There is no magic involved when it comes to intuition or intuitive gifts. The magic is what we are able to discover when we pay attention to our ESP, or extrasensory perception. We don't always ask for it. In fact, most of the time, we don't set out to use it! However, it shows up in a variety of ways to help us. Some of the most common metaphysical gifts are clairsentience, clairvoyance, clairaudience, claircognizance, clairolfaction, and clairgustance.

Clairsentience
That gut feeling you have when your intuition is trying to get your attention is generally one of the most common forms of intuitive awareness, and it's called clairsentience, or clear feeling. Generally referred to as your gut instinct, it helps you know when something is right or wrong, when you should stay or leave, or even which direction you should go. These gut instincts also help you in times of danger.

Clairvoyance
Intuition is not always something you feel in your gut; there are many different ways to experience it. Seeing things in your mind's eye (or with your third eye, as it's sometimes referred to) is known as clairvoyance. Most people who experience this type of intuitive guidance will see flashes of an image internally when they have a clairvoyant episode. Some will feel as though they are watching someone or something live, in action. But most often, seeing something intuitively will show up like a photograph, a moment captured in time, a brief impression of something either literal or symbolic.

Clairaudience
Clairaudience is clear hearing. A lot of people who are drawn to music or speaking may find intuitive hearing becomes their first connection to metaphysical awareness.

Claircognizance
Claircognizance is an intuitive knowing. Clear knowing. It's knowing something as fact, though you have no earthly reason to know it. It's a profound certainty that you have no evidence or proof of, but you know without a doubt it is truth. It's an honest, legitimate conviction that what you're feeling is absolutely real, even though you can't verify it in the physical world … yet.

Clairolfaction/Clairalience
Clairolfaction or clairalience is another intuitive ability that appears to change the air around you. It is the gift of psychic smell or scent. It's pretty common for people to share they have smelled their deceased grandmother's special perfume or their father's cigars from the other side. These can be happy events, as we often welcome these encounters because we miss our loved ones.

Clairgustance
It's quite common to smell and taste together. Food tastes better when you can smell it; it enhances the flavor experience. These senses help each other. The same is true with clairolfaction and clairgustance, or clear taste.

Other Means to Receive Intuitive Messages
There are so many ways intuition can present. From determining which direction to go to keeping people safe and everything in between, this sixth sense is part of your life and always will be, regardless of whether you take advantage of it or not.

Humans are so busy. We are frequently overstimulated. We are working or we are parenting; watching television or listening to music; reading books or scanning the latest status updates from our friends and even strangers on social media. This has, for many of us, become the norm. Intuition sometimes has a hard time getting through to us during our waking moments because we don't have a moment to stop and pay attention to what our metaphysical senses are trying to share with us.

Qualifying how your intuition may show up helps you recognize your gifts in different ways. When your mind is working hard, you can easily miss the intuitive nudges that are trying to get your attention. Thankfully, your intuition also works hard, and it can present you with a multitude of opportunities to tune in to your ESP.

Dreams
People often write to me about dreams they've had. Once, a woman wrote to me about a dream that her brakes had given out, causing an accident. She emailed to ask for my psychic advice.

"Did the dream feel like it was fake, and you barely remember it? Or do you remember every bit of it, down to the smallest detail?" I probed.

"It felt real. I recall the car I hit; like I remember the color, the make, and even the driver. I also know it was morning time. I can still feel how the brake pedal went all the way to the floor before the accident," she replied.

I explained I thought she'd had an intuitive warning through her dream, and she might want to pay attention to it. She said she would have her brakes checked out, though she hadn't heard any telltale squeaking, which is a clue it might be time to change the brake pads.

She messaged me about a week later.

"I had my boyfriend check out my brakes. At first, he said there was nothing wrong with the pads. They were still almost new. But then, he pressed down on the brake pedal and said, 'You know, something feels kind of funny.' He looked at the master cylinder and realized the fluid was super low. Then he had me step on the brakes while he looked under the car. Sure enough, there was a leak in the brake line. If I had driven it again, I probably wouldn't have been able to stop."

Another crisis averted. But it wasn't my intuition that saved her. It was her dream, or possibly, it was a visitation from a deceased loved one, reaching out to her in her dream because she wasn't available to process her intuition during her waking moments. Either way, it was her choice whether to trust her dream as a portent of things to come. Thankfully, she did. Dreaming of a collision was enough to get her to slow down and heed the warning, and her dream ultimately prevented an accident.

Deceased Loved Ones
Deceased loved ones definitely have a habit of popping by to help us in various life endeavors. Occasionally, we are able to recognize they are coming through, but more often than not, we are unaware they are there. Our loved ones show up in many different ways: dreams, visions, scents, tastes, sounds, feelings, nudges, and anything you could possibly imagine. They often send us intuitive messages through our clair senses.

Though cliché, deceased loves one might appear to us as something we associate with them, such as pennies or dragonflies or cardinals. For example, my mom comes to me as a monarch butterfly—so cliché its almost laughable, but I know it's a little reminder that my mom is around. She especially shows up when I'm feeling down. When I see that telltale orange and black "flutter-by," as she called them, it's her cheering me up, letting me there are better times ahead. Cliché is cliché for a reason: if something happens regularly, there's no denying it.

Signs and Synchronicities
This, of course, brings us to signs and synchronicities. I bet you've heard of them. You may have blown off their existence as nonsense, but I'm pretty sure all of us have had these intuitive moments happen to us. You may have even asked for a sign: Please give a sign if I'm supposed to … And then we wait for that sign, questioning every possible sign that comes along because we need to be sure that was the sign.

Synchronicities can be a bit trickier. They are signs or moments that you need to connect in order to identify them as synchronicities. These synchronistic events occur more frequently once you begin to understand what they are—messages your intuition, or your guides or other helpers, are sending you. They are commonly referred to as coincidences. There's nothing wrong with that, but I also know that nine times out of ten, these "coincidences" are happening for a reason: to help you, to guide you, or just to make you say, "Huh. That was interesting." Coincidences allow you to distinguish between something meaningful and some random, unconnected thing that means absolutely nothing to you.

Understanding the Soul's Guidance
Frequently, a strong yearning is your intuition telling you there's more out there for you to learn or enjoy. You'll find that there are times when yearning is simply about wanting something because you desire it. But when you're yearning for life-altering changes, it's generally your intuitive voice trying to communicate with you.

It's common to have more than one intuitive sense guiding you, especially if you're not following the initial directive. If you're misinterpreting intuitive messages, or if you doubt what they're conveying, your soul tries to help another way. If you feel a sense of yearning, pay attention to it.

Excerpted from Real Life Intuition: Extraordinary Stories from People Who Listen to Their Inner Voice, by Melanie Barnum.