Synchronicity

[No_One]

What are your experiences and thoughts on the concept of Sychronicity?

[devance]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

originally developed by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.

Carl Jung coined the word to describe what he called "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung variously described synchronicity as an "'acausal connecting principle'" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality), "meaningful coincidence" and "acausal parallelism". Jung introduced the concept in his 1952 paper "Synchronicity — An Acausal Connecting Principle", though he had been considering the concept for almost thirty years.[1]

It differs from mere coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic expressed through meaningful relationships or events.

It was a principle Jung felt encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious [2], in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history — social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were due not merely to chance, but instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events

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Is thats the subject?

[No_One]

Yeah that's the one, just wondering if anyone has fitted it into their world-views, has an alternate explanation of it or something similar to it or even if anyone experiences it on a regular basis and under what conditions does it's frequency increase.

[nabraxas]

and under what conditions does it's frequency increase.

i've noticed it most when travelling, but i guess that's just because there's more opportunity for those kind ov things; however i also used to notice alot ov weird coincidences when tripping, but i guess everything seems more meaningful in that state. i do tend to suspect that in most cases there "is no such thing as coincidence" though.

[Jesus On Peyote]

Im a sceptic to an extent, its all in the mind.

[ramon]

I have fallen prey to believing things where meaningfull in the past in times of great stress.

Pretty sure I was just not thinking logically because after one of these times I fixed my interest rate for two years and two years of falling interest rates followed.

[The Dude]

its all in the mind.

You said it brother! just not how you meant it, from what i gather...

disputing the credibility of synchronicity is pointless, you either believe what you're expereincing directly, or you dont even trust yourself. I've been there, overly skeptical, more tahn sycnronicities, beyond contact through mind/matter/meaning junctions and more towards a direct telepathic 'holy comunion' with the godess. did i believe it? fuck no! next time i chat ehr up i'll believe in myself.. um myself = the universe, i AM god! :D

[komodo]

i'm sceptical of any grand plan concept, or things-meant-to-be, or similar. synchronicity seems to be a kind of mystical belief in something along those lines, based on the way the mind places emphasis on certain events.

i think its got more to do with noticing things and making a picture in your head than any real meaning. not to say that isnt handy or enjoyable.

[The Dude]

synchronicity seems to be a kind of mystical belief in something along those lines, based on the way the mind places emphasis on certain events.

True I agree it it is based on the way the mind places emphasis on certain events in your life, that is exactly right. it places an emphasis on the acausal connections of seperate events which carry a meaningful connection, .: suggesting that meaning transcends the laws of causality.

also mind places emphasis on the suggestion that it is greater than the single ego self (that is the individual sense of self, but nothing more, just an i.d. for the body), and instead a totally connected whole that transcends the personal self and rules over both mind & matter as you interact with them... and yes, it IS all in the mind.

[Guest Warrioe-Sage]

there is calculated sychronicity and/or natural synchronicity!?and that,is what all the fuss has ever been about!?hehe!!....just a s k n...

[No_One]

The jury's still out there on it for me but I must confess to experiencing events that fit the profile of synchronicity.

It think I've noticed it more as I've tried to "see god in everything" as oppossed to "not seeing him at all".

I have this concept of heaven which is really just a particular mind state, that's my aim/event horizon. I want to have that mind state 24/7. As I work towards that goal I keep finding obstacles I need to overcome, when I understand the particular obstacle and overcome it, the thing I overcome seems to appear "out there".

I know this's weird shit but if you were to observe my mind and then observe the things I see in reality you would trip out aswell. It's very much like that reebok description above. I focus on something that's bugging me, overcome it and then it's like that thing is everywhere "out there".

I don't look for these things they just sort of get my attention from the corner of my eye. It could be that thoughts of a particular nature are at the front of my mind so my mind is on the look out for the physical manifestation of that thing.

I reckon it could also have something to do with self fulfilling prophecy and the law of attraction, i.e. if you think about something hard enough and intense enough your conscious attracts a physical representation of that thought as a sign from the greater consciousness.

It could also be mania or similar aswell, a lot of times it happens after I've been obsessed with something so bad that my dopamine system all over the shop. That feeling of "eureka" is what I'm trying to convey here I think, sort of like a blockage has been opened and something finally makes sense.

Who knows.

Edited May 2, 2007 by Shiva

[Vertmorpheus]

I've always been plagued by weird shit, those around me just call it my "weirdnesses" and leave it at that, otherwise we'd all go nuts. Say a word then the next second its on the tv (a rare word at that, and often enough to not comment about it anymore). Think of a song, turn on the radio, bang, there it is. Not think about someone for a couple years, then see their initials in a number plate and they call me that afternoon. And so on and so on and so on (started reading this thread at 11:11 my time, haha). My head leaks like a sieve sometimes, and picks up like a shortwave. No need to whistle at me from the other side of the property, just look at me and I'll look at you. When zenned out into a task at work (repetitive, plant based tasks in a fairly natural setting) I will sometimes get the rambling flood of random thoughts...then that night realise I've for some reason gotten a head start on the questions for temptation, haha. (but no idea yet how to mail some of that weight gain powder to whatsername). or a breaking news story that I know bugger all about til I get in the car for lunch and whack on the radio. I can tell with a fair idea what my daughter is watching kids vid or kids show wise despite being 15 k away, and even thinking about getting her a (waits for someone to call child services) mikky d's apple pie (and then deciding not to) had her running around saying "apple pie" (19 months old, very advanced language skills as we always talk to her as a person , not a pet, moving into fairly tidy sentences and multi stage expressions and some reasoning etc, very grateful for that, lived in terror of having dumb kids lol) for the next few days (only ever seen a meat or veg pie, never had a sweet pie in her life).

I once was waiting for my train , had half an hour to spare, wandered into the little old book shop (place of much magic as we all know), browsed around . Saw a book simply titled "Synchronicity" for 4 bucks. Looked in my wallet. No notes. Hunted for change... 4 bucks left from buying my train ticket with a ten dollar note.... time printed on the ticket? 4:10. Gotta love it.

I don't think synchronicity is a sign from god, or any of that... half the time its just added emphasis due to relevance, as someone said up there... the other half of the time is just weirdness Sometimes suspect its what you get when you make a few choices, a few things happen, and the "Stream of occurence" splits and branches a few times to accomodate the different directions those choices take you... but then another few choices made in the majority of streams kind of pull things back into one stream, leaving left over bits and pieces that have to fit in here n there, and your mind can mostly accept them but maybe some other version of your mind , now merged into your current one, is saying "yknow, theres something funny about that....". Makin any sense?Helps me handle deja vu too, which I get almost constantly sometimes, usually leading up to a "change" period but then, maybe I am just expectant of one? I don't think about it much and verbalise it less, as I said, anyone that knows me has just accepted it.My gf and I are forever exchanging standard kinda hows things love ya lots sms's, yknow how one person starts and the other answers and thats that? Not for us, we both ask at the same time , about half the time. getouttamyhead is a standard catchcry around here.

What's weirder is that it's genetic... my other half's mum and all the women in her side are just tappedi nto each others heads (spookily so), and a lot of the males on my side are like that, so my daughter even at her age is just wired for it... she can say a word for the first time (yknow, properly) and then a split second later someone says it somewhere else , on the radio, read it in a book, whatever. Once again, fairly uncommon words. She also tends to wake up in the mornings ranting about certain people , who inevitably phone later in the day or drop around. Once again, not people that come over a lot, or acall daily or anything.

Can't dwell on all this or you'd go insane... look into the dutch pipe - flatland thing, its kind of interesting but didn't help me much. Make of it all what you will, thats the thing with a personal mythos, its personal I don't think it's god, aliens, destiny or getting Hints (though they happen sometimes, methinks), just a bunch of stuff that happens. Stupid people don't mind, as they don't notice. They don't think twice when the clock says its 12:34. But then they didn't think once about anything else they saw that day either.

finished typing at 11:31 on the 2nd of the 4th? love it :D

piss off and eat your apple pies already

GD

edity bit.... don't get me started on streetlights that go off when you've got the shits either.

Edited May 2, 2007 by greendreams

[devance]

A interesting subject.

I think that relaying on such as Jungian says, is relying on a subconscious unified theory.

So even if a greater than odds chance occurs its a conditioning mechanism.

Luck as to opposed to conscious will unified with perception[eye] and feel as in a arm.

Similiar to what a poker player feels which the reason for alot of casinos that make money. For the false sense of security.

There is the random vs. total order.

If everthing was random one would want order.

If there total order than would want randomness.

Two handmaidens that get along in existence that is art.

[ThunderIdeal]

lots of tantalising theories coming out in this thread:D

loved your post GD

i had one at SAB recently. in my big post read paragraph numbered 3, then the text that ace put in bold. if you believe i found that minutes later by coincidence (and i did), that's a pretty big coincidence.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...showtopic=14212

i don't think it has anything to do with destiny, to me it shows that matter is less 'real' than mind, in fact thats what i learned from the experience in that linked post.

[ThunderIdeal]

double trouble.

Edited May 4, 2007 by ThunderIdeal

[The Dude]

double trouble.

It's as though there is a mental landscape on which instances occuring in space/time are scattered.

And we're walking in another dimensional reality which has its influence on the limited dimensionality of the reality we're preceiving. I believe tuning into the connectedness, of the underlying landscape giving meaning and connection to occurences happening in the lower dimensional states, is a step forward at 'seeing' higher dimensions.

kinda thing, but then whats that, like the 5th that has all possible instances that could possibly happen, which exerts its influence on the 4th 3rd 2nd 1st...

then we've got another 5 over that, and there being a 10th dimension implies an 11th for the single point of the 10th to have a plane to exist on, type thing.

anyway really say its 10 dimensions. I find it interesting that the kabbalah Sephirot tree of life thingo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot_%28Kabbalah%29, is comprised of 10 ... characteristics of consciounsess I suppose. and in some versions even 11, points (but thats also blasphemous). Although symbolically different It's cool that theoretical physics believes in a 10 dimensional system and the Jewish Mystics have their 10 dimensions of consciousness stuff.

They have 4 planes of reality, as we do I suppose, in the physical-ish reality. xyz and time. the higher dimensions take on the metaphysical realms of mind manifestation, creating the lower dimensions.

I love Psytrance and Synchronistic connections, I dunno how music can do that, I suppose theres a lot going on for the brain to associate and the music maps itself to you're movements, or whatever else you're focusing on, and mind/matter meld together, at least in personal significance to you, always uncanny, when it happens.

[chilli]

I think of synchronicity a bit differently to the way most people in this thread seem to... I experience weird coincidences a lot, but I've never really put much stock in them... I certainly don't see them as signs. Rather, I sometimes think I see patterns in the mass media, a kind of connection between symbols and language and underlying concepts that goes beyond what the authors/ artists/ designers/ marketing teams intended. I can't really explain the connections very well, and so I used to try and express it through collage paintings, inspired by Rauschenberg to an extent. People's responses to these sort of pushed me towards the idea that its probably more about an individual's subjective perceptions than any actual underlying code or archetype.

[The Dude]

I think of synchronicity a bit differently to the way most people in this thread seem to... I experience weird coincidences a lot, but I've never really put much stock in them... I certainly don't see them as signs. Rather, I sometimes think I see patterns in the mass media, a kind of connection between symbols and language and underlying concepts that goes beyond what the authors/ artists/ designers/ marketing teams intended. I can't really explain the connections very well, and so I used to try and express it through collage paintings, inspired by Rauschenberg to an extent. People's responses to these sort of pushed me towards the idea that its probably more about an individual's subjective perceptions than any actual underlying code or archetype.

i agree that it is about each personal interperetation that gives anything meaning. The symbols of language, the realm of maths and geometry and all that are abstract realms within the mind. The overmind if you will, which gives form and timing to events in space/time. Our personal interpretation is what gives meaning. The God Head is transpersonal and w/out emotional connection, it is our personal emotive responses that give us meaning. It's like the totality of information arranges itself in the ways in which we individuals push it, for it to have significance to us individually, keep in mind the push and pull of overlayed meaning, infused into matter is happening subconsciously. There is meaning and intelligence which guides all, it is a matter of being creative in seeing it as it's directed by personal input, with the raw data of the overmind... yep that makes full sense to me.

[komodo]

another possibility is that perceiving the phenomenon of synchronicity frequently is actually a psychological disorder. if it was pathologically frequent, this would be similar to paranoia, whereby perceptions of the world are fitted into a system of meaning which does not actually exist except in the mind of the beholder.

some research (eg. laplante, e. "seized" 1993) shows that deja vu (specifically what has been called deja senti or 'having been felt before') has a relationship with temporal lobe epilepsy. jung, who coined the term synchronicity in the way it is being used here, discusses another aspect of the phenomenon, deja visite, in his paper "on synchronicity" (1966).

now i'm not claiming to be sure about this, but to offer a kind of hardline perspective, it may be the case that synchronicity is a deluded assumption, made on the basis of a statistically unusual coincidence (which are bound to occur, if infrequently), and this synchronous event seems especially remarkable as it triggers some kind of neurological glitch, much like neuronal synchronicity triggers psychomotor epileptic fits.

[The Dude]

another possibility is that perceiving the phenomenon of synchronicity frequently is actually a psychological disorder. if it was pathologically frequent, this would be similar to paranoia, whereby perceptions of the world are fitted into a system of meaning which does not actually exist except in the mind of the beholder.

some research (eg. laplante, e. "seized" 1993) shows that deja vu (specifically what has been called deja senti or 'having been felt before') has a relationship with temporal lobe epilepsy. jung, who coined the term synchronicity in the way it is being used here, discusses another aspect of the phenomenon, deja visite, in his paper "on synchronicity" (1966).

now i'm not claiming to be sure about this, but to offer a kind of hardline perspective, it may be the case that synchronicity is a deluded assumption, made on the basis of a statistically unusual coincidence (which are bound to occur, if infrequently), and this synchronous event seems especially remarkable as it triggers some kind of neurological glitch, much like neuronal synchronicity triggers psychomotor epileptic fits.

Deja Vu is a vague feeling of re-experiencing this Fresh experience as if it all ahppened before exactly as it's happening at the moment, in hindsight no such situation ever occured apart from just then, so it's well trippy that it truely Felt like it did, this i can see as some kind of brain glitch ( a glitch in the matrix) but yeah literally an artifact of consciousness that happens accidentally, not something that was guided (subconsiously) as synchs seem to be. the thing is when something synchs up you are totally lucid of the meaningful connections and the accuracy and TIMING of the event, dont get me started on statistical improbability, the connections, and frequency of, when zoneing out into this, WAY outdoes statistical probability. The only alternative I see is that it is such a strong delusion that actually warps perception of reality into creating fake instances in space/time that only exist within your own subjective experience.

On the topic of creating false realities that Could produce personal synchs...

I watched Derren Brown hypnotise 2 girls into bending spoons. On camera they were holding spoons in front of their faces tripping out as they saw it swish and move in all directions when in 'reality' that filmed by the cameras and observed by the rest of us, the spoons moved none.

I like the kid from the matrix, 'instead of trying to bend the spoon, just remmeber, there is no spoon', really if they wanted to im sure they could've made the spoon disappear entirely from their perceptions, if they convinced the entirety of their beliefs (including subconsious processes). If they wanted to they could collapse reality back down into a quantum level (not sure what this means exactly) where everything is pure information and our illusory constructs dont even exist. pan dimensional travel and all that.

The thing is belief creates existance, and there is a consensus belief held by the majority, which imprisons us ALL more or less, into believing YES the spoon DOES exist.

belief in the impossible creates the impossible, fuck skeptics they're keeping us down!

[chilli]

I always felt like deja vu was the brain creating a false memory out of the present moment... its such a weird thing. I sometimes also have a strange deja vu like sensation in my dreams, where I'll feel strongly as if I have been in that dream-place before, sometimes the exact event, but more often than not as if the dream is a discrete realm that I am revisiting, and I can distinguish between different realms. At these times I can remember other dreams that occurred years before in the same dream-place, but I'm never sure if it is a real memory or not once I've woken up. Does anyone else have this?

I tend to agree with komodo that reading meaning into synchronous events and paranoia seem to share a similar headspace.

[No_One]

Isn't every belief an illusion/delusion anyway?, something we use to work toward a desired outcome e.g. heaven, retirement, success, survival, whatever.

In a state of pure being you believe nothing, everything just is. If you existed like this you would kill your body, food then becomes important and thus has meaning, predators become important thus have meaning.

In this most basic model of reality your mind is worried about two things in the physical realm, food and survival, sort of friend a friend or foe mentality, if your mind is constantly running that check on everything you see in the physical realm (and your mindful of it) you would be having synchronicities all the time, i.e. constantly scanning for the "important things" - when you see them they have significant "meaning".

Today our mind's/model's of reality are such a fruit salad that we generally don't think about the other possibilities available to us to model with.

Edited May 9, 2007 by Shiva

[komodo]

the spoon example only shows that people can fool themselves into beleiving things which arent real to anything but themselves, dude. via some purely abstract philosophical idealism one can claim the spoon isnt real, the body isnt real, the planet isnt real etc etc but its pretty pointless, and leaves one with a very monotonous cosmos.

i'd like to add that we can interpret sensory input however we wish, but it doesnt make any immediate difference to massive objects, maybe subtle energy currents in the immediate vicinity and moment but not i think the movement of other beings and objects in a wide time/space around us as in synchronicity phenomena.

i've had plenty of these kinds of moments, i used to think they were signs, but i'm now convinced that i was actually just tripping out on a kind of narcissism and thinking everything around me was cued in to what i was thinking and noticing. i've since concluded that actually my head is just personal fruit salad i'm eating and a universe/mass consciousness/cosmic mind isnt watching me or giving a crap what i do/think.

Edited May 9, 2007 by komodo

[Micromegas]

Found this conversation on Tribe today regarding synchronicity, definately worth a read if synchronistic events are a part of your life, and definately fits in with this thread in a synchonisitc/coincidental sort of way : http://dmt.tribe.net/thread/f283fcd6-d1f3-...da-9b5ff2194d98

Edited May 9, 2007 by Micromegas

[No_One]

Good find micromegas! There's some interesting stuff being said there.