From wikipedia.... Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a manner that is experienced as meaningful. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect..................
I'd be interested in hearing examples and instances of synchronicity experienced by community members. I'll post an example I found as well as a few of my own.
Wikipedia examples.... Examples
The French writer Émile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that in 1805, he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fortgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him that the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fortgibu. Many years later, in 1832, Émile Deschamps was at a diner and was once again offered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fortgibu was missing to make the setting complete—and in the same instant, the now senile de Fortgibu entered the room.[10]
In his book Synchronicity (1952), Jung tells the following story as an example of a synchronistic event: "A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeud beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since." [11]
Simultaneous discovery is the creation of the same new idea at causally disconnected places by two persons at approximately the same time. If, for example, an American and a British musician, having never had anything to do with one another, arrived at the same musical concept, chord sequence, feel or lyrics at the same time in different places, this would be an example of synchronicity. The wardrobe department for The Wizard of Oz unknowingly purchased a coat for character Professor Marvel from a second-hand store, which was later verified to be originally owned by L. Frank Baum, the author of the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.[12]
Jung wrote, after describing some examples, "When coincidences pile up in this way, one cannot help being impressed by them -- for the greater the number of terms in such a series, or the more unusual its character, the more improbable it becomes."[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity)
Here's my first personal example of synchronicity....
I once sent a care package to a spr member living in Israel. Having no idea of her family name, the identity I decided to use on the return address (first and last) ended up being the legal name of her blood brother.
Here's a link to a nice read concerning the topic at hand.... http://www.flowpower.com/What%20is%20Synchronicity.htm (http://www.flowpower.com/What%20is%20Synchronicity.htm)
lw
I have a little time to post another.....
My buddy Chet and I caught a run of Dead shows at Kaiser in Oakland in '88 or so. It was right after Touch of Gray came out and the touch-heads climbed on the bus. SO one run at Kaiser has tickets available to all looking to get inside and the next has a crowd of five or six thousand people milling around outside the venue, partying like it was 1999 while the band tore it up inside for the lucky five or six thousand with tickets.
My dose was already coming on before we left the drum jam on the hill. We said our hellos to Willy the security guard with the megaphone, who was quietly giving directions to the approaching masses and entered the little auditorium with no seats on the floor. (Hooray!) We made our way toward the stage to smoke a pre-show spliff and realized we were without fire. Chet asked a couple of heads in front of us if we could borrow theirs. One of the hippies gave him a lighter. We used it and when I tried to give it back to the guy he told me to keep it until we were done with it. I nodded and then Chet and I headed back to our preferred spot about 2/3 of the way back.
After the show, once I could muster what passed for whole sentences, I asked Chet if he felt guilty for stealing the nice man's lighter. "Naw," he said. "We're just not done with it yet." So we spent the next two days, lounging at my condo's pool in Foster City by day and crossing the bridge into Oakland for the shows at night. All the while we were sparking the borrowed lighter which Chet periodically promised to return it when we were done with it.
The run ended on a Sunday, I think. We floated out of Kaiser into a sea of dirty hippies. I said, "what do you think, Chet? Did you like that?" He said, "It's over, isn't it?" I said, "Yep. One more thing to do...." Chet said, "Yeah, we are done with it. There he is." Chet then took the lighter and waded through the streaming crowd to the person we'd spoken to for less than a minute daze before. "Hey, man. Here's your lighter. We're through with it now" he said, placing the bic in the guys hand. And I must say, the dude sure had a shocked look on his face as we merged back into the sea of humanity...
the lighter story is head comix - r.crumb, for sure.
i'm thinking of my own sync-ish stories and aside from that mysterious brother connect, all i can think of are probable coincidences - like the teacher who happened to accompany a group of kids who happened to be travelling with a group of students that my students were connected to. And this teacher who happened to be walking with me up to the Western Wall in Jerusalem started to say how she had an uncle in the Negev on a kibbutz and how as I pursued his identity, he was,of course, someone i knew and of course i could connect them.
but in Israel, everybody knows somebody you know, so it's not like the scarab or the lighter.
but things like that happen so often that the cosmic sync seems orchestrated by reasonable chance.
Funny you mention r crumb, sistah-j....
Back in '89 I went through a real rough period, psychedelically speaking. The dark day came when I decided to pack up my belongings and flee back out onto the prairie. My hair was beaded and knotty, so I decided to stop at a barber shop I had spied cruising through San Jose. The barber did the best he could with the tangled mess I presented him. When he was about finished, r crumb came out from the back and swept up my cut hair. I paid my bill and fled that place, getting back on the highway headed east. Twenty or thirty miles down the road, I was passed by a little blue car driven by the guy who had just swept up my hair..... I swear it was crumb or his e-vile twin. Later, I realized I'd left the barber's chair before he could cut the last knot on one side of my head. So I left my hair with that one long piece (and it looked weird) until the next cut job as a reminder....
lw
I'm surprized when synchronisity doesn't happen.
ha,ha! knots on head and r-crumb sync. jrl passes by and waves his dylan poem.
Synchronicity huh?
(Scratching my brain) I had a day recently at work where all 3 of my days patients where 88 years of age and had first names that started with the letter J and they were all trip and falls and all went to the same hospital, I gave practically a verbatem report on em. and I frequently have days where all my days random patients are chest pains or psychs or o.d.'s, but that was fricking wierd.
I have had a few notable synchronistic events during my life, they mostly happen around emotionally/spiritually charged areas of my life, and happen more often when I am progressing forward, physically or spiritually...I will come back with an example from my own life at a later date, but from a site I found many months ago, a girl describes synchs that happened in her life, quite fascinating...
//http://in2worlds.net/synchronicities :tea:
Cheers!
I don't know if it is really synchronicity, but I often feel a book I read is so perfect for the changes and growth I have experienced lately.
Last two examples: I am now 28, have been through love that almost made me insane, and I lost her. I went through a deep change and on the other side I felt I am ready to get married to make a looong story short. For some reason I am reading Kierkegaard's "Stadier paa Livets Vei" = "Stages on Life's Way", in which there is a little "essay" on "Adskilligt om Ægteskabet - mod Indsigelser" = "Plenty about marriage - against objections". Haha.
I even found a girl now, who might go the mile with me... shit. :P
And in the book it also has a small thing on how the "heavy" or "dark" mind should avoid idleness. Because the whole is digged even deeper by for example not finishing what one is doing. All written in Kierkegaards special way. hehe.
The other one: I have had problems with my boss. He doesnt listen, and I dont know how to cope with him. Then I for some reason pick up 7 habits of highly effective people, that, for some reason, has the exact wordings I need to tackle the situation. And of course, related to last point there, it also has good points.
The last one, I know, is a bit too easy... Of course a book like that will help one to cope with those types of things. But it really does often happen that a book falls in my lap at the perfect time.
At the time of my ex's and mines crisis, where I was out of my head and felt all alone, a copy of Farud Al-Din Attar catches my attention and I start reading: All about how love makes you insane, only to prepare one for meeting God. Perfect. Haha.
Anyway yeah... I think the world is interconnected and synchronicity is a word for how existence expresses that.
Right on, Satori. I've felt the same way after reading certain books.
"Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse was that way for me the SECOND time I read it. It never made much sense the first time through. Heck, I don't think I managed to finish that book the first time through. It made no sense!
lw
Hehe LW, I should read Steppenwolf again. I read it as 19. I didn't get it then. Now 28, maybe. ;-)
The book I mentioned by Farid Al-Din Attar is "The Conference of the Birds" by the way.
And this whole thread reminds me of the sentence in Scarlet Begonia by Grateful Dead: "Once in a while you will get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right" ;-)
Thanks, mon. I''m going to check out the book you mentioned asap. (If I can fond a copy in English.)
lw
i.....(edit) used to have a copy. I bought it back in the early 70's.
Great book!
(was gonna comment about 12 hours ago, but sync being what it is, i was called away!)
wonder where my copy went?
hmmmm.....
:"Anyway yeah... I think the world is interconnected and synchronicity is a word for how existence expresses that."
Well put, Satori! I think the world is totally synchronus (is that a word?) all the time, but we just aren't aware.
The deeper you go the more connected we are and everything is..
Quote from: "i<3Shrooms"I have had a few notable synchronistic events during my life, they mostly happen around emotionally/spiritually charged areas of my life, and happen more often when I am progressing forward, physically or spiritually...I will come back with an example from my own life at a later date, but from a site I found many months ago, a girl describes synchs that happened in her life, quite fascinating...
//http://in2worlds.net/synchronicities :tea:
Cheers!
Good point. I think synchronisity is a good way shower, lets you know when you are going in the right direction.