Years ago I posted a couple of essays on my author site called "Unusual Occurrences" and "More Unusual Occurrences." They were collections of mostly trivial and anecdotal synchronicities, coincidences, and premonitions from my personal life I still keep a record of such things in a journal.
Yes, I'm aware that they can be "explained" by the ever-helpful truism, usually delivered with condescending weariness, that in a universe of infinite possibilities, even very unlikely things are bound to happen now and then. How persuasive anyone finds this mantra is a personal matter. For me, it can explain a certain amount of strangeness in the world, but not an unlimited amount.
Anyway, within the last 24 hours I had two such occurrences, both very trivial, and I figured I would mention them here. They do not prove anything, but to me they are indicative of the everyday role that psi plays in our lives — a role so clandestine and marginal that we are usually unaware of it.
Yesterday I found myself thinking of a satirical variation on the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty," which would begin, "Humpty Trumpty sat on a wall…" I thought this could be a clever dig at Donald Trump, but I was unable to complete the rhyme. Later that day I flipped through a copy of a magazine called The Week and came across this cartoon:
Political cartoon by Glenn McCoy, available online here.
At a different time yesterday, I was musing on old-time special-effects master Ray Harryhausen, and specifically thinking about the death pose of his creation the Cyclops (in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad), which is almost identical to the death pose of his earlier creation, the Ymir (in Twenty Million Miles to Earth). The fact that he chose almost the exact same pose for both models, which were built around the same (refused) armature, struck me as either a stylistic decision or an inside joke. Anyway, the first thing I saw on my Facebook newsfeed this morning was a post from a Harryhausen group with this photo:
That's the Ymir in its death pose.
Pure chance in both cases? Could be. I've been thinking a lot (in fact, too much) about Trump lately, and I've always been a bit Harryhausen-obsessed. But the specific parallels, right down to the fact that the Humpty Trumpty poem was unfinished in the cartoon just as I was unable to finish it in my thoughts, are suggestive to me.
As Goldfinger says in the movie named after him, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Rightly or wrongly, when things like this happen often enough, I see a pattern.
lol it's a very small thing but just an hour ago I finished reading Goldfinger
Posted by: Renzo | March 17, 2016 at 06:13 PM
These to me are standard daydream precognitions. My personal theory, which I've described in the comments section before and based on frequent personal experience is as follows:
All experiences, past and future, form memories which lurk..well..wherever it really is that memories are stored. Every time in normal conscious life you experience "new" information - something you see, read, hear.... and provided you are in a day dreaming state of mind, your subconscious mind goes searching these memory banks for the nearest connection in time to this new data. If the nearest association lies in your past your mind wanders on to that past experience and you call this simply remembering. But if the closest connection lies in your near future your mind will wander -perhaps through a chain of association - on to that upcoming experience. You are in effect remembering the future.
Eg: You see someone whose face bears similarities to a friend who you last saw a week, a month or even 5 years ago. He reminds you of your friend. Your mind wanders from the stranger in front of you to the subject of said friend. No one questions this. You are merely remembering the past because your mind has been jogged by the similarity.
But I contend that this process encompasses rememberance of the future as well as the past - and if the nearest (in the temporal sense) connection the face of this stranger brings to mind is a friend you'll accidentally bump into TOMORROW then that's who your mind will wander on to, and why.
Whenever people encounter something they'd "just been thinking about" they usually say "I don't know why!" or "it just popped into my head! Weird!". I'm saying it never just pops into your head. If you catch the coincidence soon enough you can often trace back your chain of thought until, you realise, it was triggered by an objective external event, such as a conversation on the radio, or a headline in a newspaper. Something reminded you of the upcoming event - eg seeing the ray harryhausen photo on your facebook - and so your mind, in a daydreaming state, wandered on to that memory of the future.
Posted by: Lawrence B | March 17, 2016 at 06:55 PM
I just went for a walk with a friend of mine, and I thought of bumping into one of my best friends. I thought "what if we bump into him now that we are going for a walk?", it is not something that happens often, so it was quite unlikely that it was going to happen.
Guess what just happened...
Posted by: Luciano | March 17, 2016 at 09:37 PM
Synchronicities **do** happen, and with a certain frequency... I have no clue what they may mean, but they are quite amusing to me. Thanks for the post!
Posted by: O.R. Pagan | March 17, 2016 at 10:33 PM
Some years ago I came up with an old comedy group a little famous in the early 80s in Italy . I could not remember the name of the leader of the group. After a few minutes I turned on the radio and within a few seconds the speaker uttered the very name of this comic ...
Posted by: Valentino Riccò | March 18, 2016 at 06:55 AM
I guess that subconsciously you didn't want to write the second line, Michael ;-)
Humpty Trumpty sat on a wall,
Hillary Clinton made him fall;
And no Republicans, women or men,
Ever put Trumpty together again.
Posted by: Ben | March 18, 2016 at 07:42 AM
What I've noticed about synchronicities that I've had are things that tend to evoke the most emotion in me are the things I have these little precognitive experiences with. We are seeing our own future - which makes me wonder about free will and predestination.
I mean if we are experiencing things that are happening in our own future does that mean that the future is preset and predetermined? It's an astonishing idea. Like everything, past, present, and future all exist at one time and sometimes we are able to look down inside the hologram and catch glimpses of what is to come.
It's all ready there in our minds and we are just actors living out our lives so that we are able to experience the emotion and feel whatever physical experiences that go along with these little "precognitive" episodes in our lives. And yes I've had my share of them too. For a while there they were happening quite often.
Posted by: Art | March 18, 2016 at 10:07 AM
@ Micheal:
Why is it an enemy action? I do feel like whatever is working on bringing synchronicities into our lives has a bit of mischief in them but rarely does it seem like the work of a malevolent intelligence.
Or perhaps I'm taking the title of the post too literally?
On synchronicities in general, I feel that the mischief aspect is what makes it seem more than merely coincidental to me.
Posted by: SPatel | March 18, 2016 at 12:07 PM
Just make that Ymir orange and he looks quite a bit like you-know-who...
One New Age theory is that we get what we expect, create what we expect, which would explain a lot of coincidences. To a point this is probably true. If you bring up a child telling him or her that they're "stupid," they will probably be underachievers and appear stupid, will probably never even try as everything will appear way "over their head." On the other hand, once we become aware of something, we tend to notice it everywhere. Whatever the explanation, amazing coincidences do seem to happen and defy explanation.
Posted by: Kathleen | March 18, 2016 at 12:12 PM
Synchronicities/Coincidences are an utter fascination for me.
Last month while climbing up a local hill with two friends my female friend said to my male friend "I saw a girl at my dental clinic yesterday who remembers you". My male friend said "wow, I've not seen her for twenty years". Within no more than five minutes we bumped into her walking down the same hill. I class that as a coincidence. But the following I class as a synchronicity.
Two years ago I had a vivid dream (my dreams are never ever vivid) of being in a dark room with my mother and my late Godmother (my mum's old friend). I then felt a strange lifting feeling and found myself alone in the room with my mother. This woke me up with a start. I looked at the clock and realised it was time to leave for work. I quickly washed and left the house and got into my car. Immediately on the radio was 'Mull of Kintyre' by Wings - the very song played at my Godmothers funeral!! I was now pretty impressed. But not as much as later that day when I told my mother about it, as she had just finished tidying a draw out at home, and in the very far corner, facing down, was a very old, tiny photo of my late Godmother on her wedding day!
God bless her, and I'd like to think she oversaw all that in some way.
Posted by: Andretti | March 18, 2016 at 07:42 PM
@SPatel; I think you're taking it too literally. Don't wanna put words in Michael's mouth but I think he just means "not a coincidence".
Off-topic but I was going through the archives here and want to share this thought even though it's ten years late: who wants to bet that Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette is going to grow up to be a nun?
Posted by: chel | March 18, 2016 at 07:45 PM
The only times I've ever noticed potentially synchronous events seem to revolve around collecting things. I can recall a few instances of really wanting something and, lo and behold, it's right there on ebay or whichever site I'm using the next time I check.
Posted by: Michael Vann | March 18, 2016 at 08:30 PM
"I think he just means 'not a coincidence'."
Yes. I just liked the quote.
"Who wants to bet that Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette is going to grow up to be a nun?"
For those who don't get the reference, uber-Skeptic Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) actually named his daughter Moxie Crimefighter.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | March 19, 2016 at 12:07 AM
Michael said:
"For those who don't get the reference, uber-Skeptic Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) actually named his daughter Moxie Crimefighter."
What a selfish jerk—giving his daughter a middle name like that.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | March 19, 2016 at 01:16 AM
(I know the reference was late, but considering her dad inflicted that name on her and is apparently raising her in a home filled with inappropriate artworks and the slogan No God plastered on everything, what else can she turn out like?)
Back on topic, I've certainly had weird things happen, but never anything which doesn't have a perfectly obvious explanation, so I find it really hard to believe it means anything. Like the time I was five and had a very strong tactile hallucination of something hard rattling around in my mouth a few hours before I swallowed my loose tooth; neural weirdness picking up the tooth was ready to come out? I'm openly admitting to jealousy :(
Posted by: chel | March 19, 2016 at 06:06 PM
I'm always delighted when I encounter coincidences myself, as I'm a big fan of the saying, "Coincidences are God's way of nudging us in the right direction," and I've had a few that were just too "neat" to feel like random elements coming together.
1. Several years ago, I went to the bank to cash a paycheck. After I was done, I came across a woman a few minutes later who was out of money and needed to take a bus to get somewhere really important. I wanted to help, so I asked how much it would cost. She told me, and the amount was almost equal to the cash I had withdrawn at the bank. Needless to say, she got her ride, and I was left with major goosebumps.
2. Wanting guidance on something that was bugging me lately, I asked God to guide me to the answer that was for my highest good. Later that day, I randomly came across two online articles discussing the very topic that was bugging me, and a third showed up the following morning. All three articles had the same message, so I took that as my answer.
Of course, there are also coincidences that involve minor things similar to what you encounter, Mr. Prescott (movie trivia, quotes, etc.), that are not important, life-changing, or character-building. But then again, maybe they are. Or perhaps it is some form of PSI... or maybe it's God/Angels/spirit guides being a little silly. Who can say?
Posted by: Ian | March 19, 2016 at 08:22 PM
I'm not so sure about your answer Lawrence, for coincidence that is. Although I am a believer in what Kathleen said-'if we believe it, we create it". And that might partly be the answer.
I have told this one before, but here goes. I was walking along the road here in Bangkok and thinking how at the last house, around the corner was a nice coffee place with aircon at the petrol station. And how it would be great if we had one by the apartment we live in, at the petrol station at the end of the street ( great for cooling off after a walk if 40 degree heat).
So I've got my head down lost in thought, and I'm about to walk across the drive leading into the petrol station, and I see boots in front of me. And looking up I see the attendant is motioning me to stop. So I stop, and then I carry on looking down lost in thought. I can hear something has driven in but pay no mind and start to walk and again, and he motions again for me to stop . Infuriated now, I think what now! I look over and one large truck has gone in and the other is about to, with a frame on board for a coffee shop to go at the petrol station.
Now I do get spirits chatting to me sometimes, so who knows. But I did laugh Lyn.
Posted by: lynn | March 20, 2016 at 06:32 AM
Interesting how people experience different things. I consider myself a fairly psychic person, but I do not experience these types of synchronicities very often. If I do, it usually involves my best friend, but I see that as a psychic connection with him. I also don't have precognitive dreams in general.
One thing I do experience that is related is this:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/
Sadly, the Skeptic who wrote the article handwaves the phenomenon off in an uninteresting way.
You learn something and then you see it again right away. That's it. But it can be quite interesting, especially when it's something obscure. One moderately obscure thing from just a couple days ago. I learn about Lisa Frank, who did colorful children's folders for school and whatnot. Popular in the 80s. I had never heard her name or thought about her art before. The day after I learn about her, I see this article on Facebook.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lisa-frank-tarot-deck_us_56e863d0e4b0860f99dab0b3?utm_hp_ref=arts
That's not a mind-blowing example or anything. Just fairly typical.
I don't think the phenomenon comes merely from the law of large numbers (i.e., we're constantly learning new things, so from time to time we'll see something twice or more in quick succession). I got a special practice in this phenomenon when learning Japanese words. I'd often learn a really obscure word or phrase--then see it again right away. In several cases, the chance of seeing the word or phrase again soon (if at all) seemed slight indeed.
I don't see the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon as being deeply meaningful as some synchronicities may. Rather, I think it arises from the way the Universe works, in which likes tend to attract likes.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 20, 2016 at 08:20 AM
chel said:
“Back on topic, I've certainly had weird things happen, but never anything which doesn't have a perfectly obvious explanation, so I find it really hard to believe it means anything. Like the time I was five and had a very strong tactile hallucination of something hard rattling around in my mouth a few hours before I swallowed my loose tooth; neural weirdness picking up the tooth was ready to come out?“
Do you see the contradiction here?
You talk of a “perfectly obvious explanation,” but all you’re providing is a rationale with a question mark at the end, a theory about which you know so little, all you can do is label it “neural weirdness.”
It sounds like you’re sidestepping psi by resorting to an unknown something else.
I think the experience you describe is fascinating, and the fact that you remember it happening to you as a five-year-old is worth noting. It may well have been a true precognitive warning about something unpleasant that was about to occur.
“ I'm openly admitting to jealousy :(“
I’m not sure I get your meaning. Are you saying that you wish you had psychic experiences you could believe in?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | March 20, 2016 at 03:44 PM
Chel, I think I just realized what you mean by neural weirdness—your nerves could sense a certain looseness or weakness. So maybe I was being a bit unfair.
Still—“strong tactile hallucination” is suggestive, and reminds me of a clear precognitive dream I once had, one that predicted an upcoming event I couldn’t possibly have known about. (It would take too long to describe here.)
Also, do you think your 5-year-old self had enough familiarity with loose teeth to be able to create such a convincing hallucination?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | March 20, 2016 at 04:06 PM
I'm not really comfortable with excess faith in this "like attracts like" business. It leads too easily into offensive and demonstrably untrue concepts. YouTube's full of people insisting that the only reason I'm poor and mentally ill is because I'm not wishing hard enough to not be, and it makes me want to hit something.
Posted by: chel | March 20, 2016 at 04:19 PM
Another trivial premonition. This afternoon it occurred to me that if Trump is trailing Hillary by a huge margin in September or early October, he could just drop out of the race with some face-saving excuse to avoid total humiliation at the polls. (I don't think his ego could take a landslide defeat.)
Very shortly afterward, I went online. The first site I visited was Redstate.com, and the first story I saw was about the possibility of Trump dropping out before the election if it's clear he's going to lose.
http://www.redstate.com/diary/Martin_A_Knight/2016/03/20/trump-will-drop-mid-october-endorse-hillary-clinton/
The article adds the wrinkle that he would endorse Hillary, which I doubt. I think he is more likely to blame "the establishment" for sabotaging his campaign. In any event, the central idea of Trump voluntarily withdrawing because of horrible poll numbers and ceding the election to Hillary is the same.
I don't recall ever thinking about this possibility before today, and I don't believe I had read anything about it, either. As I said — trivial. But this makes three such incidents ... and "the third time it's enemy action."
:-)
Posted by: Michael Prescott | March 20, 2016 at 06:26 PM
Chel, I agree with you, the "like attracts like" is much abused.
I did have an interesting experience on Friday. About an hour after I read Michael's post, I noticed how the sunset light in the room I was in was bouncing off a mirror and reflecting on a photo of a loved one, illuminating it very prettily. I've seen this effect before, but for some reason the Seal song "Kissed by a Rose" popped in my head. I probably hadn't heard it for about 20 years, and it was just OK to me.
Then I went out to dinner. After dinner I went outside and "Kissed by a Rose" was playing very loudly, right across the street from me, as music is piped in on the street in the downtown where the restaurant is. I hadn't heard the song for years.
The next day I was thinking about the coincidence. I was reading HuffingtonPost.com, scrolled down a bit, and there of course was an article about the singer Seal. The weird thing is that I'm not someone who's even that very interested in music, pop music, Seal music, any music, it's just OK.
It's as if sometimes in a weird way, when your attention becomes even momentarily focused on something, it will appear to you, several times, or even repeatedly.
Posted by: Kathleen | March 20, 2016 at 06:34 PM
@Bruce: I have a handful of very clear memories from that age, and I remember that one vividly because a) it was weird and b) I cried all afternoon afterwards because I thought I wouldn't get my tooth fairy money. (I did, but I certainly can't attribute that to psi, haha.) Even if it was perfectly mundane it isn't surprising to me that I remember it. If it's relevant, I'm twenty-six now, so it wasn't all that long ago. I know that wasn't my first lost tooth, but it was one of the front ones so it must have been an early one.
Yes, I'm jealous of people who can solidly believe or even disbelieve in things. I don't think I should be but it's hard not to be. Life seems so much more interesting for committed believers and straightforward for committed sceptics.
I do have a slight nit to pick with the sceptic theory; the sheer volume of information entering your head each day does lower the odds of some of it being relevant, but how is that affected by the infinite volume of information in existence that you could be coming into contact with instead? Too bad it's so hard to work out complex hypotheticals like that.
Posted by: chel | March 20, 2016 at 08:10 PM
Like Chel I'm a bit wary about the "You create reality" narrative, to an extent at least...though there does seem to be some potential truth in it.
I do believe we have free will - in fact I think Whitehead's idea of Freedom as a fundamental metaphysical component is the best explanation for causation itself - but I don't think this world is that malleable.
Or perhaps better to say there are potentially so many entities/alters/spirits/whatever that too many desires conflict - the stone wishes to remain a stone in a particular location, but then some elemental may wish for it to turn to lava, another spirit may want the stone to twist someone's ankle several feet away, etc.
All this indicates to me that placing too much trust in synchs can be misleading. Even on a mundane level it can lead one to a mistaken conclusion, as it did with Grof's romantic rush to marriage:
http://anti-matters.org/articles/114/public/114-146-1-PB.pdf
"Profound and auspicious synchronicities can initiate and accompany a powerful spiritual awakening; however, they are not without pitfalls. They can convey a convincing sense that we not only are embedded in a larger ground of cosmic meaning and purpose but also in some sense a focus or center of it. However, the overwhelming feeling of numinousness that is often associated with these synchronicities can be deceptive and should not be naively trusted and acted upon. As we will see in the following story, even most glorious synchronicities do not guarantee a positive outcome of the situation of which they are part."
Posted by: SPatel | March 20, 2016 at 08:40 PM
I've had that "conspiracy" theory in my head since he announced. I'm convinced he's running to give Hilary the edge in November. That's it. He's too close to her and Bill in his past dealings. More so than that "I gave money to all politicians" nonsense. He's not very conservative (in my opinion) either.
Posted by: Sleepers | March 20, 2016 at 09:00 PM
So re my connection with my friend:
I quoted him a couple lines from an Echo and the Bunnymen song, and he texts me back: "I was just thinking about that band today."
Happens all the time...
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 20, 2016 at 10:35 PM
Chel wrote,
||I'm not really comfortable with excess faith in this "like attracts like" business. It leads too easily into offensive and demonstrably untrue concepts. YouTube's full of people insisting that the only reason I'm poor and mentally ill is because I'm not wishing hard enough to not be, and it makes me want to hit something.||
Sorry you're in a tough place, and blessings on finding a better one!
I am not talking about sugar-coated "law of attraction" stuff. More specifically, I think this is how it works:
You learn something new. Doing so establishes a Yang (i.e., Yin and Yang) arc in which the Yang with respect to the newly learned thing draws in further examples of that thing. Such arcs can be very short and usually you will only get one extra example of the thing so learned, or it may be two or three in quick succession.
"Like attracts like" was an oversimplification in this case.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 20, 2016 at 10:51 PM
Chel said:
"Yes, I'm jealous of people who can solidly believe or even disbelieve in things. I don't think I should be but it's hard not to be. Life seems so much more interesting for committed believers and straightforward for committed sceptics."
How about just being committed to the truth? Nothing beats that for sheer thrills and spills.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | March 21, 2016 at 04:37 PM
OK, I offered to do readings to my Facebook friends (which I do from time to time), and a woman asked for a reading who may or may not be the wife of a frequent commenter here (who may or may not also be a Facebook friend). I asked for permission to share this on this blog.
This was a first for me: a message from an animal! Specifically, a horse! It was very unusual for me: quite a different vibe from a human, and the horse communicated with pictures and emotions.
Evidential or not? You tell me:
Me:
Hey, one quick thing I got, sort of an animal communication thing related to today's cold snap. Not sure if it's affecting you there. One horse is uncomfortable. Has a sore leg. Is this horse a mare, pregnant? Says, "Hey, more TLC for me." Not that she thinks you're doing a bad job, she loves you, but needs a bit of extra care right now. Just a quick message, hope this helps!
Oh, there's some type of liniment for the leg she likes?
also, heating pads?
Sitter:
great one, she is finally sound. I have not felt any heat in that leg for a wile now. and her baby is due real soon. I will go check and report back.
Me:
oh good, yeah, that was interesting, like a totally different type of intelligence than a human--first time!
Sitter:
Ill check and report in a bit!
great catch! her ankle is only a few degrees warmer so i will keep her in today and soak it, and in the process baby her a bit...I guess she and her pal did a little more than walk yesterday...thanks it helps me plan the day.
Me:
ah! it's the left front leg, right?
Sitter:
yes, her Lf is the problem...fractured and healing
Me:
so one image I got was this: like a red thing with velcro that goes around the leg, almost like a piece of sports equipment used in the treatment somehow. Is that accurate at all?
Sitter:
I used to have soaking ice boots like that...I also have splint boots...
[Includes photos exactly as I described, including the color.]
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 21, 2016 at 06:42 PM
SPatel,
Read the Grof link. Absolutely fascinating. And of course, as you know, he wrote "The Trickster and the Paranormal." It's interesting to wonder whether the Trickster put on a big archetypal show for him and his bride-to-be and laughed at the result.
I certainly have had my own experiences of things that seemed meant to be but only turned out to be tests of my mettle and sanity!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 21, 2016 at 11:08 PM
Chel wrote,
||Yes, I'm jealous of people who can solidly believe or even disbelieve in things. I don't think I should be but it's hard not to be. Life seems so much more interesting for committed believers and straightforward for committed sceptics.||
Totally agree:
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2015/04/guest-post-.html
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 21, 2016 at 11:12 PM
Actually it was George P. Hansen who wrote "The Trickster and the Paranormal."
Posted by: Michael Prescott | March 22, 2016 at 12:16 PM
@ Matt: I need to finish that book. I also enjoyed Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes This World.
I think the Trickster Archetype has a relation to synchronicity as I do feel like there's some humor there. Ideally it's meant for some initiatory purpose and we're not just toys.
And of course synchs bend our conventional sense of time and causation.
Posted by: SPatel | March 22, 2016 at 12:56 PM
Michael wrote,
||Actually it was George P. Hansen who wrote "The Trickster and the Paranormal."||
Oh of course, lol @ me. K, let's put it another way: Grof's story can be a seen as a great example of Hansen's Trickster at work!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 22, 2016 at 04:43 PM
There is a new movie out right now called "Miracles From Heaven" about a little girl who has an intestinal disorder that keeps her gut from moving food down through it (peristalsis) and she is in a lot of pain. She is cured when she falls 30 feet down into a hollow tree and the doctors have no explanation how that is possible.
This story kind of goes along with what we are talking about.... is it just a coincidence or is it actually a Miracle from Heaven? Just for the record I lean toward miracle.
http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Miracles-from-Heaven/80081151?strkid=2017682435_0_0&strackid=300ae7f1e9b34d81_0_srl&trkid=222336
Posted by: Art | March 22, 2016 at 04:44 PM
SPatel wrote,
||I think the Trickster Archetype has a relation to synchronicity as I do feel like there's some humor there.||
Agreed. Synchronicities shift boundaries, where the Trickster is often present.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 22, 2016 at 04:44 PM
One Saturday morning a few weeks ago I received two antique books that I'd bought on Ebay the week before. One was 'Moorland Mousie' and the other 'Older Mousie' by Golden Gorse. Both are hardback editions: the first was printed in 1935 and the second in 1936. Neither book was in short supply, several copies of each were available. I bought them from entirely different book sellers, in entirely different parts of the country in the afternoon of the same day. When I opened them, each had a handwritten pencil inscription on the inside of the front cover. Here, below, is what those inscriptions say, both in exactly the same handwriting:
"Jane from Mum"
I later contacted one of the booksellers to ask if they were in any way connected with the other. Apparently they are not. So I have the books and all the relevant time, date and sale details to prove this really happened. :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | March 22, 2016 at 04:56 PM
Huh, just had a case of this. Well, possibly a couple, but the first one is pretty obviously nothing. I've quite often had auditory hallucinations of the phone ringing recently (probably anxiety problem - the tooth thing was my only tactile one ever, which just adds to the weirdness) and I slept in, so it isn't surprising I was woken by an imaginary phone ring and then later again by an actual one. However, three times this past couple of days I've encountered discussions about personifying inanimate objects - once in the context of a film, once replies to an old forum thread I made asking if anyone else did that, and just now a Facebook article about how a lot of people on the autistic spectrum do that. I'd dismiss it as I did the phone one, but the phone one so close to this? If it's not psi, which I'm still withholding judgment on, it's certainly really weird.
Posted by: chel | March 22, 2016 at 05:39 PM
Hi Michael, nice to meet you here! It happened so that I first read
http://michaelprescott.net/more-unusual-occurrences.html and only then went to the first part. They are amazing! Thanks for showing such obvious things to me. I've never been so attentive like now. Writing something or editing for freelancehouse.co.uk, I now see to it that everything should be as simple as possible not to provoke unusual occurrences:)
Kiersten
Posted by: flowers and language addict | March 23, 2016 at 07:03 AM
Here's an odd one:
I own an ad agency and was recently trying to come up with an idea for an anti-Trump campaign. I decided to look through an old advertising award show book for inspiration. I have dozens of these books on my shelves and each has over 200 pages of ads in them. I grabbed a book at random and opened it to a random page...and there was an ad with Donald Trump in it.
I spent an hour paging through all my other ad books and couldn't find another ad with Trump in it. So if it was simply coincidence, it was a pretty astronomical one.
Posted by: Doug | March 23, 2016 at 09:42 AM
Chel wrote,
||Huh, just had a case of this. Well, possibly a couple, but the first one is pretty obviously nothing. I've quite often had auditory hallucinations of the phone ringing recently (probably anxiety problem - the tooth thing was my only tactile one ever, which just adds to the weirdness) and I slept in, so it isn't surprising I was woken by an imaginary phone ring and then later again by an actual one.||
I had a similar experience recently where I was woken up by the doorbell and was then told that it hadn't rung at all. It was extremely realistic and not in the context of a dream. I don't think anything like that had happened to me before. Since I was asleep, I wouldn't call it a hallucination, but it is hard to classify.
||However, three times this past couple of days I've encountered discussions about personifying inanimate objects - once in the context of a film, once replies to an old forum thread I made asking if anyone else did that, and just now a Facebook article about how a lot of people on the autistic spectrum do that. I'd dismiss it as I did the phone one, but the phone one so close to this? If it's not psi, which I'm still withholding judgment on, it's certainly really weird.||
And I think you might also be experiencing a related phenomenon, wherein, if you "hang out" with psychics, psychic stuff (and related stuff) will start happening to you. Being on here and talking to people about these things could very well have triggered your own experience.
Back to the "like attracts like" (simplified version :)).
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 23, 2016 at 09:42 AM
Wow, that is an awesome coincidence, Julie!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | March 23, 2016 at 09:43 AM
@Matt: When I showed the books to 'Himself' (my not-terribly-interested-in-matters-psychic husband) even he said, "Bloody hell!" - an unusually extroverted comment for him. :)
Having said that, he has been witness to some startlingly psychic experiences of mine in the past. So whale ha rarely comments, he doesn't mock either.
Posted by: Julie Baxter | March 23, 2016 at 01:20 PM
'While' not 'whale'! ;)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | March 23, 2016 at 01:23 PM
"And I think you might also be experiencing a related phenomenon, wherein, if you "hang out" with psychics, psychic stuff (and related stuff) will start happening to you. Being on here and talking to people about these things could very well have triggered your own experience." - Matt
Yes. I agree. There does seem to be an effect.
IMO, the filtering system that results in what we consciously perceive as "reality" has its parameters partially set by the force of the settings of others that we interact with.
Some of this adjustment to consensus is based on conscious and subconscious psychological cues. However, I also firmly believe that there are non-psychological psychic forces at work as well. In a way, it is true magic.
There is a well know phenomenon amongst users of psychedelics known as a "contact high". This is when one person(s) is "tripping" and another(s) is not, but the non-tripper(s) begin to experience an altered state of awareness from simply interacting with the tripper(s). This occurs even if the non-trippers have never experienced psychedelics and are unaware that the tripper(s) is tripping. Some non-trippers find this to be enjoyable while others are overcome with agitation and even anger. This is not finding the tripper funny or annoying because they're acting weird. This is a true shift in perception on the part of the non-tripper. Again, a well known thing.
IMO, all of life and all of perception is energy and energy fields. What we perceive is a matter of joining our personal energy with similar energy in the external world.
This is why sometimes we experience a mystical sense of unity with all - we are realizing that what is within is also without and the fluidity of that relationship.
I digress a little, but this does relate to synchronicities. When we have joined to the external world in a certain energetic manner, the external world responds back in a certain energetic manner. alignment is everything. It literally creates the world we inhabit. The world in which synchronicities happen is a slightly different world from the one in which they do not.
Posted by: no one | March 23, 2016 at 02:28 PM
Michael, I just read your "Unusual Occurrences." Impressive! I particularly like the instances of precognition that prevented accidents, and the clearly prophetic dream about your dog.
Some great stories here from other commenters, too.
I'm so pleased that you're all intrigued by this stuff. My book on my 25-year-long experiment with my own precognitive dreams is now up to almost 200 pages, and I'm having a hard time waiting to share it. (Hopefully by the end of this year.) But since each part of the book relies on the others for its meaning and impact, to discuss isolated aspects would be frustrating.
Then, too, I want it to arrive fresh and unexpected.
Anyway, I'm largely sitting this thread out not because I have nothing to say, but because I have too much. :)
"[Precognitive experiences] make life interesting, and they hint at patterns of meaning underlying the ostensibly random events of our lives. And in a world that often seems dedicated to proving the proposition that life is purposeless and accidental, we need all the meaning we can find."
Couldn't agree more, Michael! This thought is the driving force behind my project.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | March 23, 2016 at 05:30 PM
@ Michael - this barely ties into the topic via the fact I have a lot of Atlantis synchs, but more so it relates back to some of your past posts about immaterialist evaluation of history -
A review of Gordon White's Star.Ships:
http://godsandradicals.org/2016/03/22/a-review-of-star-ships-a-prehistory-of-the-spirits/
"This fairly simple fact, the significance of which is so easy to miss, offers a rather striking blow to many standard theories of the development of religion. The general materialist understanding of the rise of religion is that it is the outgrowth of the surplus time and resources that go along with the development of agriculture and the rise of the city...
...The proposal here is fascinating and brilliant. Gordon White is suggesting that we can’t understand history, not consistently or adequately, without understanding the role played by non-human communication. History has discontinuities because of intrusions from, as it were, 'outside'. "
Posted by: SPatel | March 24, 2016 at 11:55 AM
Whoops! Spoke to soon, just got to the part about the Trickster and synchs. Spooky. :-)
Posted by: SPatel | March 24, 2016 at 12:04 PM
It occurs to me that even if these things are mundane they're *interesting*, and a lot of the louder sceptics dismiss that. The presumably-atheist comic writer who does The Oatmeal has made some vicious comments about religion, but also talked about the feeling he gets during a good long-distance run as a religious experience; "Maybe it's superficial. Maybe it's just hormones and chemicals flooding my brain. But I don't care."
Posted by: chel | March 24, 2016 at 09:22 PM