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How Did I Know That?

Investigating Mother's Intuition

By Dr. Laurie Nadel

But waking up in the middle of the night and knowing she was going to wake up from a bad dream? Where were the precedents for that?

Two years later, a book project on the subject of intuition crossed my desk. My literary agent suggested that I approach the subject from a journalist's point-of-view rather than from the perspective of a professional intuitive or psychic. As a news writer and producer for CBS News, I had learned how to tackle complex scientific stories so as to make them understandable for viewers. I would journey into this new territory of mind and report on what I found. Along the way, my own intuition began to flourish. As my daughter entered school and then grew into adolescence, that maternal sixth sense let me know when something wasn't right. "It isn't fair," she once griped when I knew she was lying about something. It wasn't. But I was thankful for this mysterious intuitive edge that alerted me in time to prevent any real trouble.

Defined as "the immediate, spontaneous knowing of something without the conscious use of reasoning," intuition is also called "knowing without knowing how you know." There are dozens of examples of how intuitive breakthroughs changed the course of science: Archimedes' sitting in his bathtub and discovering the principles of displacement; Albert Einstein's daydreaming that he was riding on a beam of light, returning to his point of origin. In the course of wondering how that could occur, he discovered and mathematically proved the theory of relativity. My own personal scientific favorite: a Belgian scientist who spent 18 years trying to prove mathematically the correct formula for the benzene molecule. He failed until the night he dreamt about a snake eating its own tail. Becoming awake in his dream, Kekule knew he had found the solution that had eluded him for so many years. He spent the rest of his professional career telling his fellow scientists, "Gentlemen, you must learn to trust your dreams."

Want to see more?

• A Sixth Sense? The World of Highly Intuitive Children
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• The Path to Peace: Meditation for Moms
• Check out our Article Library.
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