Doubt can be an overwhelming obstacle that truly messes with our judgement and common sense.
Thus, we might persuade ourselves not to do something, entirely owing to a feeling we have, and nothing else.
Even if the fears stemming from that feeling are completely unfounded.
However, sometimes we might find ourselves thanking our lucky stars that we trusted our instincts.
As doing so helped us avoid utterly disastrous consequences.
Redditor TheRealGreedyGoat was curious to hear moments people were truly grateful they followed their gut, leading them to ask:
"What is the scariest 'trust your gut' feeling you felt before and glad you did so?"
Red Light/Green Light
"I got an absolutely gut twisting nauseating feeling and waited a few seconds before driving through the green light."
"Two pick up trucks slammed into each other and would have crushed me on my motorcycle."- LostArgonac
Slow And Steady Wins The Race
"I had to leave for an appointment and for some reason I felt the urge to just sit in my car before leaving."
"I've sat there just looking around for two minutes or so."
"Then the feeling went away and I left."
"When I was on the highway, I saw a crash happened just minutes before I was supposed to be there."
"Truck blew a tire, hit other cars which hit other cars as well."
"It was a mess."
"Two people died."
"A few others heavily injured to the hospital."
"I was in the traffic behind the scene for about two hours and was so glad I just sat in my car just staring around before leaving."
"I still do that sometimes, thinking back to that moment."- ikbenerook
Right When You Want To Be Wrong
"I was once walking down a street at night and randomly thought to myself, 'yikes, I’m going to get mugged'.”
"I ignored the feeling."
"Got mugged."- DrWindupBird
Front And Center Isn't Always The Best Place To Be
"When I was a teen I'd make a few bucks helping a local farmer bale hay."
"The hay would be stacked on a trailer and towed by tractor to the barn."
"I usually sat on the front of the trailer on the way to the barn, but I suddenly felt like that wasn't a good place to be and I moved to the back."
"As soon as I did, I heard a clang."
"The hitch had come loose from the tractor - while heading down a steep hill."
"I climbed down the back and easily stepped off - moments before the trailer flipped over into a ravine."- p38-lightning
In Case You STILL Needed The Reminder...
"Not me, my grandfather."
"He used to never wear his seatbelt."
"One day he's driving around with my mom and suddenly remarks, 'I feel like I'm about to go through the windshield' and buckles in."
"Less than 30 seconds later, as they're going through an intersection, a car blows the red light going like 40mph and slams into my grandpa's side of the car."
"He walked away with nothing worse than some fractured ribs and now he always wears his seatbelt."- PHWasAnInsideJob
That's What Friends Are For...
"So it wasn’t my gut, but my friend’s."
"I had noticed whenever she had a bad feeling, it almost always turned out to be correct."
"We were going to sneak out one night and ride in the back of a friend’s truck like we did sometimes."
"She told me she had a bad feeling and I immediately backed out and so did she."
"The others didn’t listen and that night the truck flipped with two of our friends in the back."
"They were both hospitalized for a couple of weeks, one shattered his arm so bad it never fully healed right and one has full back scars from the road burn."- ThinnMelina
Did You Hear Something?
"Leaving my headphones out when the Bluetooth spontaneously disconnected."
"A weird guy was following me home, i watched from my patio as he went up and down the street looking for me."
"A few weeks later a woman has attacked in the area." -suddenspiderarmy
It's Always Worth Taking That Extra Loop...
"Not sure if it qualifies but I used to live and work in the suburbs."
"One evening I was driving home at dusk. I was 18-19 and had the house to myself."
"Brother was out of town and Mom was at her parents."
"My job was about 10 miles from my house and maybe 6 turns on decently sized roads."
"I’m a fairly observant person, and it wouldn’t be odd for the same car to be behind me for half of those turns, but this time a car 'followed' me all the way to my residential street."
"I got a gut feeling I was being followed, so I passed my house and turned left."
"My house was one over from the corner of another residential street that was a quarter mile loop that also had another small street in it that reconnected to the loop then back to my street."
"This car followed me as I made a loop."
"I then turned right to restart the loop, and it followed me again."
"This time I turned down the small street and completed the loop again."
"It followed me one more time."
"As I was about to make the loop for the 4th time, they finally drove off."
"I drove around another 5 mins just to make sure they didn’t circle back as I had nowhere else to park except out front of my house but I was creeped out the rest of the night."
"I slept with my door locked and barricaded and with a big kitchen knife."
"I have no idea if or why they followed me."
"Don’t know if it was a friend pranking me or if my brother put one of his friends up to it since it’s the only time that’s ever happened and it was quite coincidental that I was alone."
"I worked retail and some of the employees did have records, so I just don’t know. "- WATGU
Sometimes Assuming The Worst Can Pay Off
"I noticed pain in my lower back one morning and thought I slept on it wrong or something."
"Throughout the day it continued and started to feel like when you get kicked in the groin."
"Thought to myself it's probably cancer."
"Did a self check and didn't think I noticed anything and had my GF do the same and she wasn't sure."
"Called a urology office on my gut feeling and got the last appointment before Christmas break."
"It was cancer, but it was super early."
"Got an orchiectomy a few days later, then some mild chemo a few months later and have been just fine ever since."- zondervoze
Not Exactly What You Thought "Dream Come True" Would Entail...
"My dead best friend 'visited' me in my dream and ran into her in a grocery store."
"I remember I was ecstatic to see her and blabbed, and she just simply responded, 'You’re sick,' and I woke up."
"In a few days I found out I had high-risk cervical lesions and needed surgery."- Bubbly-Competition14
If You Can't Trust Your Doctor...
"When I was pregnant, I got bit by a Lyme tick at 28 weeks."
"Noticed the bullseye and got on antibiotics."
"My OBGYN brushed it off after that, no harm done according to her."
"When I went to the hospital at 35 weeks to register for delivery (normal procedure here), I mentioned the Lyme but that i took abx."
"Next day, they call me and tell me they want to induce at 37 weeks because Lyme can damage the placenta and they would rather not risk it."
"Oof."
"I talked to my OBGYN about it, and she basically laughed it off, telling me not to induce."
"My gut instinct told me to induce, so I went with the hospital's advice and had my son at 37 weeks."
"He was tiny, and it was a tough few weeks after that getting him to eat and stuff because he was so tiny and tired."
"The hospital sent the placenta to pathology."
"It was severely damaged and wouldn’t have held up much longer."
"If I had listened to my OBGYN, I would have probably lost my son."
"Needless to say, I switched OBGYNs after that."- Special_You_2414
Don't Let The Charm Fool You...
"I worked at a bar and had a very friendly gentleman offer to buy me dinner after we had some banter about my favorite beer."
"I was flattered and he was handsome but something in me didn’t feel that it sat right."
"Turns out he was a serial killer and killed a backpacker."
"Grace Millane."
"Mere weeks later."
"Police interviewed me to try and find out more of what he had said."
"He had offered to take a few girls out before he killed Grace."
"Grace and I were the same ageheight/build."
"I still have nightmares and survivor guilt."
"Trust your f*cking gut."- why_is_a_raven
Thank You Mom.
"Not my feeling but my mom's a few weeks ago."
"She works near me and also lives near me and was going home at lunch to meet a plumber and offered to drive me to my house so I could let my dog out."
"I normally take the bus to work and then bus home at lunch and back, so the plan was for her to drive me home so I could walk my dog for a bit longer and then I'd take the bus back."
"But when we got to my house she said she thought she better just drive me back to work real quick (it's like 10 minutes) and then go meet the plumber."
"On our way back we saw ambulances and police cars going back towards my house."
"I pulled up the police scanner and we realized there was a shooting at my bus stop at the time I would have been waiting for the bus back to work."- grizzly-claire-
Most of the time a funny feeling is just that, a feeling, and is nothing to worry about too much.
But if you have even the tiniest modicum of doubt, trusting your gut is probably a wise decision.