Astonishing Tales of Synchronicity

[professorpan]

Another classic synchronicity (from the wikipedia entry):

"During production of The Wizard of Oz, a coat bought from a second-hand store for the costume of Professor Marvel was later found to have belonged to L. Frank Baum, author of the children's book upon which the film is based."

[lunarose]

My mother in law has been horribly ill with terminal cancer for a year and a half. the docs gave her 3-5 years, then on saturday it was suddenly down to six months. mr. rose and i started on plans to go cross country to see her.

tues morning mr. rose saw his mom's b day on a license plate going to work, when he got there his sister called to tell him mom had died the night before. he called me to tell me, interrupting my reading of a book review. the book was Susan Sontag's son's chronicle of his mother's awful death from cancer. the article i read before the review documented a first-time conference on life after death.

[professorpan]

Wow, lunarose. That is pretty powerful.

Jung (and others) have noted that synchronicities tend to cluster around profound events (births, deaths, breakups, trauma). I've noticed that in my own life.

[lunarose]

thank you, professor. i've noticed the same thing, especially with death or the beginning of a decline. i've noticed some other effects that aren't necessarily synchronicities, but are more or less paranormal or quantum attractors or something. for example, we tend to see unusual natural phenomena or animals. a couple of weeks ago mr. rose and i were at point lobos near carmel and saw great views of whales-spouts and tails, which i'd never seen before. at home later, i looked up the divination of whales in a book we have and it was all about the ancestors, which his mom was soon to join.

when my paternal grandpa had his first stroke, mr. rose and i were in angelo wilderness in coastal no cal. grandpa loved the cal wild places and animals more than you can imagine, and we often went camping together. at age 65, he scared a brown bear away from some steaks he was cooking while in his shorts using only a rolled up newspaper! at angelo that day mr. rose and i saw a rattle snake, several fresh bear poops, fresh bear claw marks at 7' height, and heard a mountin lion calling about 4 times. this is a LOT of major predator activity! (i was very happy to get back to the car - neither of us tops 5 1/2 foot). mr. rose and i often leave for days at a time wothout telling anyone and no contact, but after that hike he insisted i call my dad, who'd left an innocuous phone message. grandpa had had the first of the strokes that would end his life.

when mr rose and i were dating, we went to the sf modern art museum one day. mr. rose, normally of cast-iron constitution, was suddenly violently ill, and we had to leave. i had to drive his car (impressing him with my smooth shifting ) and when we got to my mom's (the closest place) he was so sick he vomited in the gutter. he moaned all night but finally got to sleep. the next day he found out that his mom's dad had died the day before.

in short, i think we are all a lot more connected to each other and to the world around us than the culture in general likes to let on.

[Joe Hillshoist]

lunarose, funny what you say about quantum attractors or whatever.

my nan died the night after an eclipse of the moon, some weird shit happened around that time, but I don't want to go into it. If I hadn't been there for her death and funeral things would have been worse, my friends and others had a hard time that week.

But when my other grandma died, that weekend I got arrested and a whole slew of weird shit happened to some friends who were up in the area.

But the one thats weirdest is what happened before my wedding. My old man came up for a visit, and after a day or two had a nose bleed that was still going after an hour, bright red blood too. We took him to the hospital, where he was for a few days, the rest of his visit, (He'd come up to see me before the wedding, he was coming back in about a week and a half with mum.) He had various cardiac issues, tho minor ones. The week before he got there we found an injured echidna on the roadside on the home late one night. We brought it in and were going to call a wildlife carer the next morning. That night it died in the same room he was in. The only blood on its body came from its nose.

It was probably fucked even if we'd got it to a vet immediately, but at least it was slightly warmer and more comfortable than the side of the road, and had some water, which it sipped, and didn't die alone.

It freaked me out a little tho, when the old man's nose wouldn't stop bleeding.

Within a day or two of him going home, my wife had her first epileptic seizure, a serious one requiring hospitalisation to bring her out of it.

That was the start of our married life, her dealing with her epilepsy, and my old mans old age health problems.


There's another coincidental one with my old man myself and another family member that shows how focussing too much on the negative when these things happens can make the consequences worse.


My old man fell off a pipe/culvert, 2 mts onto jagged rocks landing on his neck and shoulders last year. He was in his 70s and it was pretty serious.

Within about 24 hours at work, someone had felled a large, heavy (3 people couldn't lift it) tree limb onto my back neck and shoulders.) I was extremely lucky, (not unlucky to be hit by the tree, that was down to someone else's stupidity and lack of communication.) not to be killed, or at least paralysed. There doesn't appear to be any serious damage, or any lasting damage tho I probably need a bbit more spinal re alignment, if its done right. Well not so much spinal, its more shoulders and legs that are out...

My uncle died a week or two earlier, and there's a family or Indian custom or belief that when one person dies their spirit comes back to take someone else, so they won't be lonely on their way to the afterworld ror into oblivion or whatever. My should shut up aunt kjeeps going on about it everytime they talk. talking about how death was sposed to get his bro but got confused and almost got him instead and stuff. Fucken witch.

Dad and his bro hadn't spoken for over 20 years, and the last time they spoke was in a family court battle. yet they lived within 10kms of each other and were the only members of their family (cept wife and kids) within 5000 miles. The others are England or Canada. Dad took this pretty hard. He hasn't been very well since, had trouble doing anything, or even breathing, and no stamina. He's got more stamina than just about anyone I've ever known, including endurance athletes who were ranked highly on a national and in a couple of cases international level. So he was very crook.

He was also spiralling into a bad place probably driven by grief and guilt over his brothers death, and fear that he was about to join him.

As he came out of this, well got sick of it and decided to deal with it and not wallow in self pity, he decied to get himself checked out, so went and got a series of more intense and more accurate chest scans, until they finally showed a clot in his lung. Hes had that treated and it cleared up the other week and hes already heaps stronger.

It was ue to his fall, and probably his guilt/grief and taking to much on from his sisters stupid talk.

I think on some level tho all synchronicity are attractors of some sort. And we can also help manifest them, or strengthen them in some way by our attitude and how we deal with them.

At the risk of invoking more synchroicity, he could get hit by a car tomorrow, we all could.

[lunarose]

thank you for the post. even reading what you wrote is overwhelming, without all of the coexisting details. it gives a good sense of what it can be like to live through these events.

ok, mr. hillshoit, let's see if this is believable: i went to the doc yesterday after my last post to get checked for a likely recurrence of...........clot in the lung. so give your da my best, it is extremely debilitating and also tends to generate a bad mental outlook, so as he heals he will feel much stronger.

so the ? is, after that start how did your marriage go?

[lunarose]

credit where its due: i'm pretty certain it was annie aronburg who brought up the phrase/concept of 'quantum attractors' in another thread.

[sunny]

professorpan

Another classic synchronicity (from the wikipedia entry):

"During production of The Wizard of Oz, a coat bought from a second-hand store for the costume of Professor Marvel was later found to have belonged to L. Frank Baum, author of the children's book upon which the film is based."

I love that one.

I guess you could classify my first tale as an amazing coincidence:

My son married a girl named Jessica. She has a child from a previous relationship named Natalie. Natalie's birthday is Feb. 3rd.

My Paw Paw's birthday was Feb. 3rd. His first wife Ophelia died giving birth to...my Aunt Jessica.

Growing up in my rural hometown, I was very close to a boy named Alan. Alan was in love with me but I resisted a romantic relationship with him for reasons I have never been able to figure out.
He was incredibly romantic-he built me a treehouse 'so we would have a place to be alone'. He was an outspoken iconoclast, the kind of person who delighted in skewering sacred cows. In church, he would loudly register his disagreement with the pastor right in the middle of his sermons!
He was a beautiful boy, charming, witty, sharply intelligent. And responsible! He worked the family farm like a trojan.
My mother adored him. She always asked me: why don't you go out with Alan? I had no answer for her. We spent a lot of time together, we talked incessantly. I have dozens of wonderfully written letters from him that he sent me after I moved to the big city.

1980, my mother and sister and I took a trip to the country to visit my Maw Maw on her birthday. On the way back, we stopped at a little convenience store in the next town. There was Alan with a friend, looking so fine. He followed me into the store-"Come take a ride with me". Suddenly, it struck me that I would never meet another guy who lived up to him. He was everything I wanted and more. (I can barely write this) I was incredibly excited by him, all at once. I ran out to the car and "told" my mother, not asked, that I was going with Alan.

No. What? WTF? This made no sense. I couldn't imagine anyone she would trust more to drive me around in a car. She never had been priggish about me dating anyone or going off in cars with boys. But it was emphatically NO and no amount of pleading from me or cajoling from Alan would change her mind. I was bewildered and angry.
Alan said he would call me in the morning and we took off to the city.

The next morning, the phone did ring-with news that Alan, with his friend behind the wheel of Alan's car, took off from that convenience store and crashed less than a mile away. Alan was dead. His friend didn't have a scratch.

I always wondered-agonized is a better word-if I had gone with him, would Alan have been driving so as to drop off the friend so we could be alone and he would still be alive, or would he have allowed the friend to chauffer us around and we would both be dead? Or was the crash destined to happen, no matter what either of us did or didn't do?

Three years later, his friend died in a house fire.

[professorpan]

My father was hospitalized and near death from throat cancer. I was home from college, as the hospice people had indicated he was very close to death, and I was sleeping in my old bedroom. My brother was still living with my mom.

Around 3 a.m., the family dog started howling. All three of us -- my mom, brother, and me, in separate rooms -- were wide awake even before the howling started.

My mom got up and tried to console the dog. He wouldn't stop howling. It was very unusual. I got up and tried to calm him down, too. There seemed to be no reason for it, but he wouldn't calm down. It was a really awful, mournful howling.

Finally, he quieted down a bit. We all went back to bed, but by that time I was rattled -- I knew, without a doubt, the reason for the dog's agitated state.

A few minutes later, the phone rang. When I heard my mom break down, sobbing, it confirmed what I already knew.

[annie aronburg]

credit where its due: i'm pretty certain it was annie aronburg who brought up the phrase/concept of 'quantum attractors' in another thread.

Nope, it wasn't me.

One day I hope to be able to toss around such turns of phrase, that's why I hang out here.....

AA

[lunarose]

hello annie! well, i know i read it somewhere here, but i'm not that good at searching. hopefully the author will check this thread and take credit.

professsor and sunny, thank you for your stories.

[AlanStrangis]

Though nothing freaky to the extent of John E.'s original post, after looking at the Death Metal/Punk debate I was feeling in a very Clash mood, and fired up some on the work station today (which is rare, because I RARELY play music off the computer 0when I'm working - like maybe once a month).

I had also just emailed a bunch of friends to see who was up for grabbing a pint and/or catching a movie on Saturday, if there was anything good playing. Another rarity because I've almost always have multiple options for Saturdays a week or two in advance, but this week nothing at all.

I thought to myself that I should really try and rent that Joe Strummer called "Let's Rock Again", when the boss walks by with yesterdays Globe And Mail to toss in the recycling bin (even more rare than me listening to music as the papers are usually left around for the cleaners).

The review section falls out on the floor right beside me, and there's a review of the new "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten" doc.

---

Like I said, nothing heavy, but I read the review, but here I am, a grown man with tears welling up in my eyes as I listen to "Lost in a Supermarket" and remembering all the reasons why I love what The Clash, and Joe Strummer, stood for.

[just_dude]

Hello, Just Dude here. Long-time lurker and fan of Jeff's blog...as well as the forum...

On March 23, 2003, 6 days after my 23rd birthday, a group of friends walked downtown to a plywood wall encompassing a renovation dowtown. It was covered with anti-war, pro-diversity paintings by university students, i.e., their graffiti was school sanctioned. A group of us non-students went to add our own flavor--the Iraq invasion was not yet a week old. It wasn't until I looked up at a clock in the police station and read 2;30 a.m. that my mistake became apparent. 23 Skidoo!!! I was the only one caught. Also, the cops stole $23 from a drunk kid who spent the night with me.

Around this same time, I had smoked diviner's sage one night. Later as I slept I dreamt of two sea turtles, lazily mating on a moonlight shore. This was the only recollection from that night, though it was perfectly vivid.

WHen I woke I went out to the porch to have a ciggy, and opened a fresh pack of American Spirits. They use to have endangered species trading cards--I had dozens of them collected. The one on this morning was the Green Sea Turtle.

A good friend came by that afternoon, upset that he had lost his favorite Zippo--the one with the turtle on it. Still, I wasn't fazed.

Then my wife came home from work, at a thrift shop. As she descended the stairs to me, she held out a light blue heart-shaped pendant, etched with the image of...a sea turtle. She said "It was like it was talking to me--I thought of you".

There are many many more examples, but they involve the Gods...In the Magickal Reality, one internalizes and outwardly projects all the systems of divination in the world. You don't need to cast a rune--you just look around you. Or you walk out into the street, and approach the first stranger you see. Every minutia of the expression of matter is the emanation of the same eternal, divine, infinite factory of illusion which gave the human body substance and the imagination incentive. Does that make sense?

[sunny]

Hey just_dude, welcome a-board. Neat story. Also syncs with me somewhat, because a few months ago I kept dreaming of being in or running a nature or wildlife preserve. Very elaborate, beautiful, sometimes frightening dreams. Never did figure out what they meant, but I sure enjoyed them.

[bobdobbs]

I like seeing that others here have had synchronicities involving 23.

A couple of years ago, one saturday afternoon I woke up planning on running some errands that day. I started making breakfast thinking about my day, it was very bright and sunny and I was feeling very productive and active.

However, before i even finished cooking my breakfast the sky had suddenly filled with storm clouds, and it began raining. Within a matter of minutes it was as dark as night outside, and pouring rain. Then suddenly the power went out.

I finished eating, realized that I couldn't do anything with the weather like it was, so I lit a couple of candles and decided to read. I went to my bookcase and randomly picked up Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. I hadn't read any Wilson in years at this point, and I thought 'hey, why not'.

I randomly opened the book and started reading, I was reading parts of certain chapters, skimmed to different sections, eventually I was reading a chapter on the star Sirius. Wilson was speculating on an intelligence from Sirius which plays a part in our lives. He then went on to talk about the 'dog days of summer' and ancient egyptian ritual centered around Sirius in the month of July. I laughed and thought to myself, heh, it's July now. Then it hit me...."wait what's the date today?" I ran to check the calendar and sure enough it was the 23rd. I spent the rest of that afternoon reading.