EddieAllenPoe

EddieAllenPoe

Specialist
Mar 19, 2019
304
I figured I would post this for anyone who might be bored. I've found it is definitely an interesting thing to think about. I think you have to be formally introduced to the concept of a synchronicity before you start spotting them. They're a little like black swans. They exist and they're out there in the world but you won't see them happening everywhere and all the time. Once you see them though they're kind of magical.

Let's start by defining what synchronicity means. I stole this from wikipedia...

Synchronicity is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.

Let me give you a recent example of a synchronicity I've had. One day I was obsessively researching how to commit suicide by ingesting parts of the Yew tree. My whole mind was focused on EVERYTHING I could find about the Yew plant and people who have committed suicide with it. I think up until recently I've never actually heard of Yews. The whole topic was kind of new to me. I only had a small memory from when I was younger and my father told me to not eat a certain red berry because it was poisonous. It turns out that was the same berry from a Yew bush.

Anyways, later on in the same day I was reading about Yew trees I noticed something funny about the TV show that was playing. The man on the show was crafting a wooden bow. Can you guess what he was talking about? He was talking about Yew trees and how their wood makes excellent bows. Kind of weird, huh? Seems like a weird coincidence. Not long afterward I got up and drove somewhere and on the way I got stuck behind a car. The car had a sticker on it that said "#StopSuicide".

Okay, okay. So what? These are just coincidences, right? Yeah. That's exactly what a synchronicity is. They're unique coincidences that happen without any obvious causal relationship. You could also say these things are what you might call confirmation biases. For example, if you think "I am going to see a red car today" then you're more likely to see all of the red cars. This could be. It's not quite the same thing though. The funny thing about synchronicities is that they can often involve some fairly rare content. If you walked outside right now after reading this and saw an actual Black Swan you would know exactly what I mean by rare.

It's interesting for me to think about synchronicities because it makes me question reality a little bit. Could events in the world be tied together in ways that aren't obvious? I don't know. I think it's possible.

I once found this interesting video where they do a "Synchronicity Walk". I'll include it at the end. Do you think these people are simply crazy? Let me know if you've ever experienced a synchronicity. Even if it was something small like seeing your birthday numbers at the grocery store.

 
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F

Final Escape

I’ve been here too long
Jul 8, 2018
4,348
Yes, but not in a long time. Im trying to think of an instance but can't bc it's been so long.
 
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alizee

alizee

Arcanist
Jul 22, 2018
452
Everything is destined to happen the order you experience it and it's named determinism. Studying the fields of physicist, neuroscience and even philosophy makes it more obvious. The mind attempting to rationalize experiences of similar nature isn't unusual to me. What is odd for me is how the brain can find it odd because everything is truly linked together by external forces all triggering all the events until death.
 
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EddieAllenPoe

EddieAllenPoe

Specialist
Mar 19, 2019
304
Yes, but not in a long time. Im trying to think of an instance but can't bc it's been so long.

I don't see them all the time either. That's interesting. I wonder why that is?

Everything is destined to happen the order you experience it and it's named determinism. Studying the fields of physicist, neuroscience and even philosophy makes it more obvious. The mind attempting to rationalize experiences of similar nature isn't unusual to me. What is odd for me is how the brain can find it odd because everything is truly linked together by external forces all triggering all the events until death.

That's true. If event X happens then Y results. That's just simple cause and effect. If they discovered events flow through some sort of quantum field that wasn't obvious this would still be the same deterministic event. I made half that sentence up because I'm not going to pretend to understand quantum mechanics. It's a good question you're raising though. What does make these things seem odd? Probably... Better question... what makes an event seem meaningful?

In case nobody noticed, that group of people from the video I posted earlier continues to walk down the rabbit hole in other videos...

 
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Mrs.O'Leary'sCow

Mrs.O'Leary'sCow

SanitizingDeodorantCakes
Aug 20, 2018
305
I love these things. I don't see how they're instructive, valuable or reveal a deeper meaning behind the seeming randomness of the universe, but I find them intensely interesting.

Against my better judgment I'll describe one that happened to me.

Decades ago I'm living in an apartment with a roommate. Two women move into the vacant unit above ours. One night there's a knock at the door. One of the women living in the unit above ours informs me that my dome light is still on. Sure enough, it is. I'd dumped some loose oranges on the floor of my car returning from the grocery store and turned on my dome light to find them all and bring them inside. I hadn't turned off the dome light. So this kind little act saved me the trouble of jump starting my car the next day. Slowly I started developing feelings for this woman, attributing all these wonderful qualities to her. It turned into a full blown crush. I tried speaking with her when I'd see her around, but she always seemed harried and even subtly contemptuous of my attention. My interest in her was borne of desperation and loneliness, not lust, FWIW. Then her boyfriend/fiancee (of whose existence I was not aware) moves in and replaces her roommate. They marry and the names on their mailbox in the foyer change to reflect that fact. I notice the new name and it's indelibly memorized. I move out the next year and buy a house. I've got a hardwood floor in the dining room and decide to get a Persian rug for the floor, but Persian rugs are outlandishly expensive (they're also very well made and last virtually forever). I won't settle for imitation or cheap, and start scanning the classified ads in search of a used Persian rug. I find one that sounds interesting for the right price, make the call, arrange the visit, and collect my cash. I get in the front room and see the rug. It looks nice. I'm going to buy on the spot. I notice a piece of their mail and the name. Very uncommon name around here. Wait, that name, it's in my memory bank. I look at the photographs on display in the living room. Woah, it's the woman I had the crush on and her husband! I'm in her father-in-law's house! Weird! I give them the cash and take the rug home. And that's it. Why? What does it mean? Did all the psychic energy I expended pull me into their orbit? And if so, to what end?

This cute little movie features a guy living in his mother's basement and believing all these little things have a deeper significance. They never (that I can recall) use the word synchronicity.

 
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EddieAllenPoe

EddieAllenPoe

Specialist
Mar 19, 2019
304
Oh geesh. I've got plenty of my own stories exactly like this. Synchronicities revolving around love can be the worst. I've played the fool way too many times. Sometimes we see things that are CLEARLY connected in our own mind but they painfully have no meaning or benefit to us. I onces saw two ex-girlfriends, neither of them connected, become interconnected in my mind because they both a) ended up having the same last names and b) both pretty much had the same first name for their children. This was so crazy to me. I could explain this to other people but nobody saw what I was seeing. Their children's names were almost literally the same... they were just anagrams.

I can relate to having a crush on someone and seeing the kinda bullshit you're describing transpire. It's not fun. I wish I understood why some things happen. I'm kind of convinced it becomes worse when you move beyond a crush and have sex with someone. It's like you become psychically connected for life. As an example, I literally travelled 2000 miles awaytwo years after breaking up with somebody. I later found out they were vacationing literally 30 miles from where I was. I know they weren't stalking me because they were with their new boyfriend. Still, how weird is that?

This cute little movie features a guy living in his mother's basement and believing all these little things have a deeper significance. They never (that I can recall) use the word synchronicity.



I remember seeing the trailer to this! I've yet to watch it. It's on my list now.
 
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Mrs.O'Leary'sCow

Mrs.O'Leary'sCow

SanitizingDeodorantCakes
Aug 20, 2018
305
Oh geesh. I've got plenty of my own stories exactly like this. Synchronicities revolving around love can be the worst. I've played the fool way too many times. Sometimes we see things that are CLEARLY connected in our own mind but they painfully have no meaning or benefit to us. I onces saw two ex-girlfriends, neither of them connected, become interconnected in my mind because they both a) ended up having the same last names and b) both pretty much had the same first name for their children. This was so crazy to me. I could explain this to other people but nobody saw what I was seeing. Their children's names were almost literally the same... they were just anagrams.

I can relate to having a crush on someone and seeing the kinda bullshit you're describing transpire. It's not fun. I wish I understood why some things happen. I'm kind of convinced it becomes worse when you move beyond a crush and have sex with someone. It's like you become psychically connected for life. As an example, I literally travelled 2000 miles awaytwo years after breaking up with somebody. I later found out they were vacationing literally 30 miles from where I was. I know they weren't stalking me because they were with their new boyfriend. Still, how weird is that?



I remember seeing the trailer to this! I've yet to watch it. It's on my list now.
Yes, how weird, and unlikely. Just messes with your mind. Maybe this shit is happening all the time and, as you said, it's just confirmation bias. Or not. Who knows?

It's a very feel good type of movie (as if you couldn't tell from the preview), so if you can't tolerate happy/hopeful endings don't watch. Just an FYI.

Interesting (Your examples). So I'm not the only one. I guess that makes me feel better, sort of. :ahhha: Thanks for sharing. Yeah, other people can't see it. I think they'd rather you just shut up about it because it's boring to them. We're all mostly self absorbed, at the center of our own universe. And sex, yeah, establishes a connection unless it's some kind of mercenary transactional coupling with no hint of romance.

Yeah, I think I'd almost rather have intense physical pain of a defined duration than a long, drawn-out brooding crush with bizarre coincidences seemingly urging me to keep trying. Synchronicities around love are cruel to me as they've always just led me down blind alleys leading to nowhere. The one I described wasn't painful to me because I was past it, but I couldn't help but feel it was the universe giving me a big "fuck you." OTOH I've had benign sychronicities as well that weren't painful at all, just weird.
 
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Temporarilyabsurd

Temporarilyabsurd

NOISE:signal
Apr 27, 2018
438
I love this stuff.

We must make patterns : that's our adaptation ?

I often pan right back and see my life experience over years as being a kind of synchronistic / holographic
'event' ...

Back in the late eighties Robert Bligh wrote 'Iron John ' : a study of fairy tale and myth .

I re-read it recently and I really like the poetic take on events in our life .

Things need to happen for us to become what we need to become .
If they don't , perhaps we are prompted by some signs that re-occur ?

Meaning may exist , even if it is 'only' a meaning we create our selves .

Ironically , this self creating god like faculty is dismissed as being 'only' something
we create ourselves .

Maybe we are all labouring under the weight of millenia heavy mono theism ?

(- I wish I could take a shower and weed the garden and maybe fix my car and get a job .
nope , I'll do internet mysticism ..... obligatory self put down ,,,, aaaaaaaaaaah )
 
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Xaphous

Xaphous

hikikomori
Nov 11, 2018
550
Haven't had the patience to read any long posts here yet other than skim through in this thread but I definitely will do because it's so interesting. Just wanted to say for now that yes I've had a basically paranormally huge amount of synchronicities throughout most of my life. Many of them what should be impossible 'coincidences' and often I would have many in one day. 0.00000001% chance type stuff by the usual rational reasoning. I was even keeping a journal at one point because they were so frequent and I just became very used to them. Now I am mostly getting the time synchronicities for the last 5 or so years but these seem more common with other people too, you know seeing 11:11, 3:33, 4:44 etc etc seemingly inescapably all the time. I could add so much more and more crazy examples I've experienced but I have to sleep for now.
 
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EddieAllenPoe

EddieAllenPoe

Specialist
Mar 19, 2019
304
(- I wish I could take a shower and weed the garden and maybe fix my car and get a job .
nope , I'll do internet mysticism ..... obligatory self put down ,,,, aaaaaaaaaaah )

This last part! Haha... Yes! I'm often wondering how the fuck I got sucked into this shit. I probably could have accomplished so much more if my mind was focused on something more practical. Like car repair? Oh no. No. Not me. Let's study the Tibetan Book of the Dead instead. I'm joking but I guess I actually don't regret being this way. I see stuff most people don't.
 
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Xaphous

Xaphous

hikikomori
Nov 11, 2018
550
@EddieAllenPoe Have you heard of the mandela effect too?
 
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Jc40

Jc40

Specialist
Mar 3, 2019
354
Is it synchronicity if there was music playing and I was looking to buy a book and I bought the book 'Live Better', because the song said those words, or is what I'm saying not related at all? It wasn't just one book, I looked at 3 and I got feeling too with third one so maybe not related but definitely weird
 
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EddieAllenPoe

EddieAllenPoe

Specialist
Mar 19, 2019
304
Is it synchronicity if there was music playing and I was looking to buy a book and I bought the book 'Live Better', because the song said those words, or is what I'm saying not related at all? It wasn't just one book, I looked at 3 and I got feeling too with third one so maybe not related but definitely weird

If you bought the book BECAUSE of the song then it's not a synchronicity. The song caused you to buy the book.

If you were thinking about buying a book called 'Live Better' and you noticed a song coincidentally started playing with lyrics saying 'Live Better' then it would be synchronicity. Because the two events were independent and one didn't cause the other.
@EddieAllenPoe Have you heard of the mandela effect too?

Yeah. I've seen videos about it. I'm not as convinced this happens. I wouldn't know how to prove it. As an example, I did think it was strange the children's book "Berenstein bears" isn't actually "Bearenstein bears" but that could just be me remembering things wrong.
 
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Jc40

Jc40

Specialist
Mar 3, 2019
354
If you bought the book BECAUSE of the song then it's not a synchronicity. The song caused you to buy the book.

If you were thinking about buying a book called 'Live Better' and you noticed a song coincidentally started playing with lyrics saying 'Live Better' then it would be synchronicity. Because the two events were independent and one didn't cause the other.
Yeah I was listening to the songs. So not synchronicity. Thanks
 
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Xaphous

Xaphous

hikikomori
Nov 11, 2018
550
If you bought the book BECAUSE of the song then it's not a synchronicity. The song caused you to buy the book.

If you were thinking about buying a book called 'Live Better' and you noticed a song coincidentally started playing with lyrics saying 'Live Better' then it would be synchronicity. Because the two events were independent and one didn't cause the other.


Yeah. I've seen videos about it. I'm not as convinced this happens. I wouldn't know how to prove it. As an example, I did think it was strange the children's book "Berenstein bears" isn't actually "Bearenstein bears" but that could just be me remembering things wrong.
There are thousands of examples now so I think mis-remembering is out. A few of the most intriguing for me are dolly never wore braces in moonraker, Mr Rodgers sings it's a beautiful day in THIS neighborhood (wasn't it "the neighborhood"?), the scarecrow has a gun in The wizard of oz, fruit of the loom logo never had a cornucopia.
 
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Mich517

Mich517

Ex-musician
Jan 9, 2019
139
When I came across your thread (before I started to reading it) I was listening The Police song "Synchronicity II".
 
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weargon

weargon

Experienced
Apr 20, 2019
201
10596

No WAYYYYY!!!!

You mean everything is like connected and stuff?

Did you guys hear about The Secret? Lmao.

Why not try some reality instead?

 
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Ivenocare

Ivenocare

Student
Mar 31, 2019
194
I don't know if this counts, but I randomly watched "The Big Lebowski" and it has german nihilist in it (which i never heard of before) the word intriged me but i ignored it. I then got a video on youtube about nihilist recommended to me a day or so, I didnt watch it; a week later the movie came on tv, i watched it again and finally looked into nihilsm; the same video was recommended to me and i watched it; i looked into it more, and became a nihilsit, which is what caused my depression to sky rocket and lead me to attempt suicide multiple times for the first time in my life. in the process of getting closer to death, i have had spiritual experiences and have rejected this type f stuff my whole life, and now believe in God because of it, haha, which has changed my whole thinking process. but i do not know if this counts...
I don't know if this counts, but I randomly watched "The Big Lebowski" and it has german nihilist in it (which i never heard of before) the word intriged me but i ignored it. I then got a video on youtube about nihilist recommended to me a day or so, I didnt watch it; a week later the movie came on tv, i watched it again and finally looked into nihilsm; the same video was recommended to me and i watched it; i looked into it more, and became a nihilsit, which is what caused my depression to sky rocket and lead me to attempt suicide multiple times for the first time in my life. in the process of getting closer to death, i have had spiritual experiences and have rejected this type f stuff my whole life, and now believe in God because of it, haha, which has changed my whole thinking process. but i do not know if this counts...
 
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weargon

weargon

Experienced
Apr 20, 2019
201
I don't know if this counts, but I randomly watched "The Big Lebowski" and it has german nihilist in it (which i never heard of before) the word intriged me but i ignored it. I then got a video on youtube about nihilist recommended to me a day or so, I didnt watch it; a week later the movie came on tv, i watched it again and finally looked into nihilsm; the same video was recommended to me and i watched it; i looked into it more, and became a nihilsit, which is what caused my depression to sky rocket and lead me to attempt suicide multiple times for the first time in my life. in the process of getting closer to death, i have had spiritual experiences and have rejected this type f stuff my whole life, and now believe in God because of it, haha, which has changed my whole thinking process. but i do not know if this counts...
There's another place where many more people find God, besides random youtube videos. It's called prison. Btw, not sure why you double posted.
 
weargon

weargon

Experienced
Apr 20, 2019
201
I do not see another post, my bad.
Well at least this forum glues them together, which is kind of nice. Probably just hit the reply button twice by accident. Must be connected to something else double something going on in your life today through synchronicitities.
 
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Mrs.O'Leary'sCow

Mrs.O'Leary'sCow

SanitizingDeodorantCakes
Aug 20, 2018
305
I don't know if this counts, but I randomly watched "The Big Lebowski" and it has german nihilist in it (which i never heard of before) the word intriged me but i ignored it. I then got a video on youtube about nihilist recommended to me a day or so, I didnt watch it; a week later the movie came on tv, i watched it again and finally looked into nihilsm; the same video was recommended to me and i watched it; i looked into it more, and became a nihilsit, which is what caused my depression to sky rocket and lead me to attempt suicide multiple times for the first time in my life. in the process of getting closer to death, i have had spiritual experiences and have rejected this type f stuff my whole life, and now believe in God because of it, haha, which has changed my whole thinking process. but i do not know if this counts...
I think that's the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

"Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
 
EddieAllenPoe

EddieAllenPoe

Specialist
Mar 19, 2019
304
Today I was listening to the Tool song Lateralus. I even took time to post it to the Music Megathread. I was on a post earlier and saw another user reading it that had the name of a tool song. I'll just give them a shoutout, it was @fortysixandtwo. Probably within the same 5 minute time span I also saw @toolateforme. Both their usernames are references to the music group Tool. That was a perfect example for me of synchronicity.

Shout out to @weargon . I see you're still busy ridiculing everything on the internet. BTW, synchronicity is not about seeing that "everything is connected". It's seeing a meaningful connection between two events that could not be logically be connected in a causal sense. I think even if you were capable of understanding that you'd refuse to admit you did.
 
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