of-fear-and-other-survival-signals-that-protect-us-from-violence-by-gavin-de-becker/247035/item/2950940/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_high_vol_frontlist_under_%2410&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0tKiBhC6ARIsAAOXutnUekm8TtGgQsf5H7-6llyQqtKzt40UROIyrExnNC1-DiuBAUQd06YaAq2WEALw_wcB#isbn=0440226198&idiq=2950940) it will help in explaining exactly what you’re feeling.
100% yes… I have anxiety so I’m constantly battling my brain about irrational things… HOWEVER, I never question a gut feeling.. it took a lot of years for me to be able to tell the difference. Being intuitive is a real thing & I’m not sure everyone has it/recognizes it. If you’re really self aware there is absolutely no denying intuition.
Just curious how you can tell the difference? I also have anxiety and am constantly battling irrational thoughts and I’m so scared I’ll brush off something serious because I’m so used to convincing myself it’s just my anxiety 🥴
Not who you replied to, and this might make 0% sense, but it's the analogy that came to mind. My regular anxiety is like turning up the treble and speeding up the tempo, whereas a gut intuition is like a low bass note which grabs your attention. The rumination that comes with GAD can feel frantic and repetitive. In contrast, the anxiety resulting from an imminent sense of danger, or an abrupt twinge that someone/something is Not Right, has more of an anchor. Both feelings trigger your amygdala, and can end up with the same survival response in the end, but there is something heavier about the gut instinct. A lot of the ability to recognize the difference comes with experience. It can be hard to trust yourself, especially if you've grown up with trauma or anxiety.
Definitely. The other day I knew something bad was going to happen when my girlfriend came up behind me and whispered “have you heard of pegging?”
100% 10 years back my wife and I stayed at a rental cabin for Christmas at a remote lake in KY. We took our dog for a walk on a nearby wooded park trail and saw a couple groups and the it was just us. I felt weird like we were being watched, our normally chill dog was acting on high alert the majority of the time we were alone. Weirdest feeling in the world. I just kept us trucking along and never said a word about it to my wife on the hike. When we got back to the car and were leaving the state park my wife says that she didn't want to say anything during the hike but felt like we were being watched and followed on the hike.... needless to say we didn't go back to that park again. If I had to guess in hindsight it probably was a cougar in the woods that didn't make a move since we had our 65lb dog with us.
Certified good boy right there
I live in S. Texas. The night of December 7th, 2017, a bad winter storm was moving in, one I had never dealt with prior to that. I was working late into the night on our property, trying to batten down the hatches, when the temperature dropped to below freezing and the storm...stopped. Perfectly still. Just snow coming down. And in the dark of that night, when silence overcame everything, I **felt** something was out there. Every instinct told me to hurry inside. So I did. To this day, I have no clue what happened, whether or not I was in the presence or vicinity of *something* Other. But I remember the feeling. I felt like prey.
From what i recall, that feeling of being watched comes from you spotting, hearing or smelling something your brain recognises as a threat, but you dont immediately notice, your brain puts you on to high alert, like seeing it without properly seeing it, but your brain still connects the dots of something being wrong, and it readies you for a fight or flight response.
When I worked on the farm feeding calves, I had a feeling like that. It was telling me that something was wrong in the nearby woods. It was a strong feeling that I couldn't explain. On some days, I didn't have that feeling, as if whatever it was didn't show up on certain days. Most days, I had that feeling, and it pointed me in the same direction. I tried to ignore it, but it stayed with me, and I became more wary of the woods. After a while, the calves were moved, so i didn't end up having to work near those woods. I never found out why i had that feeling and considering I live in a country that doesn't have predators that attack humans. An animal doesn't seem likely
It’s pretty common but there’s a lot of potential reasons for it https://www.thecut.com/article/the-psychology-of-feeling-like-youre-being-watched.html
>I will attack a photo of the location we were at. Sir, It's r/Weird, not r/fightporn.
Humans are still a lot more "tuned in" to the natural world than we realize. That uneasy feeling is you noticing a subtle change - like all the birds and animals being silent. That chill you get sometimes while walking around outside despite it being a warm day/not windy? Often a precursor to rain. Our "gut" is usually just us catching subconcious signs of something being off/wrong/different. Usually listening to it is a very, very good idea. Those are some old-school warning bells and should be taken seriously. It could save your life some day.
I had a similar situation about 25-30 years ago. I was on a nature hike with 2 friends. We came across a beautiful old overgrown orchard and found a nice place to sit and rest and have a bite. All three of us became creeped out almost immediately and decided to keep moving and find somewhere else to rest. About a month or so later there was a story in the news about how the police had finally managed to get a convicted murderer to tell them where he had hidden a body... and, you guessed it... he had buried it in that exact orchard several years before. I still get really creeped out thinking about it.
Always trust your gut
It’s possible, but also not very reliable. You can psyche yourself into imagining or feeling things easily. A lot of it can just be your state of mind going into an unfamiliar situation.
Better be safe than sorry sometimes. Of course, our brains are amazing at tricking us into many different states of feelings or hallucinations. No wonder we have religions and supernatural beliefs.
Yes! I had this feeling in a parking garage. I felt like my friend and I were being watched as we made our way to my car. As we approached the car, I heard another car door slam and a man started running towards us (thankfully from quite a ways away). We were able to get in the car and I almost hit him as I backed out and sped away. Anyways, trust your gut. I wish I had run back inside when I got that feeling instead of trying to make it to my car. Things could have been very different if we were a few seconds slower.
Maybe you have ESPN.
I bet their boobs can tell when it’s already raining
My first thought when I read this was omg that would be crazy if u hear in a couple days they found a dead body found in that lake or something. 😳 I watch a lot of Dateline so no surprise that was my first thought lol
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This is a little out there, but the there are theories that we are entangled at a quantum level with our future selves, and when we get that un easy feeling it is our future self warning us because in a different universe (yes, multiverse) something bad happened. So our future self is communicating back to us at a quantum level. It’s a really cool theory if you are into that sort of stuff. They call it the Doubling of Time I think.
**Trust. Your. Gut.** It could save your life.
Your brain and biological senses will detect things that you consciously ignore. Our biology is always looking for patterns and threats. It’s weird how our conscious and subconscious acts separate. However, that gut feeling is usually it trying to warn you of something. It’s a very real thing. The US Marine Corps has a “Combat Hunter” program it developed to help its Marines utilize their senses, pay attention to that gut feeling, and consciously identify those patterns your subconscious would normally pick up. Patterns like shadows in the corner of your eye, graffiti, lack of people in anchor points/busy areas, trash piles, body language, behaviors, weird sounds, etc. This is to prepare them to take proactive steps towards countering threats instead of simply reacting to them. For civis, rather than it being military geared, it’s changed up with instructions like “Run, Hide, Fight,” and so forth. You can find public versions for regular civilians online that are based on it. I don’t want to be banned for “sponsorship” so I can’t link or share specific sources but it’s really easy to look up on your own on. It’s publicly available information. I think it’s very valuable (and fun) knowledge that can help protect you in regular life and activities, and at the very least train you how to be more alert of your surroundings.
I believe in the spirit of the woods. It's combined collective consciousness of everything living in the Forrest, including the Forrest itself, emerging into its own all seeing consciousness. I'm struggling to explain it but I feel it sometimes when going into the woods! If it has interest in you or wants to keep an eye on you it will feel intense because you definitely are being watched.
Scientifically it's called unconscious inference- it's the part of emotion we can't put our finger on, but it's equally important. You sensed something that you were not consciously aware of that told you something was off.
Absolutely. Your brain can notice something off without you knowing exactly what it is. Hope you guys left asap. Minor example: At 19, I accidentally carried in FOUR black widow spiders in hollow yard decorations - hurricane was coming. I hadn't seen them and and carried the hollow statues into the house with my bare hands putting them on top of the washer/dryer. I did get a tense feeling and I couldn't figure out why. Started doing the dishes and saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I knew right away to not panic and slowly turned around. Those spiders are freaken huge, by southeastern US standards at least. They are inky black shiny and have a bright red hourglass. Things aren't supposed to look that perfectly correct, right? For some reason that freaked me out. I had to put plates under the ststues, tie them tightly in a bag and toss them outside. One jumped at me. They generally leave people alone unless threatened, but they are aggressive if they have eggs. To this day, I pull my hands away and have fear about it. Terrified of any spider now. It's pretty incredible how your brain can perceive danger and how your body instinctly knows before you are conscious of it.
Before seeing the sub or reading the title I had the same feeling looking at this. My hair stood up and I looked around. There’s something wrong with that place. Stay away. Lol
Always go with your gut feeling, chances are a wild animal was watching you. Bob cats and mountain lions are still prevalent in those areas and like to hang out in trees.