Synchronicity... [meaningful coincidences] who has experienced it?

[Vexr]

Can this not be a spoilers thread please? I ignored the first couple of references as relevant to discussion but now I have to skim posts, because it's taking me 10 years to watch Breaking Bad

Sorry Not sure what the official position is of this forum regarding spoiler talk in threads not specifically titled for the series that's being spoiled. Breaking Bad is getting on rather a bit now as well.

That said, I've never seen Lost, however pretty sure I know the jist of the spoilers through accidental encounters online, the biggest one being it ended stupidly and disappointingly

Spoiler

with it all being a dream/afterlife experience

or some such.

 

[Vexr]

Thought of another one. I was in my mid-teens and was at some sort of obscure mini Theme Park with my family. Queuing for a ride, it became apparent that a few steps ahead of us in the queue was another family consisting of my Mum and Dad's best friends from their childhood that none of us had seen in years (they were introduced by my parents and married, having a family of their own).

Our families immediately teamed up for the rest of our respective holidays and we were all delighted.

Whether that event had any lasting significance or meaning I don't know, I think that synch would've affected the adults (i.e. my parents) much more than us (at the time) kids.

 

[AndyCr15]

Yep, definitely don't get it. How is that not just luck/chance? I think I'll just unsub the thread

 

[Vexr]

Yep, definitely don't get it. How is that not just luck/chance? I think I'll just unsub the thread

If it's good enough for Breaking Bad's writers to explore, it's interesting enough for me. Quite surprised how few have come forward to say they've been impacted by meaningful coincidences, especially ones that have nudged or even outright re-routed the direction of their entire lives.

Cheers, and see you about

I suppose a possible celeb synch is with the author Irvine Welsh:

My big break was falling out of the top deck of a bus when it toppled over in a traffic accident. I was in Scotland for a cup game and the bus was involved in a collision. I received £2,000 in compensation. If it had happened 18 months before, I’d have spent the lot on drugs, but instead I secured a mortgage on an £8,000 flat in Hackney and sold it for £15,000 18 months later.

I then bought a house for £17,000 in south-east London and, again, sold it for £52,000 18 months later. In three years my working capital went from zero to £40,000. I’d shown no entrepreneurial skills whatsoever; I was just exceptionally lucky to be living in London during the Eighties' property boom.

He puts it down to luck, but sounds like there'd definitely have been no Trainspotting in popular culture if it wasn't for that bus crash.

 

[Diddums]

I believe the word you’re looking for is “coincidence”.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

It was the very early days of eBay and a work colleague asked if I could find a 1970s BBC Horror Series for him, I found it and put a bid in.
At the same time another colleague who lived 100 yards from the first bloke asked if I could find some Stoke City matches that had been ported to DVD so I put a bid in for them and it just so happened to be the same seller.
A week later the seller contacted me to say I'd won and sent me an address to send the money - he lived 5 doors away from the second bloke and a few dozen yards away from the first bloke

Around the same time I put in a bid for a ported Jethro Tull concert and the seller lived 1 mile away from me.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Just thought of the best 'coincidence' that saved somebody's life and he is/was a member on here called Silent Bob or similar.

He was in KFC in Hanley when a thug started to pick on him, Nige told the thug that he wasn't a fighter, never had a fight and asked nicely if he would leave him alone.
Unknown to him KFC rang the Cops and when he walked out with his KFC the tug hit him hard fracturing his face and Cops who were on the way witnessed it.
He was taken to A&E where a Radiologist spotted something, he'd got a tumour behind his eye and they had to operate immediately or else he could die.
The quandry was should he prosecute the thug for his broken face even though the thug saved his life?
Yes, he got sentenced.

 

[G-MAN2004]

Just thought of the best 'coincidence' that saved somebody's life and he is/was a member on here called Silent Bob or similar.

He was in KFC in Hanley when a thug started to pick on him, Nige told the thug that he wasn't a fighter, never had a fight and asked nicely if he would leave him alone.
Unknown to him KFC rang the Cops and when he walked out with his KFC the tug hit him hard fracturing his face and Cops who were on the way witnessed it.
He was taken to A&E where a Radiologist spotted something, he'd got a tumour behind his eye and they had to operate immediately or else he could die.
The quandry was should he prosecute the thug for his broken face even though the thug saved his life?
Yes, he got sentenced.

Damn, that's pretty crazy. But yeah, I still would have prosecuted too.

 

[Russinating]

Most of the anecdotes in this thread aren't even coincidences...

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Most of the anecdotes in this thread aren't even coincidences...

but are they synchronicities?

 

[Scania]

I’ve heard of Synchronicity, but always viewed it more like a coincidental rather than meaningful event.


I liked Synchronicity also, it was the Polices final studio album, my personal favourite is Reggatta de Blanc.

 

[new boy]

I think nothing revolves around me generally, but there are some surgical-strike-like coincidences that seem to have significant meaning. How you can dismiss any of the above as 'not unlikely' is pretty preposterous to me. Each example I've given with their timing is minuscule odds-wise, particularly the first one, which may have had the highest stakes.

Woman goes into early labour on a day that happened to be highly convenient for you

Bank error leaves you with a chunk of your money back at a time you could really do with it.

Paper flew into eye with force, but fortunately you were wearing contact lenses which deflected the hit.

Parents with kids, spot other parents with kids that they know, at a place that parents with kids go.


I dunno man, I still feel that not unlikely is a fair assessment. Its unlikely that these particular events would happen at that particular time I'll give you that, but with the amount of mundane things that happen around us every day, its almost inevitable that one of them will end up being the right thing at the right time every now and then.

 

[Russinating]

but are they synchronicities?

No. Especially since it's not a thing.

 

[mmj_uk]

I remember once I was walking home thinking that a relative who I hadn't spoke to in a few years might ring me and later that very day they did, there was no reason at all for me to think that my relative would ring me let alone on that day. I'd love to go back and see what made me think about it at all.

Or maybe it's something like the Mandela Effect where you have some kind of false memory, so perhaps I only thought that I had been thinking about my relative ringing me after they actually rang me. I still swear blind that Dolly had braces in that James Bond film with Jaws but all of the evidence says she doesn't and never did.

 

[Feef]

I still feel like this is mostly a "happy coincidences" thread, but have a story regardless:

Back in 2006 I got pretty badly beaten up in Vietnam. Ended up going back to Bangkok, and after leaving hospital, went to go change my flight home to bail out. The travel agent was closed that day though, so I ended up just drinking some beers on a rug on the street with some random people. That evening, I got an email from my ex girlfriend, who was in China, so ended up booking a flight there instead once the office opened again, and got back together for several more years. Thought that was a sign of some sort, as any other day, I'd already have been heading home.

After breaking up from that relationship 5 years later, I ended up going to Taiwan, and sent a message to one of the guys I was drinking on that rug in Thailand with, who had a bar there. Went to visit him, and and ended up with one of his staff, who is now my wife. She still to this day is thankful that I got beaten up in Vietnam so we met in a very roundabout way

 

[Zefan]

One day when I was a kid, I was brushing my teeth and the name Yuri Gagarin came in to my head. I shouted down to my Dad, asking him who he was, and he hesitated before asking me to go downstairs. When I went down, he had the TV on, playing the Teletext game "Bamboozle". The question on the screen was "Who was the first man in space?". I'm still a bit alarmed by the synchronicity of that.

 

[Feef]

...Also yesterday I went out for a walk and for some reason had a few tracks from "Tommy" in my head. No idea why, haven't watched it for years. Wound up at a bar half an hour later where one friend was telling another (in a creepy-but-it's-ok-if-you-know-the-people kind of way) that he could be Uncle Ernie. Sang a few bars of it too.

 

[vanpeebles]

I was watching a summer wine on tv, the episode where Seymour invents a drilling machine. At the end they try to drill for oil, and the music is a Dallas style tune. I turned it over for the footy, and immediately Dallas scored for Leeds.

 

[Russinating]

Why is there no face palm emoji here?

I mean, how many times have you changed channel and a coincidence NOT happened? It's almost a guarantee that one will at some point, it's not special and it certainly doesn't mean anything.

 

[Scuzi]

I first heard of synchronicity when it was mentioned by Officer Arthur "Artie" Grossman in the television series CHiPs. It was a side theme in one of the episodes and Grossman was attributing all of the goings on to it. Poncharello wasn’t having it though.

I have nothing more to add to this thread other than stating that human cognition is characterised by pattern recognition. One might say that our own narcissistic tendencies lead us to identify patterns where none exist, simply to validate our notion of superiority over all.

I also remember that Poncharello had loads of spare toothbrushes in his apartment. They were to accommodate all of the one night stands he had because he was a stud. I had the opportunity to go on a cruise of the Caribbean where Eric Estrada was the entertainment. I almost went.