Synchronicity

Carl Jung first explained the concept of synchronicity in the 1920’s as the “coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.” He studied this phenomenon and felt he had given conclusive evidence for the collective unconscious. Whatever the explanation, the events cannot be explained by normal cause and effect. 

Jung often quoted Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” I like to think that there is truth to this and hope that someday we may unlock the secret. 

A week ago someone asked what my favorite word was and I replied that it was “synchronicity.” I do have a fondness for the word and over the years have collected some of my most memorable synchronistic events.

On January 29, 2002, I recorded a dream in my journal. In the dream, I was in a basement when dozens of silky shoots dropped from the ceiling. At the end of each were these pods that opened. What emerged, I realized, were little pigs. Someone nearby flung them outside, saying, “Goodbye Pigs.”

In April of that same year, I visited a friend in New York who gave me a tour of their house. When I got to the kitchen I gasped. Hanging from the window sill was a string with a ceramic pig with wings suspended in the air. I took a picture and then ran downstairs to pull my dream journal out of my suitcase to show them both the dream and my drawing of the string with the flying pig. My friend looked at me as if I were a witch. I had never been to their house and the flying pig was something they had received only that year. 

Nine years later, I started writing dreams down again and wrote of a disturbing dream where someone had both legs amputated at the knee and was hopping around on the floor. The next day at work, Simon, one of my coworkers, stopped by for one of our usual afternoon chats. We would often discuss everything from the mundane to philosophy or psychology. That day he showed me a video of his son goofing around with his legs locked in a lotus position and hopping around from the couch to the floor and back up onto a chair. I nearly fell off my chair. The similarities were far too much for coincidence. Yet, I had never even met his son.

Two weeks later, I tried to write down other images as I drifted off to sleep. I only managed to write down two words: black dog. The next day at work, my coffee grew cold as I stared at a notice on the bulletin board where someone advertised a black dog to give away.

Believing I had found the black dog’s synchronistic partner, I told my friend Simon. This time he nearly spit his coffee out. When he and his family would go for a bike ride they often made a game of calling out ‘dibs’ on something they liked. “I dibs the Porsche,” the first one to see it would call out. That weekend, they passed a black dog and his youngest son called out, “I dibs the black dog.”

After that, Simon told me not to tell him any more of my dreams. It was just getting too spooky.

I am not one who sees hidden messages in these things, or believes that the universe is trying to tell me something. I do, however, believe that life is fascinating and mysterious. Whether you find answers in these moments of connected events or just find them amusing, I do know that we don’t notice them unless we pay attention.

It’s not just me that has a knack for calling forth these synchronistic events. This past weekend after my husband and I spent much of the morning talking about the movie about Neil Armstrong and him being the first man on the moon, my husband went off to the gym and was greeted by a young man who gives out random quotes to people like fortune cookies. To David he gave this greeting: “The Eagle has Landed.”  

 One final story. When my husband was traveling in China, we would text each other all the time. Before he went to a big meeting one day, I texted him to ask how one said “Good luck” in Mandarin. Immediately I saw that he was typing a reply, which finally appeared on my screen. After phonetically working the message out, I laughed: “Ho u fin ur mon-ke.” Of all the possible random answers, this topped the list as both surprising and bizarre. That night, he sent me a picture from his hotel room. On the bed was a cute, stuffed monkey left by the hotel staff as a welcome gift.

Explain that one away.