Sixth sense
Meaning
An intuitive faculty or a supernatural ability to perceive things beyond the five standard senses.
Origin
Ancient mystics and philosophers across cultures often spoke of an inner knowing, a perception beyond the ordinary five senses that offered glimpses of truth or future events. This innate intuition, though long recognized, lacked a definitive name until the early 20th century. As the scientific world began to explore the subconscious mind and the nature of perception, thinkers like French philosopher Henri Bergson popularized the idea of a "sixth sense." No longer just a spiritual concept, it became a captivating term for that unexplained gut feeling, that sudden insight, or that eerie premonition that seems to transcend logic and bypass the physical senses, giving voice to a universal human experience of profound, yet unexplainable, understanding.
Examples
- She had a sixth sense that something was wrong, even though everything appeared normal.
- My grandmother always claimed her sixth sense helped her predict significant family events.