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

[Vexr]

I've considered giving examples in this post, but they're tough to break down. The clearest one I've had was extremely harmful to someone else but saw me clear of trouble thanks to it.

Perhaps those who are aware of the Jungian idea of synchronicity will have something to say...

 

[Vexr]

I appreciate the above responses, though I hinted that there was something far darker that hurt someone regarding my first synchronicity...

I was in college, but my second year started to fall apart due to attendance after my college gf ditched me (this was apparently devastating at the time). As my attendance went awry, my sociology tutor said they're filing their 'formal warning form' or whatever: I said fine. Then my business studies tutor threw one in there, completely to my surprise as I thought I was keeping up appearances in that class. At this stage I was summoned to the principals office (of a 2000+ student 6th form college along with my Dad - my God he wasn't happy).

Then my psychology tutor encountered me in the atrium and said that this was it, you better attend my next class and be 100% attendance going on, or I'm recommending you for expulsion.

I missed her next class, but attended the next one. (I'll qualify that I was going through a very difficult time in that period and lived about 1.5 hours bus ride away at 17 y/o.).

When I went to the next class, I was greeted by a substitute teacher telling us our psychology tutor had a very very serious premature birth at 20 wks or so, and would likely be off indefinitely with a very tragic situation.

I continued through the rest of the year (badly) but got in to my university of choice, where I eventually got a 2:1 degree in psychology.

If it wasn't for my college psych tutor's surprise premature birth and horrific hardship, she'd have made good on her threat to have me booted from her course, and combining with other factors, I'd have been expelled from college, and so I'd never have got to university.

Here I am today, wondering WTF my 2:1 degree is composed of (the blood of the innocent perhaps?).

There've been further synchronicities. Fate has been very strange multiple times - often cruel but sometimes good in hours of need, but none so dramatic and life changing as my college years I feel.

- this is coming from someone who has experienced multiple contract-expiring job losses and non-fault write off car crashes in just the last 3 years. Really really wondering WTF is going on.

 

[Vexr]

5am post-pints on a Saturday morning I posted that and it's even worded as if I was 17 years old again lol. Still a true story though.

I wont lie, I hadn't really heard of synchronicity before. Google tells me the difference between that and conincedence is "Coincidence and synchronicity are both defined as “striking occurrences of two or more events at one time”. The difference is that coincidence is perceived as chance or luck while synchronicity implies the presence of a deeper intelligence at work." I get the one event is the premature birth. What exactly is the second event? To me it just looks like you 'got lucky' and benefited from it?

A search engine definition isn't going to be too useful I'd have thought; you have to go into slightly shadier parapsychology territory like here for much discussion:

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_synchronicity.htm

Even I'll admit there's quite a lot of nonsense amongst some of those articles, but some stuff I can resonate with.

I suppose another major one for me was when the company I worked for closed, and I'd already been 'just about managing' living hand to mouth with a practically 0 bank balance, but then my landlord announced they were selling my flat (albeit not evicting me first). This looked very possibly like the end, with definite thoughts of homelessness and destitution looming large.

Two days later, opened up my mail and there was a cheque for £2.2k. Turns out the Co-Op bank had misworded something or other regarding my Career Development Loan (paid off a couple of years before this situation), and were therefore refunding all interest on it. That definitely arrived in my hour of need.

There's been other more evil 'synchs'. I remember being late for work once (by like 45 mins - an unheard of thing for me). On stopping at a pedestrian crossing, I was aware someone had just stopped short next to me pushing a pram. It was only my blooming ex, obviously having recognised me. We ended badly and I always regretted not giving her the chance she said I should've given her, and this felt like a synchronistic-style punishment, reminding me of perhaps the young family life we may have had together, that she then had with someone else.

That was a very hard day to get through at work, as that moment seemed to reopen a lot of wounds and involve some serious introspection. And yet it was ludicrously improbable we should've come together like that at a pedestrian crossing, especially as it involved me being massively uncharacteristically late for work (and not like it was outside my front door, I had a car journey first).

 

[Vexr]

I think it's strange that you think these events revolve around you. They don't even seam particularly unlikely. You were having a bad day and you saw your ex and wondered what your life would have been like if you had stayed with her? It's hardly final destination level stuff tbh.

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.

Digging through the barrel here, and this is probably unrelated to synchronicity, but in year 10 of high school my classmate flicked a piece of paper my way across my face. I immediately noticed something was wrong with the vision in my right eye, though I hadn't felt any discomfort/pain.

Turns out my right contact lens had been removed by this piece of paper from my friend and was now perched on the edge of this sheet of A4. So somehow a papercut to the eye had been averted or something by the mm barrier of a contact lens.

Life is too random, yet strange but true.

 

[Vexr]

Just LOL if you don't think Jung was gangsta but dude was trippin balls when he went on his synchro deal.

Right on, Pinkman *fistbump*

 

[Vexr]

You have an Alanis Morissette understanding level of the word irony my dude.

e: and why on earth wasn't she encouraged by her management team to follow up that song with its sequel: 'No, it's not'. That's the old one-two which the world demanded

No idea what you're on about, but my earlier referral to Pinkman reminds me of Breaking Bad and its reliance on synchroncity as a plot device (as opposed to the Deus Ex Machina plot furthering trope). I'm pretty sure I read something a while back pointing out the synchs for Breaking Bad, though can't find it off the top of a quick google search.

Some obvious ones though:

• The recurring painting of a man in a skiff rowing himself away from the shore as his family waves goodbye
• The synchronicity that Walter ended up in exactly the position to watch Jane at the moment of her death, and have the decision to make to save her or not
• The roll-on synchronicity that Walter's failure to act regarding Jane's death resulted in the air traffic control accident that caused a massive death toll (and the extreme unlikelihood he unwittingly met Jane's father in a bar, somewhere he'd never usually go to, at a pivotal time)
• Slight roll over synchronicity regarding how Walter was eventually ID'd by Hank (Gael Boetticher's revenge from beyond the grave)
  
• I suppose there was another narrative running through Breaking Bad to do with the almost Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy of 'let go and give up to a higher power' - Walter White encountered someone expositing that philosophy in a chemo session and retorted that was all BS and tightening control and logical/rational mastery of oneself was all that counted. Quite a divisive thing against the one thing the US is alleged to have brought to the world spiritually, which is AA and other 12 step programs.

 

[Vexr]

I guess I don't understand synchronicity then. For one, even the name suggests it's more than one thing happening at the same time. Walter being there at that time is just one event surely, led by luck? I guess you could argue him being there is one event, her in trouble is a second. The resulting air traffic accident is something based from a previous event and then he meets the guy by luck in a bar at another time.

I suppose Walter's reflection in S3E10 acknowledges his synchronicity about as well as can be done:

Walter:
Oh, I know the moment. It was the night Jane died. I was at home and we needed diapers and so I said I'd go, but it was just an excuse. Actually that was the night I brought you your money, remember?

Jesse:
Yeah. I remember.

Walter:
And afterward I stopped at a bar. It was odd, I never do that - go to a bar alone. I just walked in, sat down. I never told you.

Jesse:
You went to a bar?

Walter:
I sit down and this man, this stranger, he engages me in conversation. He's a complete stranger. But he turns out to be Jane's father, Donald Margolis.

Jesse:
What are you talking about?

Walter:
Of course I didn't know it at the time. I mean, he's just some guy in a bar. I just didn't put it together until after the crash when he was all over the news.

Jesse:
Jane's dad?

Walter:
Think of the odds. Once I tried to calculate them, but they're astronomical. I mean, think of the odds of me going in and sitting down that night, in that bar, next to that man.

Jesse:
What'd you talk about?

Walter:
Water on Mars. Family.

Jesse:
What about family?

Walter:
I told him that I had a daughter and he told me he had one, too. And he said, "Never give up on family." And I didn't. I took his advice. My God, the universe is random, it's chaos. It's subatomic particles and endless pings, collision - that's what science teaches us. What does this say? What is it telling us that the very night that this man's daughter dies, it's me who is having a drink with him? I mean, how could that be random?

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Vexr]

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.

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

Both of these examples rate highly on my synchronicometer

I'm surprised Breaking Bad didn't attract more talk regarding synchronicity, especially as it used it as major plot driver a few times and even had Walter openly ponder about it in a moment or two of vulnerability (minus labelling it synchronicity).

I suppose history teaches us some unfortunate effects of synchronicity / perceived synchronicity, i.e. with Adolf Hitler's chance assignment to spy on a certain German workers party, and the multiple improbable lucky breaks he had that convinced him of his infallibility and destiny. That didn't turn out so well for him (or the world).

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.

Very interesting, though sounds more like it'd fall in to some sort of psychic phenomena category than synchronicity to me (lol even I'm recoiling slightly at writing such a sentence).

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.

'Thinking about some random obscure person, then they call you out of the blue' is regularly listed as a common example of synchronicity on certain sites that discuss it.

Heard of the Mandela Effect and previously wracked my brain thinking of a possible example of my own. The only one I can think of is that I was fairly certain Phoebe Buffet / Lisa Kudrow wasn't in the original cast of Friends, and only joined the show much later. As I wasn't exactly a die hard fan of that show and I believe she was always the 'odd one out' throughout the series, I doubt that's much of a Mandela Effect.

 

[Vexr]

It's not strange.

It's a well documented and extremely common human trait to attach undue significance and importance to the events in one's life and to ascribe some divine/higher protection/special treatment/affirmation that that person is unique.

It's protection of the ego, or bolstering or something.

Much of religion is exactly the same. This is no different, and stems from exactly the same wide-spread human needs.

I see your point, though that particular example I shared definitely had no ego-bolstering effect. There was no pleasure or validation of my life choices in that synchronicity, mostly the sensation of regret that would at best pan out to a humbling.

I think even the more positive 'my ass got saved from a certain bad outcome' coincidences are generally humbling for most, in that it took some event outside your power to get you out of a tight spot.

I suppose there's the big win 'synchronicities' that can do what you describe to people. The person who strikes a fortune or is elevated to some unusually high position or status seemingly by fortitude is particularly likely to consider it an affirmation of their special place in the universe and attribute it to the divine order of things, as evidenced by the aristocratic classes of history and the attitude of those born into money.