Surviving a war can be based on a number of things. Strength, luck, and circumstance can be major factors in living through rough times. Over that, there is one thing that helps us all yet is hard to explain. Human intuition determines nearly everything we do, even if only indirectly. We sometimes aren’t able to recognize this in our lives, because of the way it is viewed in our society. We are taught to not trust our instincts and use logic instead, although there are times when instinct is all you have.

When WWII veteran Helmut came to our class to tell his story,  he talked about a few things that related to the power of intuition. Everything from turning right instead of left, and staying still instead of running boils down to our instincts, because they are our immediate response. There is even a mixture of instinctive thinking and deliberate thinking. Because of Helmut’s intuitive thinking that his mother needed him, he made the decision to go find his mother. This instinct to return home changed the course of his own life and his mother’s life forever, as when Helmut made it home, his mother was quite sick. She truly did need her son in that time, and

Human instinct is based on recognition of patterns, which is something that is often picked up by our unconscious mind and body before it appears in our conscious thoughts.