The five basic senses are smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing. These five senses are based on bodily feelings – they allow us to feel something that is physically around us. The idea of a “sixth sense” apart from being in addition to the five basic senses is because humans also have a sixth sense that is adapted to non-physical feelings that are not real, subtle, or invisible to the other five senses. The sixth sense is sometimes described as intuition, or the sense of knowing something instinctively, or something that without the sixth sense would not be known. In the information below, you can learn how to connect and why to connect with the “sixth sense.”
Step
Part 1 of 3: Connecting Yourself with Intuition
Step 1. Develop intuition
Intuition is the term for gut feeling – something you know or think based on instinctual feelings rather than intentional thoughts. When you immediately like or dislike someone you just met, or have a good or bad feeling about something that is about to happen, it's considered an intuitive feeling.
- Experts believe that intuition is a form of rapid information processing and is an ability that can be developed with practice and attention.
- The ability to use intuition forms recurring connections to situations and outcomes – the richer and more complex your experiences are, the more likely your subconscious, intuitive knowledge to develop about a wide variety of situations and experiences.
- Therefore, developing intuition begins by exposing oneself to other people, places, and things, and by observing them more closely. Watch your feelings carefully in response to the things you are facing. Pay attention to how you feel and react to these things – perhaps by starting a journal to record these feelings and the environment in which they are generated. The more you become trained in observing other things and subconscious reactions to them, the more attuned you will become to your intuition.
Step 2. Keep a dream journal
Dreams are considered a subconscious expression of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Basically, dreams contain valuable intuitive information that your conscious mind may not be aware of.
- Make it a habit to write down everything you can remember from your dream as soon as you wake up. Record people, events, objects, and feelings.
- Try to make connections between the contents of the dream and the persistent feelings or situations of your waking life.
- As you begin to draw connections between conscious and subconscious experiences, you will become more aware of and attuned to the unreal thoughts and experiences that occur under your immediate awareness.
Step 3. Write freely
Free writing is sitting down with a blank sheet of paper and writing down whatever thoughts come to mind. Freelancing can be a very useful exercise because it allows you to connect with the part of your consciousness that existed before it was blocked by the rational mind.
- For free writing, sit in a quiet, undisturbed place. Take a blank sheet of paper and start writing whatever comes to mind, even if it starts with "I don't know what to write."
- Continue writing until you are tired of thinking.
- If you need a little bit more speed to get started, you can start asking questions like, “What answers do I need? or “What's been on my mind lately?” You'll be surprised to realize where you've gone with freewriting and with the unexpected insights you come across.
Part 2 of 3: Developing Perception
Step 1. Learn to pay attention to the little things
Part of developing a sixth sense is learning to pay close attention to your surroundings, especially the small details.
- The more you pay attention to your surroundings, the more aware you become of small changes and variations, and the more you adapt to the world around you.
- Improving perception in this way can help you notice changes and changes in the environment and ultimately anticipate certain things before they happen.
- For example, imagine a road that you often pass by. Try to imagine the road as close and precise as you can. Where are the shops located? What traffic signs are installed? What are the parking rules? What is the environment like on the road? Write down as many details as you can remember, then go down the street and carefully fill in the blanks in your memory. Write a detailed description of what you see. Then, test yourself to see how accurately you can remember the details you wrote down. Learn to notice and absorb these details wherever you go.
Step 2. Record what you see
Teach yourself to focus your attention outward rather than inward. This will help you to develop sensitivity to what is going on around you and will teach you to calm your thoughts and worries when needed.
Take a notebook with you whenever you go places. Record what you see and feel in as much detail as possible. Do this as a regular practice until you can do it automatically, with or without a notebook
Step 3. Learn to pay attention and listen more carefully
When talking to someone, train yourself to give your full attention. As you learn to observe someone more closely and more attentively, you will learn to understand small, barely perceptible cues that will indicate a person's true feelings or thoughts.
Pay attention to slight variations in pitch and intonation, notice eye movements and eyeballs shrink or widen, pay attention to word choices, and notice pauses and silences between words
Step 4. Train your nonvisual senses
We tend to rely on sight to interpret the world around us, so sight can dominate the other senses. However, if you consciously prioritize your other senses over sight, you may begin to perceive subtler variations in your environment that you weren't aware of before.
- Try closing your eyes and using your other senses to feel other people as they pass by. Pay attention to the sound of their clothes, their footsteps, and their breathing. Pay attention to her scent. Notice the invisible changes in the air around them as they move. Pay attention to the temperature changes that appear as they pass. See if you can detect where their attention is going and if you can tell when their attention is on you.
- As you become more sensitive to other people and the energy they release, notice if you can notice the type of energy each person passes by. Can you understand the tension or the negative or positive energy?
- Try to assess the energy of the room you enter. Can you feel the positive or negative energy?
Part 3 of 3: Calming the Mind
Step 1. Get your mind out of the way
When you focus too much on the dialogue running through your head, it's easy to miss things that happen to other people and things in the world around you.
- When you find yourself trapped with thoughts in your head, shift your focus outward consciously and pay attention to the people, places, and things around you.
- Calm your mind by telling yourself that you don't have to think about whatever's going on in your head. Instead, decide to be calm and composed.
Step 2. Develop a meditation practice
Part of learning to get used to the world around you is learning to calm your mind and observe quietly. Meditation trains the mind to move away from normal busyness and connect with calm within the body.
- Start looking for a quiet place where you can sit quietly.
- Close your eyes and start paying attention to the sounds, smells, and physical feelings around you.
- Take deep, regular breaths, focus on breathing through the diaphragm and noting the pauses between each breath.
- If disorganized thoughts arise, let them go slowly and quietly. Don't follow those thoughts.
- Gradually increase the amount of time you spend in meditation. First, you may only practice 5 minutes a day. Gradually increase to 10 minutes a day, then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes.
Step 3. Walk
Regular reflective walks can be a great way to get out of your conscious mind and into a more intuitive feeling state.
- Find a quiet, quiet place to walk. Many people feel that being close to nature helps connect with a place that is “bigger than you,” which helps you become more attuned to the world around you and less fixated on conscious, rational thoughts.
- When walking, deliberately turn your attention outwards. Focus on what you see, smell, taste and touch. Try to understand the smallest sound as much as possible. Take a closer look at small changes in nature. Try to feel the smallest changes in temperature, wind and pressure.
- Carry a notebook that records how you feel. Pay attention to what you observe and how you react to those perceptions.
Tips
- Connecting and developing a sixth sense or intuition plays an important role in maintaining a calm and balanced mental state. When you enter into intuitive thoughts on a regular basis, then you enter into feelings, thoughts, and ideas that are not always seen in the everyday conscious mind. This will allow you to recognize and deal with feelings or ideas that may be negatively affecting you.
- Developing a sixth sense/intuition is also believed to help increase imagination and creativity, which is especially useful if you are creative or have a hard time thinking.
- The more often you develop awareness of other people and the world around you, the more understanding and empathetic you become. Developing intuition is a great way to help you feel closer and less isolated from the people and things around you.
