The setting was perfect. The couple was sitting in a restaurant, their eyes focused on each other. The girl said, “Kiss me.” Her lips parted and the boy bent forward. But, alas! Before their lips could touch, Peter Parker’s eyes flared up as he saw signs of danger. He grabbed Mary Jane and jumped to one side for safety and just then a car came crashing from the restaurant’s window…

Call it spider sense, extra sensory perception (ESP) or intuition but it was some ‘power’ which had alerted Peter in his reel adventure Spiderman II.

The ability to acquire information by paranormal means is popularly believed to be possessed by everybody on this planet.

Astrologer Bejan Daruwala believes, “Intuition is the power that takes a person from the known into the unknown.” Astrologers are also known to predict the future by relying on the powers of this sense. “People who have strong intuitions about things generally have a strong influence of Moon and Neptune in their life,” Bejan says.

Animals too are believed to have a sixth sense, which alerts them about calamities before time. A strange incident happened with Anita Desai (name changed), a resident of Virar. Her mother was in the last stages of cancer. One night their pet dog, Wendy, suddenly started howling. Anita says, “Wendy had never done that before. I thought he was  hungry so I went out to give him some food. But when I came back, my mother was dead. Perhaps, Wendy had seen it coming. Wendy was very close to my mom.
When she died, he ran away from home next morning and did not return.”

Varkha Chulani, clinical psychologist says, “Animals are naturally equipped to read changing signs in the environment, such as before earthquakes. Sixth sense has got nothing to do with it.” According to her one’s gut feeling is based on intellect and past experiences. “Believing that intuition is some kind of a power, shows  the gullibility of people,” she says.

The Hollywood movie, From Hell, starring Johnny Depp, showed him possessing intuitive powers, which he as a detective used to nab the serial killer Jack the Ripper. But do detectives really possess intuitive powers? Baldev Puri, a detective based in New Delhi opposes the existence of intuitive powers. He says, “Real life cases are solved by research. If you hold somebody for a crime based on your intuition, you may have to close your detective agency.” But it’s generally believed that relying on one’s gut feeling can produce tremendous results. Albert Einstein also believed, “There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”