The Ordinary Physical Senses Vary In Sensitivity From Person To Person – So Do The Non-Ordinary Intuitive Senses.
As you know, your experience of the world is shaped by a mix of sensory data from your ordinary senses – taste, hearing, sight, smell, touch. The quantity and quality of information you perceive depends on many factors – like being near/far sighted, or being overwhelmed by specific tones or volumes. If you have an unusually sensitive sense of smell, you might be an adept perfumer, or a vintner with a naturally sensitive pallet trained to recognize subtle variations in taste and scent. All of this info – sights, sounds, smells, textures, tastes – is in your environment. However, you interact with and synthesize that info differently than others based on which of your senses are dominate and most reliable in your body.
So, why am I stating the obvious? Because, your intuitive senses operate in much the same way – as a complex and collaborative system of information gathering.
I taught at a school for Medical Intuitives in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years, and observed that many times students would believe that they weren’t intuitive if they weren’t getting information in a specific way – especially if they weren’t getting images. Because we have such a visual culture, clairvoyance seems to be the intuitive sense that everyone wants to develop most or thinks is the “best” one. However, each sense has its own purpose and accesses a different quality of information. They are all important and we each have a combination of intuitive senses that operate together for a more cohesive perspective.
Claircognizance / Clear Knowing
Have you ever Known something and not known how you know it? I don’t mean that you believe something to be true because someone told you. What I am referring to is having a crystal-clear, internal awareness of information that you know to be true even though you didn’t learn it from anyone or anything outside of yourself. The information or understanding is “just there” in your awareness. Often times, it appears suddenly. You might wake up and just know the next step you need to take – even if that step doesn’t seem to be the most logical course of action. You might be cleaning the house, or on a walk, and an understanding just lands as an “ah ha” moment. That is your intuition at work via “downloads” through your 7th / crown chakra. ✨
Clairvoyance / Clear Seeing
With clairvoyance, you perceive energetic patterns in a visual manner either inside your mind’s eye or in the outer world. You may see colors, symbols, words, images, or even motion pictures – like a movie inside your mind’s eye. Other times, you may see a halo of energy around a person’s head, or notice blobs of transparent colors around someone’s body. Both the inner and outer visions are ways that we may experience subtle energy and intuitive information via the 6th chakra / Ajna in the Hindu chakra system (a.k.a the “3rd Eye”). When you are meditating or in the state of awareness between waking and sleeping, you may see undulating colors in front of you – whether your eyes are open or closed. This is a sign that your 3rd eye is “opening” or waking up.
Clairaudient / Clear Hearing
Clairaudience is the perception of sound in the energetic environment – as opposed to having an inner mental thought. This human “sonar system” allows you to hear unspoken sounds, words, songs, or tones that are outside the normal range of hearing.
Clairaudience is something I only experience occasionally. Mostly as musical or high pitched tones. However, there have been a handful of spoken messages – a single word or a short phrase that I’ve heard – spoken by non-physical beings. These loving messages are clues and sometimes warnings that can help us along our life journey. We aren’t meant to be told the entire plot. That would ruin the adventure. 🌀
Telepathy / Mental Communication
Telepathy can be described as “mind reading” – but it’s so much more. It is spirit to spirit, mental communication without verbal/auditory speaking, and involves both sending and receiving information. It’s the natural flow of structured information through the Akashic or Astral or non-ordinary reality. It is the language of dreams and Dreamtime. In dreams, our spirit guides, teachers, and fellow dreamers often communicate to us mentally without using spoken language. This is telepathy – sending and receiving thoughts.
It’s also how your mom knows what you’ve been up to, and why you think of someone a split second before they call.
Clairsentience / Clear Feeling
Clairsentience is when we are able to sense other people’s feelings or experience their physical symptoms. From the Human Design perspective, someone with an open/undefined Splenic center, may sense the health or physical well-being of others. They may literally feel it (eg. pain) in their own body or simply have an awareness that something is “off“ with someone’s health.
Someone with an open/undefined Solar Plexus center, might pick up on or even take on the emotions of others (eg. feeling down after having a conversation with a friend who just went through a breakup). You might consider someone with an open Solar Plexus center to be an Empath.
However, any open/undefined center is where we have sensitivity to people and places. This is where we have the ability to sample and learn about the variety of energies and experiences of others. Becoming Wise might be described as moving from Empathy (taking on energy that isn’t ours) and moving toward Compassion where we are able to hold space for the pain of others and trust that they have the ability to grow and expand as a result of their challenges… just as we all have. 💛✨
Psychometry / Clairtangency
Psychometry is the ability to perceive information via touch, or to sense information in the aura / energy field with the hands held a few inches from the body. The hand chakras are natural portals that can send healing energy when needed and also perceive information within the body or energy field. The information may be experienced as hot or cold temperature variations, vibrational pulses, textures, etc. In some cases, historical information that is stored at a cellular level may be realized through touch.
Whether you get a hit of information from touching a stone, holding a ring, or by scanning someone’s energy field with your palms, you are using Psychometry (a.k.a. Claritangency).
What are your strongest intuitive senses? Which ‘clair’ sense would you like to develop most?
Each of us has inherent intuitive abilities that vary in sensitivity from person to person. Your unique sensitivities to subtle energetic and vibrational information (info that falls outside the range of your ordinary senses) combine to give a deeper level of experience – visuals, sounds, textures, temperatures, knowings, etc. Most of us have 1 or 2 intuitive senses that are the strongest. We receive information via a combination of intuitive senses which then gives us a richer story of our life and the world around us.
