Superstitious Feelings

I swear I'm not superstitious. Yet I find myself sometimes doing things that I know are to ward off bad vibes or yes, superstitions. And not run of the mill like the black cat thing. Like I heard once that it is bad luck to let a fork and spoon or knife lay across one another at a place setting. If I see it happen, I casually reach over and fix it. Am I superstitious or just a perfectionist? I dont know, anyone else find themselves unintentionally correcting things that should have no reason to be changed?

 

In some ways i do that too.
Especially in my car. some things that don't really matter, but i need some slides and buttons in the same way that i always do.
for example, if someone was riding with me and the passenger seatbelt is twisted after they leave , then i'll turn it right the moment i see it.
or if my slide to open the cupholders is open for no reason then i need to close it.

I guess all people are at least a little bit crazy, but it makes life a bit more interesting

 

oh yes..I do it...
I can't have 2 knives crossed either..not even in the drying rack
it's my Mums fault..she was very superstitous...now I am

 

I like to think that I'm not superstitious either, but like you I'm always finding myself doing superstitious things. A lot of it is actually OCD behaviour in my case, that perhaps started as superstition as a child.

More worrying, I feel, is that I find myself praying to... someone. I'm agnostic (well actually I'm thinking of becoming Pastafarian, but only for fun) so I don't know what's up with that.

Mim

 

I think all humans are wired for a bit of order and perfectionism. I have OCD so I have a boatload of compulsions that cross over into superstition. There are three times in the day 1:23, 2:23 and 3:18 that I hope to God I don't see on a digital clock or watch. Drives me bananas with anxiety I will be blindsided by a terrible occurrence when I see those times. Eeeek!

 

The time 15.13 on a digital clock freaks me out because of my old job. Too bizarre to explain, and probably would break some confidentiality, but it still haunts me to this day, years later.

Mim

 

It's a very normal reaction, if an annoying one. I've had bouts of superstition, still have them but I've been trying to wean myself off of them; obsession with numbers, OCD, that kind of stuff. I had bad OCD as a kid, and I've never fully gotten over it.
I don't know if you've ever seen the experiments on superstitious behavior they did with pidgeons? You should look it up, if you haven't seen it, it's pretty fascinating.

 

Have an endless supply of superstitions, guess many could be called OCDs though.:unsure: Walking down the street today saw a quarter on the ground, was about to pick it up when I noticed it was heads down, a big no-no picking up a coin heads down, mucho bad luck, figured 25 cents wasn't worth all the bad luck that would come my way...sigh, watch it have been a 1904 quarter worth $2,000.:duck:

 

Seeing the replies on this I'm wondering if superstitions are nothing more than OCD's? They are repetitive and we use the same methods over and over again to deal with them.

 

That's basically what superstition is: obsession, quirks. They say the definition of insanity is performing an act twice and expecting two different results. But superstition is performing an act twice and expecting the same results.