What is Intuition?

Somehow we can’t stop wondering. We’ve talked about intuition in a few of our videos already (take a look at the Youtube channel). In this article we want to dive deeper into this concept. What did Carl Gustav Jung say about it? What does science say about it?

Still from our video “What is Intuition?”

We have our five senses. That is a fairly simple fact. We use these senses to navigate through the world. To not stumble over a piece of stone. To find food. To hold a baby. To hear the alarm clock. To see the red traffic light.

If the senses were all we have, we would be pretty robotic. Fortunately, there’s more than just the senses.

Our brain is a complex thing. To this day it’s full of mysteries, or at least phenomena that are not completely solved. For example the gut feeling, also known as intuition. What is it? And where is it located in the brain?

We once heard an interesting explanation for intuition. While rational, conscious thinking is moving from A to B to C to D, intuition tends to make jumps. It can go from A to K in no time.

Here’s an example: Say a football coach wants his team to win. The coach needs to make strategic decisions. Out of pure observation of how the first half went, the coach picks a certain player to be in the second half. The decision can be very immediate and not involve any logical steps. The coach just knows.

Knowledge is the very foundation of intuition. The thing is, that the biggest part of the knowledge that we store in the brain, is not consciously accessible. This is where intuition comes into play.

Here’s a definition of intuition. Despite being a relatively vague term, the general meaning of intuition boils down to access to the subconscious. So we can imagine intuition as a door between the conscious and the subconscious. Some people’s door is barely open, other people’s door is wide open, which is why we have fluctuating intuition levels among people. Let us now look at Carl Gustav Jung’s definition:

I regard intuition as a basic psychological function. It is the function that mediates perceptions in an unconscious way. Everything, whether outer…