Do mothers have an extra sense which warns them when their children are approaching danger? Did an extra sense enable the escape artist Houdini to find a way out when he was almost frozen to death under the ice? This article explores evidence for the existence of a “sixth sense.”

1. When you were a child, did you ever wonder how your mother knew when you were writing on the wall with crayons, even though she couldn’t possibly see or hear you? … Or why she always came outside and called you just as you headed for forbidden territory? How did she know? If you asked her, she probably told you that it was her ‘mother’s intuition’. That never really explained anything, but it gave you something to think about.

2. Just exactly what is mother’s intuition? Unfortunately, not even mothers who profess to having it can explain exactly what it is. Some would say it was a “sixth sense” or a funny feeling that prompted them to check on their children’s whereabouts and activities. Others have claimed to hear a voice inside their heads that called their children’s names or had a ‘flash vision’ of what their children were doing. In any event, almost every mother seems to have it and will swear by its reliability.

3. A typical example of this ability is the case of a woman who claims that her intuition prevented each of her five children from serious mishaps. Once she awoke in the middle of the night and felt the need to check on her son Paul, who was three years old at the time. He wasn’t in his bed, so she raced down the stairs to find him. She found him outside, sleepwalking, headed straight toward a flight of concrete steps. Then again, there was a time when one of her daughters fell off a horse and broke her arm. The child neither cried nor yelled for help. But the mother, sensing that something was wrong, came out of the house and found her in a field just minutes after the accident. How did she know? “Just a feeling,” she said, “that something was wrong.”

4. The concept that people are capable of having a sixth sense is not a new one. Numerous studies of ESP (extrasensory perception) have been underway for decades. What they have revealed only supports the theory that people are capable of having and using another sense beyond sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But no single group of people seems to have this ability as consistently as do mothers. Why is this?

5. Some theorize that the close and intimate relationship that mother and child have for the first years of a child’s life sets up an empathy that no other relationship could possibly duplicate. In other words, a mother “tunes in” to the thoughts and behavior of her child more than any other person could. Therefore, even though she may be preoccupied with household chores or social activities, a part of her is constantly alert for her child’s safety. Not an unreasonable theory—since most of us are the product of our mother’s devotion. But how does this explain why a mother will know that her child is in danger, even though the child itself may not be aware of it? This is the question which has kept mother’s intuition a mystery. Something beyond that which we can logically explain somehow seems to warn a mother when her child approaches danger.

6. An interesting illustration of this sixth sense involves the famous escape artist, Houdini. As the story goes, Houdini was planning to perform an escape from a steel trunk wrapped in chains and dropped into a frozen river. Because the river was so cold, he’d only have a few minutes to escape in order to survive. They wrapped Houdini in a straight jacket, locked him into the trunk, secured the chains, and then dropped him into the river through a hole cut into the ice. Minutes passed and Houdini did not appear. When enough time had passed to make it apparent that Houdini’s escape had failed, the grief-stricken party left the scene and reported that Houdini had died. One friend remained at the hole in the ice, not yet convinced that Houdini had drowned. To his utter amazement, Houdini did indeed surface at the spot.

7. When the half-frozen artist had recovered enough, he told his friend that he had not accounted for the current of the river under the ice. The river had carried the trunk downstream and when he got out of the trunk, he couldn’t find the hole cut into the ice. He managed to get oxygen from air pockets caught between the ice and the water, but he had no way of finding the hole through the thick ice. Then he heard his mother’s voice calling him. He followed her voice, and it led him to the hole in the ice where his friend was waiting.

8. This was amazing, first, because his mother lived in another city and was nowhere near the scene of the frozen river. But more amazing than that was the fact that, when Houdini tried to call his mother, he was informed that she had died just hours before.

9. What had told Houdini’s mother that he was in danger ---even beyond the grave? How had she been able to protect her child in spite of the fact that she was no longer living?

10. Someday, perhaps, we will know. Someday we may understand the kind of communication that exists between mother and child and be able to expand on that knowledge to a better form of communication in all relationships. There is no doubt that such a thing as a mother’s intuition exists. And the fact of its existence may be an indication that all of us are capable of having another instinct—a sixth sense.