Partial Story Excerpted from The Princeton Packet, Princeton, NJ ~ June 30, 1999

Tapping into intuition: 'Dr. Lauren' demystifies feelings attached to intuitive insight

By Cynthia Cannon
Princeton Packet Staff Writer

Can we place faith in a gut feeling when accepting or rejecting a marriage proposal? Can we trust an insistent hunch to purchase profitable stock?

This morning, listeners of 97.5 WPST FM radio's early morning program heard about an age-old human ability that more people are recognizing and beginning to use: intuition.

Helping listeners over the airwaves get in touch with their intuitive side Tuesday mornings, from 7 to 9 a.m., is Dr. Lauren Thibodeau, founder and director of The Princeton Center for Applied Intuition.

Besides providing psychic consultations and helping people connect with deceased loved ones, Dr. Thibodeau teaches Inner Voice Awareness Training. She developed the course to teach children and adults to use intuitive insight that may help provide direction in life's decisions, to move an individual's life or organization in an advantageous new direction.

Intuition, as Dr. Thibodeau teaches, is an image of an occurrence in the future, a precognition that may concern ourselves or others. Almost always, this image is of a positive nature, according to Dr. Thibodeau. If, on the other hand, images are of a negative nature, an impending accident or place to be avoided — then it needs to be decided whether the thoughts are the result of fear or whether the image is a true intuitive warning. 

Dr. Thibodeau sees her mission as demystifying feelings that are attached to intuitive insight. “It's not spooky, weird or strange to perceive an event before it happens,” she tells her students.

A national certified and licensed professional counselor who holds a doctorate degree in counseling, Dr. Thibodeau encourages the IVAT students to apply the intuitive process systematically. This means keeping records of events and images that come to mind and recording them in a journal. “If we pay close attention to what we have recorded, opportunities to approximate intuition may occur,” she said. “And we may move forward into life situations.”

In guided visualization, Dr. Thibodeau encourages students to recreate intuitive space by imagining a bright, white light traveling up the spine. The bright light will travel from the body as a search light through a “third eye” and make a connection to the universe, beyond the planets.

IVAT students are encouraged to record ongoing documentation of dreams, both metaphoric and symbolic. Dreams are an obscured form of intuition, according to Dr. Thibodeau. Sometimes dreams may seem illogical, but have elements that can bring insight to life's current situations, like a new job or decision to move, according to Dr. Thibodeau. Keeping dreams in one's consciousness helps give additional information with which to look for meaning.

Attempting prediction is also an integral part of IVAT. Dr. Thibodeau encourages students to predict stock market outcomes on a daily basis before picking up the paper. Practicing prediction may help forecast future outcomes.

Students are encouraged to enhance intuition through group practice. Students pair off in IVAT class and try to concentrate and send thoughts to one another. “I have been paired off with a few people in the group and often a color or the name of a person that my partner is thinking about comes to mind,” she admitted.

Children, ages 9 through 11, may improve intuition skills through guided exercise in Dr. Thibodeau's Nurturing Intuition program. Children and parents are guided through a treasure hunt that includes an opportunity to meet an adventure guide and an animal buddy as they seek a special treasure. Participants are asked to pay attention to their guide, record what they see and hear.

Children are naturally very psychic and intuitive, said Dr. Thibodeau. Very young children are aware of things that adults often do not see, hear or know. A common experience is that young children report they are playing with grandparents they have never known, she said.

Born in Ohio, the oldest of four children, Dr. Thibodeau recalls early intuitive and psychic experiences. She recorded a near-death experience in which she received an electrical shock at the age of 6. By 15, she would talk about events that she had envisioned before they occurred.

Children can learn to think that intuition is a normal and natural experience that they can apply to their lives, said Dr. Thibodeau. Too often, children and parents have negative fears about it. When you have fear, you give away your magical power, she tells children.

There are skeptics who do not believe that people can improve intuition. “True skeptics are valuable because they're always questioning,” said Dr. Thibodeau. “They just haven't had personal experience with that kind of awareness.”

Dr. Thibodeau can be reached at (609) 430-9300 or on her Web site at http://www.drlauren.com/.