Intuition vs. Paranoia — What's the Difference?

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; inner sensing; inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition; and the ability to understand something instinctively, without any need for conscious reasoning.The word intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as "consider" or from the late middle English word intuit, "to contemplate".

Paranoia is an instinct or thought process which is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (i.e.

The ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning

Irrational distrust or suspicion of others, especially as occurring in people with psychiatric disorders such as paranoid personality disorder and schizophrenia

The faculty of knowing or understanding something without reasoning or proof.

Intense anxiety or worry

An impression or insight gained by the use of this faculty

The obsolete name for a psychotic disorder, now called delusional disorder, often (in one of 6 subtypes) characterized by delusions of persecution and perceived threat against the individual affected with the disorder, and often associated with false accusations and general mistrust of others

Immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes.

Extreme, irrational distrust of others.

A perceptive insight gained by the use of this faculty.

A chronic form of insanity characterized by very gradual impairment of the intellect, systematized delusion, and usually by delusions of persecution or mandatory delusions producing homicidal tendency. In its mild form paranoia may consist in the well-marked crotchetiness exhibited in persons commonly called "cranks." Paranoiacs usually show evidences of bodily and nervous degeneration, and many have hallucinations, esp. of sight and hearing.

A looking after; a regard to.

Unwarranted suspicion of the motives of others; - used colloquially in a non-technical sense.

Direct apprehension or cognition; immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness; - distinguished from "mediate" knowledge, as in reasoning; as, the mind knows by intuition that black is not white, that a circle is not a square, that three are more than two, etc.; quick or ready insight or apprehension.

A psychological disorder characterized by delusions of persecution or grandeur

Any object or truth discerned by intuition.

Any quick insight, recognized immediately without a reasoning process; a belief arrived at unconsciously; - often it is based on extensive experience of a subject.

The ability to have insight into a matter without conscious thought; as, his chemical intuition allowed him to predict compound conformations without any conscious calculation; a mother's intuition often tells her what is best for her child.

Instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)

An impression that something might be the case;