Listening to our instincts. What are instincts?

I am writing this because last night I was in a state of confusion and paranoia/fear. A little background about myself. I am in my twenties, had a decent job in the telecommunication industry until I got laid off. For awhile I went into mix martial arts, to take my mind off certain problems in my life. Good stress reliever. 2 years ago I had an injury were the left side of my neck was injured during a takedown. My neck has never recovered and I have been on tons of pain killers/ muscle relaxers/ downers/anti-inflamitaories. Nothing helps. When I was shaving last night as I was shaving my neck, I moved my head back, and felt a click. I did not think much about this as I always experience pain like that. But something was different this time. I was in the shower after that cleaning my hair when a strange convulsion feeling came over me. My eyes started to wiggle, I started to get lightheaded, and I felt like I was going to collapse in the shower. As I left the bathroom I remember looking at the mirror and seeing that my pupils took over my whole iris. It was completely black. I listened to my instinct and I knew I had to get to the hospital, something was not right. I yelled for my sister as I am now living with her and her friend. Anyway, when I got there I had unbearable twitches and could not control my neck. It was not overly serious as I am still here. I found out it was the muscles in my neck were all displaced, and I had a vertebrae logged to the left side of my neck(vertebrae or disk, pretty sure it was vertebrae though). But it got me thinking of my own morality and the sensation of fear and instincts. I honestly believe if I did not run out of that washroom and get help I know, I would have collapsed and probably hit my head and died. I forgot to mention that I did faint in the wheelchair in the hospital, so I know it was a good idea to get to the hospital.

Listen to your instincts. Your gut is never wrong.

So what are instincts ATS???

Our instincts are there for a good reason. I believe they are almost, "Subconscious common sense", and depending on your belief system/s, including spiritual input.

Our normal common sense takes input from available, near obvious sources and gives us an impression of what not to do, ie: Skid marks on road, blind corner, pieces of broken headlamp, watch out.

Instincts may well be picking up on other, less obvious que's. Impressions of situation, feelings, sensation.. maybe guidance from "higher up" if you will. I believe the instinct to be the most base level of right and wrong. At the end of the day, it is supposed to be the one thing you can implicity trust. I know I do.

Just my .02 on the matter

reply to post by Maddogkull


Hi maddog, Instincts are in my knowledge, are related to your senses, in this case you felt fear and you probably couldn't solve it yourself and you took action quickly and called your sister. I guess it took you no time to make that Decision. If you had used your brain or thought about what to do in this case, you probably wouldn't be here.

We have to pay attention to your feelings, gut instincts or senses they are ours, use them......hope this helped a bit.

Sekos

Actually, more than just right and wrong, sorry, rather tired.. 5am here, about to flop into bed.

Instinct is there to protect you, when all else fails, that shouldn't.

Some time ago, I had a heart attack. At the time, I didn't know what was happening and thought it was just reflux or something, I had just eaten. I collapsed onto the floor, looked at the door and just knew, if I didn't do something, I was going to die there on the floor.. I managed to get down the hallway and find my housemate, who took me to hospital. I may not have died.. I may have died.. never know. I am glad I didn't find out.

Your instincts are collection of tendencies.

A behavior that serves the primary goal of survival is beneficial to the likelihood of reproduction. Over generations, the behaviors are passed on as tendencies. Not every offspring will share all of the view and opinions and habits of it's parents but each off spring will share some of these things through various mechanisms.

Brain structure, learning/teaching, various aspects of physical structure and shared experiences will all serve to condition you to react to certain situation in certain ways. When those reactions benefit you, they increase your odds of reproducing, thus passing on your genetic build and your lessons of life and allowing you to continue to share experiences side by side with your offspring, giving them a set of inherited instincts and learned behaviors.

From my experience, ''instincts'' are pretty much subconscious thoughts that give us an instant ''solution'', before our conscious thoughts have time to compute the information.

I find that most instinctual thoughts correlate with the unemotional, logical conclusion that would be best drawn from the given situation.

Our conscience thought process incorporates what we personally find ''right'' or ''wrong'', and will steer our thoughts away from a logical conclusion, towards an emotionally based, personal thought response.

Some instincts are base, a chemical response to our biological imperatives. Or they are superior, foresight that triggers the biochemistry to protect the self.