Franklin Levinson's
Horse Help Center
Professional support for you and your horse!
Do horses have a 6th sense?
Hello Franklin,
I was very interested in your article "Gaining Confidence with horses." My name is Kathleen Johnson and I am taking a human to horse connection class and I am doing a paper on Horses and their 6th sense/intuitiveness. I am having problems finding very interesting information on this subject. Would you possibly have any information on this that you wouldn't mind sharing or know of a resource that would be good for this project. I so much appreciate your time.
Thank you and I hope all is well.
Kathleen
Hello Kathleen,
I am delighted you enjoyed my article. I am curious where you are taking this horse/human connection course. I teach them all the time.
The intuitive nature of horses can be easily understood as it is a prey animal. In order to survive it has to know the intentions of all those within its proximity. "Am I safe?" is a question the horse is constantly asking. The horse actually intuits whether or not it is safe, if it can trust those around it to support its safety and, rather than thoughtfully analyzing its situation, actually feels through its intuition the correctness of its actions. Even though humans obviously have innate intuition (inner voices, gut feelings, heart communication, conscience and the like), there is little understanding or knowledge of these things (our intuition). There is certainly very little written on the topic as it cannot be analyzed or measured, nor can it be scientifically proven by observation. There has been some very limited exploration of paranormal experiences related to intuition. But not much.
Personally, I think the most shinning and obvious example of intuition is within the horse. Have you ever heard someone say; "I am afraid of this horse and it knows that I am." If a human is less than confident, timid, fearful or unsure how to communicate with a horse, the horse becomes afraid as well. Several things come into play here. First the horse looks for confident, appropriate leadership for its feelings of safety. These feelings can be passed to the horse from the equine leader of the herd or a wonderful, knowledgeable human leader. Secondly, the horse is extremely observant and cognizant of the body language (including posture), behavior, respiration, adrenalin levels and most everything that is going on with those around it. It has the enormous antennas to do this in order to feel it will be safe and survive. Most of these observances come through the animals intuition. Intuition picks up so much of the world around us and we humans don't pay much attention to this available information because we are thinking and trying to analyze and then judging so much of what is happening. If we tuned into our feelings, our intuition, I think we would make better decisions, more appropriate choices and have a much more peaceful life in general.
I do not know any scientific studies or papers written in scientific journals on intuition. However, I do think that the study of the psychology of horses can lead to a better understanding of intuition, human as well as equine.
Sincerely, Franklin