Synchronicity - Has someone lived an Event of Synchronicity?

[Ettore]

Has someone lived an event of Synchronicity? Could you explain it here? By
link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
http://www.crystalinks.com/synchronicity.html
http://www.synchronicity.org/

http://www.perfectcustomers.com/Public/Home/AttractiveArticles/index.cfm?newsletterid=30

 

[Marc]

Synchronicity - Definition

Just for an FYI, from wikipedia:

Synchronicity is a word coined by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe the "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung spoke of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality). Plainly put, it is the experience of having two (or more) things happen coincidentally in a manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them, where that meaning suggests an underlying pattern. It differs from coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic that is being expressed through meaningful relationships or events. It was a principle that Jung felt encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious, 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 or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic.

 

[nomisd]

Has someone lived an Event of Synchronicity? I think I have (quite long)

A few years ago I was having a rough time. I had split up with my then girlfriend (but was still living in the same house) and was addressing a number of issues that I had buried deep, deep away during all my adult life. That year Valentines day was over a weekend so I decided that I would go away on my own for the weekend to avoid as much of the rubbish that comes with that particular “celebration”.

I decided that I would go to Amsterdam for the weekend. I arrived on the Friday afternoon and after spending sometime in a coffee shop I decided that I didn’t actually want to stay in Amsterdam. Whilst queuing for my train ticket from Schipol airport into town there were a number of my fellow countrymen being loud and rowdy in the queue who had annoyed me and I didn’t relish the thought of spending time with similar people all weekend (Amsterdam is a popular destination for “party” groups from the UK to visit for wild weekends – anybody who has every seen my fellow countrymen at play in either the pubs of most towns on a Friday or Saturday night or in the holiday resorts around Europe will understand why you wouldn’t necessarily be around them).

I had booked a hostel room for the weekend so would be losing the money for this but decided that it was probably worth it. So I decided that I would go elsewhere. I walked to the Central station and looked at the timetables for an alternative destination. At the time I was reading Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. On the plane over I had read the part about the drop into Holland during Operation Market Garden, as I looked at the destinations of the trains I saw a train to Nijmegen. “Okay, there it is then”.

I found a hotel on my arrival (about 3 or 4 times the cost of the hostel but sometimes you just have to do these things) and had a fine nights sleep. Saturday morning I decided that I would pay a visit to the Dutch War Museum at Goesbeek (one of the landing zones during Market Garden) a few kilometers from Nijmegen. A very interesting museum it was too. After that I decided that I would walk a couple of kilometers down to the Canadian War Cemetery.

I had never been to any of the large (or indeed small) WW1 and WW2 cemeteries before then but had often seen them on TV and films. Walking into the cemetery, you are overcome by a sense of calm and peacefulness (I have visited a number since then and it is the same everytime). This cemetery is quite a large one, it being the main final resting place for all Canadians who died in Holland during WW2, including aircrews who were shot down before the invasion of Europe – there are a few thousand headstones there.

I decided that it would be an impossibility to go round every headstone and read it and give the fallen soldiers the respect that they deserved. So I decided that I would look at the guys who were older than average – in their 30s and 40s. Most (sweeping statement I know) casualties of WW2 appear to be young men 18-25, not many older than that. So I walked along the rows of headstones scanning the ages.

I came across a few in their 30s and 40s when one in particular caught my eye. The soldier, from an infantry regiment (Winnipeg Rifles I seem to recall but will check this when I go home this evening) was 34, the same age as me at the time. I stood giving silent thanks that that wasn’t me who had had to go and fight and die in a war thousands of miles from his home and family, reading the rest of the headstone. As well as name, rank and number there are a couple of other bits of information contained on the headstones. One is the date the soldier died. This guy died on 15th February 1945 – the day I was standing looking at his last resting place, exactly 57 years later to the day. This was a little bit, I don’t really know how to put this other than creepy.

The other thing on the headstones is some words, which I assume are chosen by the family of the dead service man. Many have some religious tracts on them, a favourite being sections from the 23rd Psalm. The stark words across the bottom of this mans headstone were “He died for you”. I have to say that this made go all a bit strange and I had to go and have a sit down to think about this. Over the rest of the weekend I thought about that quite a lot. I wouldn’t say that I went home and immediately sorted out all the things that had been troubling me before but that experience certainly helped me put things into some perspective over the next few months.

Was this synchronicity or just a coincidence? Dunno, but there was no reason why I should have been standing in that field 57 years to the day after a man unknown to me from a country I have never visited met his untimely end in a corner of Holland. I hadn’t explicitly planned to be there, I had ended up there by a number of seemingly random events. I hadn’t deliberately sought out this mans final resting place as an act of pilgrimage. I had just ended up there at that moment in my life when it seemed to make some sense to me and help me move on in my own life. I look on that as synchronicity but understand that other will just say it was a long line of coincidences. I suppose it’s up to the individual to decide.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Re: Has someone lived an Event of Synchronicity? I think I have (quite long)

The problem with Jungian synchronicity is that it's always recognized and diagnosed after the fact, so it's useless as a scientific hypothesis. I might maintain that I have magic invisible gnome that sits on my shoulder, and when I find a $10 bill on the sidewalk I can always claim that my gnome friend guided me to it. No one can disprove it, but I can't say that next week I'm going to find a $10 bill as a result of guidance from the gnome.

In the case at hand, there was an infinite number of possible sequences of events that ended at a particular grave, but between embarking on the journey in the UK and ending at that particular gravesite, any number of other sequences might have had the same result. The fact that the person negotiating that sequence of events was able to derive some significance from it does not, in any way, indicate that the sequence was somehow purposeful, and it serves no useful purpose to speculate on it unless you can use the information to make predictions.

At least that's what my gnome told me to say.

 

[mikoyan]

That's a pretty cool story.

A number of years ago, I went to Washington DC and took a walk around the Mall. I stopped at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial (amazing place). Just outside of the memorial there are folks that sell those MIA bracelets. I decided to pick one up. I have a great deal of interest in the Navy, so I picked up the bracelet of a Navy guy (Harley T. Hall). Turns out he was a leader of the Blue Angels, served on the USS Enterprise and was the last pilot shot down over Vietnam. After some searching on the net, I found out that he has a building named after him and they have since found his remains. I thought it was pretty ironic that I would pick up that bracelet, well maybe not.

However my Sychronicity moment comes when I hear Sting on the Stereo...