On meaningful coincidences, small and large, or "synchronicity"

[paqart]

My wife and I just experienced a meaningful coincidence today. Some might call it synchronicity. Personally, I love to hear about synchronistic experiences, because they are invariably oddly meaningful to the people involved.

This thread is meant as a place where members can post their own synchronistic experiences, to give readers an idea what they are, what they look like, and how interesting they can be. This is less about trying to nail down whether there is a naturalistic explanation, because there always is one, than it is about sharing how our questions and needs are sometimes answered in unusual ways.

Two nights ago, I dreamed that my wife's cousin, also named Andrew, needed to ask her a question. When I woke, I told her about the dream and suggested she contact him. She hadn't heard from him in well over a year, nor had she tried to contact him during that time, but on the basis of the dream, she sent him an email. He responded within a day pleasantly, but with no hint he might need some information from her. Then, my wife was on her computer this morning when she received a second email from Andrew. In this one, he said he'd just remembered that he wanted some information from her. He needed an address for a specific family member.

The problem was, Kitty had no idea where the person lived. While she was wondering how to answer his email, she received another email from a friend in New York who had recently bumped into the person whose address Andrew wanted. Oddly enough, our friend did not know that the woman he met was related to Kitty until, during conversation, she said enough about her family that he eventually realized she might be related to Kitty and asked if this was true. In the email, he gave the family member's email address to Kitty, in case she needed it. This friend sent the information unasked, and unexpected.

I have attached a poll to this. Hopefully, it is better than the last poll I tried to make.

AP

[anonymous]

I've had and continue to have lots of synchronistic experiences. Because I suspected they were caused by some type of psychic perception they led me to take classes in mediumship and spiritual healing at a spiritualist church.

I discuss some of these experiences on my web site.

[larry4444]

I have some recollection from a time when I was reading a lot of Jung, that telepathy and some other psi phenomenon are related to synchronicity. The idea being that with a strong intention an archetypal field is generated which transcends space/time as we know it – the universe becomes psyche and meaningful coincidences occur. Romantic love is one such archetypal field through which a lot of people experience sharing the same mental images – the same song, ideas, feeling states etc. I’ve experienced this when an obscure song I hadn’t thought of in decades occurred to me at the same time as my partner. We called each other on the phone and confirmed it at the same time. I think this idea of synchonicity give a different take on the possible “mechanism” or lack there of, through which psi events occur.

[platobird]

Yes I've had many, many, maaaaany amazing syncs.. ...I don't want to start being annoying on yet another thread, so I'll leave it at that. However... I'm Curious why the 4444 Larry? 444 is a small re-occuring sync for me.

[platobird]

After this comment I've kind of ruined this thread by debating this sync 'ad nauseam'...sorry. That's why I've removed my side of the discussion with fls that follows .....again...sorry..



hahahahaha.....just checking back in here and two of the percentages are now 44.44%

On it's own certainly not significant..it's just one more to add to the my pile


OMG I just noticed now that one is also 11.11%...these things brighten my day.

This is also registering as the 4 comment on this thread... and 11 members on line.. (plus numerous guests)

[fls]

Originally Posted by platobird

hahahahaha.....just checking back in here and two of the percentages are now 44.44%

On it's own certainly not significant..it's just one more to add to the my pile


OMG I just noticed now that one is also 11.11%...these things brighten my day.

This is also registering as the 4 comment on this thread... and 11 members on line.. (plus numerous guests)

That's a good example of what we were talking about in the Synchronicity thread. As long as the number of subjects is divisible by 9, you should see those numbers. Of course, it's so extremely unlikely that the number of poll subjects would ever be divisible by 9 that you should be off to buy your lottery ticket.

Linda

(Not voting in order to keep platobird happy).

[fls]

Originally Posted by platobird

The thing is fls....this is not unusual for me.

I would hope not. According to Benford's Law, you should come across ones more than 30% of the time and fours about 10%.

Anyway, we should stop posting in this thread lest we draw anyone else in to vote.

Unless we manage to get another nine...

Linda

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I would have voted for the first and third items if I could. ...

Oh, perhaps I could have. Either that or there is a problem with the percentages.

~~ Paul

[fls]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I would have voted for the first and third items if I could. ...

Oh, perhaps I could have. Either that or there is a problem with the percentages.

~~ Paul

Yeah, now I have voted for those two as well.

Linda

[Rolf]

Well, I almost never check this site, and did today because I recently had my first ever, over-the-top, slap-me-across-the-face it’s so obvious experience with synchronicity. So finding this thread at the top of the board is a little synchronistic in and of itself

Anyway, I'll try to keep my story short: I've recently been struggling a great deal with an artistic project that matters a lot to me. I've struggled to gain traction, to find time for work, or to even appreciate the work I do get done. Last week, I had a good talk with a friend of mine about how much my lack of progress has been getting me down, and how helpless I feel about it. I hung up the phone and went to bed a short time later.

That night I had a vivid dream: There was a turtle in front of me, stuck on its back. In the dream I understood that I had to help the turtle on its way. I flipped the turtle over and tried to give it a push, but it was agonizingly slow; hardly making any progress at all. And somehow it wound up flipped over on its back again. Over and over again I flip the turtle and try to help it on its way, only to find myself angry and frustrated by its lack of progress. It seemed that no matter what I did, the turtle couldn’t move forward.

Now, I almost never remember my dreams, and when I do they never make any sense, so when I woke up I was pretty excited to have had a dream that so obviously reflected an issue I was currently dealing with in my life. The turtle symbolized my project, and its lack of progress brought me anger and frustration. Unfortunately, the dream didn’t offer any solutions.

Anyway: That day, over my lunch break I went for a walk through these wooded paths near my office, and I spent the whole walk reflecting on my project. As I walked, a solution began manifesting in my mind: It became obvious that if I re-arraigned some priorities and scheduling issues, I’d have more time that I realized. If I nixed all my work up to that point and started from scratch in a new direction, I saw my project moving forward seamlessly. I considered friends and resources that hadn’t occurred to me before. I was walking down the path, getting more and more excited about these ideas and shocked that they hadn’t occurred to me before, when I turned my head - Just a bit off the path there was a little pond, and overlooking the pond, sitting on a tree-branch sticking out of it, was a turtle. A turtle just like the one in my dream.

I was floored. The dream turtle symbolized my project, and here I was brainstorming about my project, and a real turtle shows up in waking life. I hadn’t seem a turtle in real life in years; what were the chances of seeing one the day after a turtle played a huge role in my dreams? I took a step towards it to get a closer look, and I kid you not- the turtle does the most athletic thing I’ve ever seen a turtle do: It leaps off its branch, dives into the pond, does a couple of little spinning moves, and then darts away deep into the water. I immediately interpreted the whole thing as a sign. The dream turtle was stuck when I was frustrated with my lack of progress; the real turtle moved with grace and speed at the exact same time I was getting excited about a new plan for my work.

So yeah. That’s my synchronicity story. I’ve taken the turtle’s advice and stuck with the plan I was developing at the time it appeared. If I stay on track, I’ll be finished with my project in October. Initially I thought it would take me over a year to complete. This was my first and only experience with synchronicity, but it was more than enough to make me a believer.