Synchronicity subscribing meaning to the meaningless

[the13bats]

I want to start this thread as something of a marker in time and date, for a while i have been noticing little coincidences perhaps synchronicity and some things that almost could be called precognative. Now you who know me know very well i consider myself a skeptic and rather cynical, so i sure am not making any jump to paranormal and wont in fact im a bit reluctantly going in the direction of where i think paranormal starts and ends and thats in the experencers mind, am i slipping has the extra stress and tention the last year or so just made my OCD worse and in turn hyper focused on non events trying to make them fit.

What i guess pushed me over was this past weekend at the club and a few odd ball things that just dont add up, its nothing too epic so im not being vauge im just posting this thread to open the door then will post my next experence.

In the meantime feel free to toss in your 2 cents.

 

[Ell]

Synchronicity does occur and there are various explanations for it.

 

1. Coincidence

2. A highened sensitivity for such coincidence

3. More than coincidence - but by definition still coincidence. The response of the Divine to a spiritual yearning.

[Grim Reaper 6]

8 minutes ago, the13bats said:

I want to start this thread as something of a marker in time and date, for a while i have been noticing little coincidences perhaps synchronicity and some things that almost could be called precognative. Now you who know me know very well i consider myself a skeptic and rather cynical, so i sure am not making any jump to paranormal and wont in fact im a bit reluctantly going in the direction of where i think paranormal starts and ends and thats in the experencers mind, am i slipping has the extra stress and tention the last year or so just made my OCD worse and in turn hyper focused on non events trying to make them fit.

What i guess pushed me over was this past weekend at the club and a few odd ball things that just dont add up, its nothing too epic so im not being vauge im just posting this thread to open the door then will post my next experence.

In the meantime feel free to toss in your 2 cents.

 

I think I posted this before, but here I go again, I have learned to trust my gut since my teenage years. What I mean is that sometimes when I am doing something of getting ready to do something I get butterflies in my stomach that make nauseous. On one occasion, trusting my gut saved my life and my drivers life. It was after the ceasefire in Iraq and we had to be at Division Main Tactical Operations Center. When we approached the intersection where we should make a left turn, my stomach started causing me problems. So, I stopped my driver and looked at a map, and it was possible to not use that road, but it would take an additional 20 plus minutes to get to our destination. So, I told the driver to by pass the left at the intersection. Well, we were late for the meeting, but my portion of the briefing was not for another 15 minutes so it was all good!

Well, the briefing went well and my stomach was good to go, so we took the original route back to the Jump TOC. Well, about half way down the road we didn’t take the first time, there were medical vehicles and other vehicles. I told the driver to pull over, I got out walked up and man there were the remains of a HUMVEE, the thing was a twisted burnt mass of metal. It turns out at a directional IED had been manually detonated as the HUMVEE passed it, there were four soldiers in the vehicle and no one survived. The medical personnel were try to collect enough of the remains so that they could get DNA match’s for identificatio. Me, and my driver looked at each other and went back to our HUMVEE. i asked him not to tell anyone because I didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions and have people laughing at me. Well, he told someone and they told someone and soon everyone knew!

[the13bats]

35 minutes ago, Ell said:

Synchronicity does occur and there are various explanations for it.

 

1. Coincidence

2. A highened sensitivity for such coincidence

3. More than coincidence - but by definition still coincidence. The response of the Divine to a spiritual yearning.

At this time if anything i have no spiritual yearning,

[the13bats]

8 minutes ago, Grim Reaper 6 said:

I think I posted this before, but here I go again, I have learned to trust my gut since my teenage years. What I mean is that sometimes when I am doing something of getting ready to do something I get butterflies in my stomach that make nauseous. On one occasion, trusting my gut saved my life and my drivers life. It was after the ceasefire in Iraq and we had to be at Division Main Tactical Operations Center. When we approached the intersection where we should make a left turn, my stomach started causing me problems. So, I stopped my driver and looked at a map, and it was possible to not use that road, but it would take an additional 20 plus minutes to get to our destination. So, I told the driver to by pass the left at the intersection. Well, we were late for the meeting, but my portion of the briefing was not for another 15 minutes so it was all good!

Well, the briefing went well and my stomach was good to go, so we took the original route back to the Jump TOC. Well, about half way down the road we didn’t take the first time, there were medical vehicles and other vehicles. I told the driver to pull over, I got out walked up and man there were the remains of a HUMVEE, the thing was a twisted burnt mass of metal. It turns out at a directional IED had been manually detonated as the HUMVEE passed it, there were four soldiers in the vehicle and no one survived. The medical personnel were try to collect enough of the remains so that they could get DNA match’s for identificatio. Me, and my driver looked at each other and went back to our HUMVEE. i asked him not to tell anyone because I didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions and have people laughing at me. Well, he told someone and they told someone and soon everyone knew!

That type story is very common, one of avoiding death or serious harm.

[Grim Reaper 6]

9 minutes ago, the13bats said:

That type story is very common, one of avoiding death or serious harm.

Well, I have had those feelings many times, but that was the only time I saw what would have happened. All, the other times when I had a gut feeling I never found out what may have happened. It kinda freaked my driver out, from that point forward he would pay very close attention to anything I said!

Personally, I believe it was coincidental because we may have made it past, but its impossible to know for certain. Because we don’t know the exact time the other vehicle got hit, but it’s easy in a situation like that to speculate because your mind plays tricks on you! All, I know for certain is that it was not my time that day and nothing else matters!

[Ell]

1 hour ago, the13bats said:

At this time if anything i have no spiritual yearning,

I cannot judge that, since we lack details about the synchronicity you noticed.

[the13bats]

14 hours ago, Grim Reaper 6 said:

Well, I have had those feelings many times, but that was the only time I saw what would have happened. All, the other times when I had a gut feeling I never found out what may have happened. It kinda freaked my driver out, from that point forward he would pay very close attention to anything I said!

Personally, I believe it was coincidental because we may have made it past, but its impossible to know for certain. Because we don’t know the exact time the other vehicle got hit, but it’s easy in a situation like that to speculate because your mind plays tricks on you! All, I know for certain is that it was not my time that day and nothing else matters!

I used to hear and from different people and different party tellings about a person has a plane flight and dreams it crashes and so they cancel and it does crash problem is we never have more than a story it happened. Sometimes i see things made to fit better after the fact.

One case thats fairly known was the crash that killed buddy holly seems Merle Haggard lost a coin toss to go on the plane and made the joking reply to being teased he was going to freeze on the bus he hopped the plane would crash when it did i have read haggard never really got past it, sure his remark was coincidence but damn.

In my case so far its not that big not by half, its just enough to notice enough that combined with other issues symptoms i felt like making a thread.

[the13bats]

13 hours ago, Ell said:

I cannot judge that, since we lack details about the synchronicity you noticed.

Im not sure it fits better as sync or coincidence and its a bit hard to put in words as not everyone would understand, all this might just be a side effect of a really bad year in general lots of stress and tension feeling drained and all by myself in it i do have mental issues since my 20s nerves, panic anxiety type stuff , wired up ocd so sure i could be overthinking things, its human nature to want there to be more than this just because im a skeptic doesnt mean im not human.

Lets see if i can make it generic the last weird experence. Lets say your boss seldom talks to you and all is well then he hits you that he always wants you to use a red marker which you always do and you say so, he says its important to use red and you say you have been doing that and hes not mean but tries to act like you use purple and you say no purple only red. It ends there up in the air hanging , you are weirded out put off because you have been using red. Now out of nowhere a customer comes to you and says your use of red is the best they have ever seen and the only reason they are there, they are wording this very much like the boss did too much so but they are agreeing with you that you do use red. While flattering its really odd as people dont do that and to happen moments after talking with boss and no way the boss is in cahoots with this person.

Okay thats the best generic way i can tell it im likely reading too much into it both timing was weird for stuff that doesnt happen.

Now that is one of countless things, another is down right spooky how many times i know what song will be playing on the car radio when i get in, the weirdest was coming home sat, the station is 70s 80s 90s and not a huge rotation of songs, i stop for gas queen rock you is playing, i go in to the station and come out and pump some gas i get in car prince doves cry is playing about 1/2 thru, i think they just played queen odd to follow that with prince ( a comp not human does the song order ) i think i would rather hear queen under pressure, no kidding next song.  another queen song should never have played that soon.

That type stuff is just running amuck on me lately or is it?

[Ell]

3 hours ago, the13bats said:

Lets see if i can make it generic the last weird experence. Lets say your boss seldom talks to you and all is well then he hits you that he always wants you to use a red marker which you always do and you say so, he says its important to use red and you say you have been doing that and hes not mean but tries to act like you use purple and you say no purple only red. It ends there up in the air hanging , you are weirded out put off because you have been using red. Now out of nowhere a customer comes to you and says your use of red is the best they have ever seen and the only reason they are there, they are wording this very much like the boss did too much so but they are agreeing with you that you do use red. While flattering its really odd as people dont do that and to happen moments after talking with boss and no way the boss is in cahoots with this person.

Maybe they both saw a large red truck passing by outside?

Or maybe you saw one and this triggered a spiritual request about the theme red within you and the Divine responded.

 

Quote

another is down right spooky how many times i know what song will be playing on the car radio when i get in, the weirdest was coming home sat, the station is 70s 80s 90s and not a huge rotation of songs, i stop for gas queen rock you is playing, i go in to the station and come out and pump some gas i get in car prince doves cry is playing about 1/2 thru, i think they just played queen odd to follow that with prince ( a comp not human does the song order ) i think i would rather hear queen under pressure, no kidding next song.  another queen song should never have played that soon.

That may have been coincidence.

It also may have been more than coincidence: the Divine responding immediately to your spiritual request. Time is not an issue in such cases. If possible, upon your request the music programming may have been altered retroactively.

[eight bits]

5 hours ago, the13bats said:

That type stuff is just running amuck on me lately or is it?

I'm a Carl Jung fan, and he coined the term synchronicity. The word is deliberately parallel in construction to coincidence - a synchronicity being a special case of coincidence, two or more events which occur close together in time that have no apparent causal relationship, but do have a shared meaning.

Uncle Carl was undaunted by the possibility of "metaphysical" or even paranormal explanations of things. He took the idea of synchronicity seriously enough to engage with Nobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli on the subject. (Quantum mechanics is rife with related events without classical causation.). Although that line of inquiry really didn't go anywhere, the value of synchronicity as a concept is nearly self-evident (IMO, being neither analyst nor analysand): "noticing something" - anything - is an opportunity for unconscious contents to present themselves to conscious awareness.

The "woo factor" would be that the unconscious is the hidden cause of the coincidence, as opposed to being the opportunistic monitor of experience who's always on the look-out for events whose relationship can communicate something to the conscious mind. Wooly or not, it does appear that the unconscious really does manipulate some events or how some  events are interpreted by entirely natural means. Denial and projection make the world go 'round. But other times, I suspect, a restless unconscious simply finds events suitable for sending a message.

This is one of those subjects where I think Jung was barking up the wrong tree, and where I am amazed that he didn't simply see that that was so. Synchronicities are an opportunity for us to learn about ourselves - reason enough IMO for a psychologist to study them. If, contrary to Douglas Adam's proverb, we learn that there are fairies in the garden after all, then how cool is that? But if we don't, the garden is a good thing anyway.

ETA Although I think I understand the thread title, it may be a bit misleading. Both of the events in a synchronicity episode have their own meanings. I suppose you could say that all meaning is subjectively assigned (and maybe did say that). However, once the meanings are appreciated, that the meanings "overlap" is a fact.

Edited January 24, 2023 by eight bits

[SHaYap]

Spontaneous synchronisation... 

Quote

[00.01:10]

There's even wilder simulated examples with 3D software physics engineering render oscillating systems on YouTube... Mesmerizing 

~

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

7 hours ago, eight bits said:

Although that line of inquiry really didn't go anywhere, the value of synchronicity as a concept is nearly self-evident (IMO, being neither analyst nor analysand): "noticing something" - anything - is an opportunity for unconscious contents to present themselves to conscious awareness.

I agree with it's value, but it seem to me that 'not noticing something/everything' is also an opportunity for unconscious contents to present themselves.  So simply being awake is an opportunity, although perhaps synchronous events present specific or more powerful unconscious contents than other causes.

7 hours ago, eight bits said:

Wooly or not, it does appear that the unconscious really does manipulate some events or how some  events are interpreted by entirely natural means.

Hmm, might just be phrasing but what is an example of the 'unconscious manipulating some events', since 'the interpretation' of those events is being differentiated and separated here?  Do you just mean the subconscious affecting the behavior of people and thus the events they are physically involved with?

7 hours ago, eight bits said:

Synchronicities are an opportunity for us to learn about ourselves - reason enough IMO for a psychologist to study them.

Absolutely agreed.

[eight bits]

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I agree with it's value, but it seem to me that 'not noticing something/everything' is also an opportunity for unconscious contents to present themselves.  So simply being awake is an opportunity, although perhaps synchronous events present specific or more powerful unconscious contents than other causes.

Synchronicity is primarily a noticing phenomenon. Not noticing something that the organism apprehends at some level or could or "should" apprehend is unconscious content. Conversely, whatever is noticed is conscious content. That makes your comment hard to grapple with. There is a borderline situation, "liminal consciousness," but I am unsure how that helps here.

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Hmm, might just be phrasing but what is an example of the 'unconscious manipulating some events', since 'the interpretation' of those events is being differentiated and separated here?  Do you just mean the subconscious affecting the behavior of people and thus the events they are physically involved with?

No. The canonical example offered by Jung in a therapeutic setting goes like this. The analysand was skeptical about the value of attending to her dreams. One night, she dreamt she received as a gift a piece of jewelry in the shape of an Egyptian scarab beetle. The next day, when she visited Jung in his Switzerland office, a European cousin of the African scarab beetle buzzed at the window, making its presence unignorable. She noted the resemblance between this visitor and the gift in her dream. As a result rethought her position on the possible value of dreams.

So what was the role of unconscious contents in that pairing of events?

Totally passive (lots of stuff happens in real life, lots of stuff happens in dreams, it is inevitable that there will be occasional overlaps where the dream stuff precedes the real-life stuff)?

Shrewdly playing the odds (the unconscious analysand apprehended that there were such beetles around Jung's office, but she didn't notice them consciously, either from lack of interest or an overt "block." The unconscious slipped a similar beetle into her dreams, made sure she remembered the gift, and fortuitously one of the real  beetles made itself noticeable the next day)?

...

The beetle was an incarnation of her Socratic daemon and conspired with her unconscious to teach her this lesson?

Don't look at me; I don't know .

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by eight bits

[+Liquid Gardens]

5 minutes ago, eight bits said:

Not noticing something that the organism apprehends at some level or could or "should" apprehend is unconscious content.

Which seems to lead to that while awake, both conscious and unconscious content provides opportunity for (other) unconscious content to emerge.  Leaving aside that I think there is some data/science to support the idea that all conscious content comes to us via the unconscious, I was thinking more about some meditation approaches, where you specifically filter out things you may otherwise notice to calm the mind.  That may take the form of perhaps only focusing on your breathing, but I think unconscious content can emerge just from removing the focus on other things as opposed to emerging from only focusing on your breathing, so that from our perspective it just emerged 'out of the blue'.

11 minutes ago, eight bits said:

No.

Perhaps my use of the word 'interpretation' is too narrow and 'event' too open.  I would say that it does not appear that the event, " a European cousin of the African scarab beetle buzzed at the window", was manipulated by the unconscious by natural means, as far as I know.  The events that include the dream, the pairing/synchronicity, perception, etc, may have been manipulated by unconscious contents, but the scarab buzzing at the window is entirely separate from that and not manipulated by the synchronizee's unconscious as far as 'appearances' go.

[Duke Wellington]

On 1/23/2023 at 12:06 PM, the13bats said:

I want to start this thread as something of a marker in time and date, for a while i have been noticing little coincidences perhaps synchronicity and some things that almost could be called precognative. Now you who know me know very well i consider myself a skeptic and rather cynical, so i sure am not making any jump to paranormal and wont in fact im a bit reluctantly going in the direction of where i think paranormal starts and ends and thats in the experencers mind, am i slipping has the extra stress and tention the last year or so just made my OCD worse and in turn hyper focused on non events trying to make them fit.

What i guess pushed me over was this past weekend at the club and a few odd ball things that just dont add up, its nothing too epic so im not being vauge im just posting this thread to open the door then will post my next experence.

In the meantime feel free to toss in your 2 cents.

 

Its all about momentum.

In the supermarket it is hard to get your full trolley moving as you have to build up its momentum. At the end when you let go its momentum carries it forward until the energy dissipates. Your patterns of thinking, feeling, acting, and behaving, if you keep engaging them, build up momentum.

Then when you stop the universe wants to keep them going. Its sends experiences to make the patterns continue until their momentum has dissipated.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Cookie Monster

[eight bits]

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Perhaps my use of the word 'interpretation' is too narrow and 'event' too open.  I would say that it does not appear that the event, " a European cousin of the African scarab beetle buzzed at the window", was manipulated by the unconscious by natural means, as far as I know.  The events that include the dream, the pairing/synchronicity, perception, etc, may have been manipulated by unconscious contents, but the scarab buzzing at the window is entirely separate from that and not manipulated by the synchronizee's unconscious as far as 'appearances' go.

The orchestrator/manipulator doesn't need to cause the beetle to visit, it's enough to know that there's a good chance that one will visit at some opportune time.

The three dots were meant to cover a swath of possibilities. Jung had an unconscious, too. I wonder how the woman ended up in analysis with him if she had serious doubts about the value of dream work,.Equally I wonder how Jung reacted to her doubt - consciously, maybe a bit of ego-defence?, but unconsciously as well. Jung was uniquely well situated to "incubate" his analysand's dreams, and also to know what insects were about, which ones sometimes visited ... and finally, the only version of the story available to us is none other than Uncle Carl's.

Although I have a soft spot for the beetle being a Socratic daemon. Isn't that the mark of a good mystery? It's always the character you'd least suspect .

[+Liquid Gardens]

2 minutes ago, eight bits said:

Although I have a soft spot for the beetle being a Socratic daemon. Isn't that the mark of a good mystery? It's always the character you'd least suspect .

Ha, agreed.  I think I've mentioned long ago how Jung first came to my attention due to certain mentions in more 'skepticism' conversations connecting him with 'woo', but after finding out more about him mainly from your mentions in my view that connection is overblown.  Reading him with the perspective of him treating patients significantly changes the context of the few snippets I've read of his that sound on the surface supernatural-adjacent.  In my very limited opinion and piggy-backing off of a side convo we had recently it's more that he kept woo an open question or specified it as something unimportant to the psychological benefits that can arise from these kind of events, and wasn't necessarily championing woo as a good explanation.

I've been rolling around in my head still the idea of how much the effectiveness of his approach depends on entertaining/not filtering out a woo explanation. Don't know of course but I would think that some extension of that may already be part of more basic psychological approaches.  For example if a normal religious person is psychologically distraught and that discomfort has some overlap with their religious beliefs I would think the analyst can provide effective treatment by leaving the actual truth of those beliefs alone or even 'going along with it'.  Pretty sure that an analyst need not approach a believer's statement that they feel bad about their divorce and that God is not happy with them by stating, "well first you need to understand that there's no reason to think God isn't a fairy tale".  On the contrary that would seem to just worsen it. On the other hand if someone is being tormented by a Satan they can see everywhere, maybe attacking the reality of the religious belief would be more effective. 

That's what's also kinda cool about using synchronicity in analysis and treatment, it is unique and custom to the individual, as well as I think many times connecting to an event that occurred in this reality (bug at window) which is also a one-time occurrence in space and time. Not sure if they've found synchronicities fall into certain common categories or connections though, 'insects' for instance.  As always interesting stuff!

 

[SHaYap]

@Liquid Gardens

@eight bits

Edgar Zilsel... 

Quote

 ...was an Austrian-American historian and a philosopher of science. He is known for his Zilsel Thesis, a scientific proposal which traces the origins of western science to the interactions between scholars and skilled artisans, which melded practical experimentation with analytical thought. Wikipedia

Born: August 11, 1891, Vienna, Austria

Died: March 11, 1944, Oakland, California, United States

Books: The social origins of modern science

Education: University of Vienna

~

Look up "Cult of genius"

Quote

ResearchGate

https://www.researchgate.net › 3016...

The Cult of Genius in Germany and Austria at the Dawn of the Twentieth ...

 

5 Jul 2022 — 1 Zilsel, who was sympathetic to socialism, was concerned by what he described as “genius enthusiasm” and the “genius enthusiasts”

~

Took a bit of time to go through the pages of... 

Quote

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com › show

Divine Fury: A History of Genius by Darrin M. McMahon

 

The first comprehensive history of this elusive concept, Divine Fury follows the fortunes of genius and geniuses through the ages down to the present day, ...

...

Just to make sure I remembered things in it's place, it's a tough read (for me), took me a couple of tries just to get to the 17th / 18th century personalities. 

Technically speaking, the venerating of sanctified relics back in the day is no different than the glorified collections of a lock of hair or a signed piece of paper by JFK today. 

Socrates' daemon is still among us all... 

~

 

[the13bats]

Thanks for all the intriguing replies, about the subject title of this thread etc, those who know me know i call myself a skeptic and cynic, i believe that humans are not one size fits all but do share being human, and when it comes to paranormal stories are great but if you want me to believe then show me, not an excuse not saying its a flaw in me put up or shut up.

And when it comes to things that fit under the umbrella of paranormal when we get past hoaxes, misunderstanding or unknown to the observer, misidentification, and made up the explanations that arent of a paranormal nature i still have some unexplained cases and i do however unpopular believe most are simply in the minds of the experencers not always "mental illness" but still in the mind not reality.

So i do take a somewhat light hearted approach to such things because i am human i very much could for example think and totally believe some wild paranormal thing happened to me but in my case i would not jump to the only possible explanation is paranormal i would jump to i have a mental issue or condition, and i do question just that possibility with the way im noticing what seem to be a lot more and more obvious events of coincidence and or sync etc, i dont think i am special at all this is just new to me and i do already have some mental issues.

Im basically waiting somewhat actively watching for the next thing to happen so i can try to post it up.