The human brain constantly absorbs vast amounts of information. The ability to make sense of this internal wisdom without active, conscious attempts at reasoning and analysis is intuition. There are many differing opinions surrounding what makes someone intuitive.
Some people view this ability as a skill that can be honed and sharpened like any other practical ability. Others see it as a more spiritual experience or a gift they can use for metaphysical purposes.
With all these ideas floating around, what can you know about intuition? Science has something to say about how intuitive wisdom works. So here are the four levels of intuition, according to science.
1. Intuition Level 1: Gut Instinct
The first level of intuition is a reasonably simple concept and one you’re likely familiar with: gut instinct. This impulse is rooted in natural survival instincts and the desire for security and safety. Unfortunately, many individuals falsely equate all intuition with gut instinct, even though it is only the first level of this form of wisdom.
There’s something very primal and profound about gut instinct. Unfortunately, it’s a very binary experience – you get the urge to go or stop, say yes or no, or feel safe or unsafe, depending on your gut. While gut instinct should not be your sole decision-making tool, it can help answer questions about your best interests, current situation, and safety. When you have little time to think and rationally analyze a problem, a gut instinct can be your savior.
How Reliable Is Gut Instinct?
Is gut instinct genuinely reliable? Studies say that emotion-based learning is a viable way to avoid serious problems. This is because:
- The human brain naturally and subconsciously notes patterns and information as input and concludes them. So even if you are not consciously aware of these things, your brain is alerting you to its knowledge with gut feelings.
- When you are aware of a riskier situation, your body naturally exhibits the somatic markers of a stress response, such as accelerated heartbeats and sweating. These serve as valuable warnings and steer you away from wrong choices.
- There are some things that the human brain picks up on automatically, even if you cannot actively take notice of these factors. Research shows this is especially notable when you must discern if someone is lying; you fail to notice deception by ignoring your gut and focusing on the facts.
- Overthinking things can be your downfall! Spending too long analyzing something can cause you to make poorer decisions based on facts and careful thought, say studies. Your brain has often noted the most crucial information in a situation before you’ve had the chance to consider everything consciously!
There are, of course, some caveats to this. High emotional intelligence yields better gut instinct, according to research. When you can parse, process, and regulate your emotions, you can interpret them accurately and correctly determine the right course of action from your intuition.
2. Intuition Level 2: Heart-Based Intelligence
Heart-based intelligence is about compassion and courage and how that can be used for interpersonal relationships, communications, and deeper connections with others and your surroundings. Experts may refer to this as intuitive intelligence, the second level of genuine intuition.
For the most part, heart-based intelligence is a guiding form of intuition that helps you:
- Communicate in unspoken ways,
- Bond in ways that can’t be rationally described,
- Say and do appropriate things in unique or sensitive moments,
- Discover what you love,
- Bring your best self into the world,
- Release fear and be courageous in your decisions.
Many people consider “following your heart” an inherently irrational term. Though the concept is romanticized, it is also widely considered the less wise thing to do. This outcome is not necessarily the case. The heart is more than just a tender and mushy thing – it’s a crucial organ in the body connected to many different physical parts of you. Consider:
- The heart has a nervous system independent of the rest, comprising about 40,000 neurons!
- The heartbeat constantly communicates information to the rest of your body and thus gets it all in order following a synchronized rhythm.
- Many common emotions associated with the heart, such as compassion and love, are known to calm stress and the sympathetic nervous system while improving restful parasympathetic nervous system activity.
- Your heart mirrors your emotions. Thus, you allow the organ to contribute to level one intuition.
Of course, this does not mean you should follow your heart alone. On the contrary, the ultimate goal of heart-based intelligence is to form a powerful and profound connection with your brain. As a result, both organs work in harmony. Examples of this harmony include:
Forgiveness
The brain wants to remember the wrong done to you because this is crucial for survival. Knowing that someone is not safe or may wrong you again is vital to your brain’s protection of you. However, holding grudges is notoriously bad for wellbeing, and heart-based intelligence allows you to forgive people for your own sake. Coherence means you’ll always be wise in your interactions with this individual, but you won’t bog yourself down with resentment.
Appreciation
The brain naturally seeks negative things over positive ones as information collection and protection. You focus on abundance and survival over living in the moment. By using heart-based intelligence, you can balance this impulse and learn to appreciate the small things around you without losing wisdom and awareness.
Non-judgment
It’s normal for the human brain to judge snappily based on what it sees. This is crucial for gut instinct intuition! However, judgment does not always serve a purpose. Being overly judgmental will damage your relationships with others and make you cold, jaded, and unpleasant. Heart-based intelligence will make you kinder and more compassionate, releasing the hold of judgment on your perception and making you more open-minded.
3. Intuition Level 3: Visionary Power
Many falsely equate level three intuitive skills with extrasensory perception, psychic abilities, and the metaphysical. On the contrary, visionary power and certainty come from your physical reality. This powers your creativity and imagination, promoting new intuitive intelligence that encourages you to reach for new possibilities, innovative solutions, and approaches.
Visionary power encourages you to go against the grain intuitively, supplemented by wisdom and awareness. It is not as simple as blindly following pipe dreams. Instead, it is the act of:
- Putting aside jadedness and pessimism and working toward goals with optimism,
- Considering brand new solutions to old problems,
- Questioning what you may have overlooked in your logical and fact-based thoughts and approaches,
- Daring to ask new, bold questions and seek new, bold answers,
- Going against the status quo and creating ground-breaking new concepts.
Have you ever noticed that some people are reluctant to challenge the way things are and show no interest in leading anything remotely close to an extraordinary life? Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and it’s an excellent way to live. However, those individuals typically have shallow levels of visionary power, and their intuition does not reach this depth.
Luckily, like all things, you can learn level three intuition. Moreover, it’s a skill that you can sharpen by regularly exposing yourself to new concepts, challenging yourself to come up with unique ideas, and striving for creativity in hobbies and life.
4. Intuition Level 4: The Connection to Universal Wisdom
For the scientifically minded, level four intuition sounds like the stuff of fantasy. After all, the phrase “connection to universal wisdom” sounds like a strange, psychic version of the sci-fi concept of singularity. So how can it indeed exist?
Level four intuitive intelligence refers to unity consciousness or universal awareness, which means a profound ability to become conscious about your connection to all things. This means different things to different people.
Examples of Connecting to Universal Wisdom
- Especially spiritual individuals may achieve this state during deep meditative practices, where they feel they are one with the universe,
- Individuals who experience severe trauma or near-death encounters may suddenly realize how intrinsically linked they are to the world and how small but powerful they can be,
- Confident individuals may understand universal awareness as the ability to captain their ship and create their change, forging their paths in life through their free will,
- Altruistic individuals may see their innate ability to help others and send ripples of kindness and good vibes through the world through actions as simple as a smile and as notable as financial donations,
- Mindful individuals may begin to recognize that all things in life have inherent value and may wish to appreciate that value more intentionally in their everyday life,
- Any individual may be inspired to become someone’s mentor, guide, or teacher, as they see how the knowledge they have to offer can help someone and slowly make its way across a community,
- Any individual may become more open-minded, realizing that differences are beautiful things to be celebrated while all human beings share innate similarities that all differences can become united under,
- Any individual may become inspired to go out and seek more and more wisdom to add to their knowledge of the universe so that they may become one with it in their unique way.
Regardless of where you stand on the concept of universal wisdom, its core remains the same. Simply put, level four intuition is the innate understanding of your power in your actions to create various consequences. In other words, your intuitive decisions shape your actions and produce the desired effects. These outcomes reflect in yourself and the wider world.
Final Thoughts on Understanding the Four Levels Of Intuition
Intuition is a powerful tool. Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with so-called ESP or psychic abilities. Indeed, it’s far from a metaphysical concept. Instead, it is a deep-seated capability rooted in the human brain’s desire for survival and protection. Anyone can learn to develop stronger intuitive knowledge, so start today and master the four levels of intuition!
