What Does the Term “Sixth Sense” Mean and Where Did the Expression Come From?

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Karen Hill

Humans are credited with five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

So someone with a “sixth sense” is gifted with an unexplained perception outside of the common five.

The expression sixth sense comes from a study of blind people reported in 1903 in which it was found that, although deprived of sight, some of the subjects could perceive or sense certain objects in a room in a way that defied scientific understanding.

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