A World of Chance: Coincidences and Synchronicity

[ljd1010]

Coincidence or happens for a reason? - I don't know but let me share a story:

Several years ago, I worked as an Emergency Dept nurse in a small town hospital. The staff were all pretty close to one another. A major split between the 2 full time docs occurred, dividing the dept. Many heated arguments ensued, friendships dissolved and it became a very toxic workplace. Most of the nurses left, myself included. I had nightmares on off for several years about the entire situation.

Fast forward 4 years - I had moved 400 miles away and was working in a busy city academically affiliated ER. It was a Wednesday evening, 6:45 pm and I was just arriving for my 7 pm - 7am shift. I parked in a back lot, walked into the ER entrance by the triage desk (I could have entered the hospital by several doors) and thought I saw one of the ER docs from my old job standing by the triage station. As I drew closer, I realized it WAS him and he was just as shocked to see me there.

Turns out he had an interview at another ER affilitated with the same University the next day but as he arrived in the city and asked directions to the "hospital that was affiliated with xxx University", he was given misinformation and landed at my place of employment.

What are the chances?
4 years later
400 miles away
given wrong directions
only to end up where I worked at the exact time I arrived when I only worked 3 days a week.

Weird yes but we talked, his wife was in the car (who formerly was a good friend of mine) and after this, I never had another nightmare. Also never rekindled the friendship.

[NickyQuen]

Last posts very informative and interesting, thanks.

I was particularly (and no preference) interested in the 'nightmares scenario', and was considering whether synchronicity had moral teeth. By this I mean, the events that unfold appear all very nice and boxed up, but each event will have an impact on someone's life, place or situation. To me that's quite an important insight, thanks guys.

Which also begs the question of morality. America gains the specialist nuclear physicists formerly working under the German Reich, build atomic bomb, use against another nation at war, other nation surrenders...

Girl plans outing with friends off campus, girls go to bar, stranger from East coast arrives in bar, single girl talks to man, both leave in his car, argument ensures, man abused as child, girl very afraid and no way out, man retaliates on girl, police find girl...

Besides the moral implications of the above example events, you could also infer in each case, a potential point of no return.

Therefore does one have any influence over synchronicity? Does one actually start synchronicity and can one walk away when one realizes your at a point of no return in the event chain? Does synchronicity produces traps? And is synchronicity the result of being externally maneuved or influenced (re: Film fantasy Jumanji circa 1995 - only an example).

It would be interesting to do a stats analysis on circumstantial events in peoples lives. (a.k.a Poisson versus normal distribution, T and Chi, ANOVA etc). Because one would have to hypothesise that the nature synchronicity is not influenced by chance. Anyone done a stats study in this area?

Because I have a funny feeling we are really questioning whether chance is random or directed by conditional probability when synchronicity occurs. Does synchronicity have a distribution or Fourier nature or something else?. Sorry about the math bit, just wondered!

[Lauriedeee]

Interesting topic!

I really believe I was destined to meet my husband when I did.

As children we attended the same church but I never saw him or met him there. We vacationed at the same place and every year as kids with our parents, but I didn't meet him then. He's a plumber.. As we both got older my Aunt would tell me about the good looking plumber that did work for her and how he'd perfect for me if he wasn't married. LOL.. But, I still hadn't met him nor did I really want to, LOL.
My other Aunt who lived next door to me hired him and remarked that he was such a nice guy, but I wasn't home at the time so I didn't meet him then.

A couple of years later I was working for a restaurant and we had a problem on a Sunday with one of the drains. I called the plumber that we normally used and he wasn't available so I went through the phone book and called at least 10 of them but only one said he could come out.
In walks this adorable blonde haired guy and the first thought that pops into my head is 'I found him'.. I don't where that thought came from. I didn't even know who he was at the time and I didnt' know that this was the same guy that my Aunts had hired and spoken so highly of.

I was recently divorced. He was divorced.. and fast forward 25yrs, and we're still happily together.

[NickyQuen]

Originally Posted by Lauriedeee

Interesting topic!

I really believe I was destined to meet my husband when I did.

Wow! What a fabulous outcome. Time and distance apart and then potentially synchronistic events collide in both your life times. Amazing. Doesn't sound like chance had anything to do with it, more pre-ordained.

[ljd1010]

Originally Posted by NickyQuen

Wow! What a fabulous outcome. Time and distance apart and then potentially synchronistic events collide in both your life times. Amazing. Doesn't sound like chance had anything to do with it, more pre-ordained.

I totally believe this. I believe people are put into our lives for reasons we may not be able explain. I've also read that certain people may be in our other lives as well, and that these may be completely different relationships.

i.e. Your best friend may have been your sister or vice versa.

[Lauriedeee]

Originally Posted by ljd1010

I totally believe this. I believe people are put into our lives for reasons we may not be able explain. I've also read that certain people may be in our other lives as well, and that these may be completely different relationships.

i.e. Your best friend may have been your sister or vice versa.

I believe that too. With my husband, I've often felt he was my brother in another life time. Even when I met him for the very first time, there was a sense of familiarity about him and I trusted him immediately which is very unlike me.

[nighthouse66]

i am definitely of the mind that eventually, all these strange happenings people file under "unexplained" will be shown to be a part of the natural order of things. the world IS mysterious. synchronicity is something i believe in. its happened to me many, many times.

one day at work i got bored. i was working for a major chain of pack-and-ship stores in the southeast, and i was just fed up. so one day at work i was on the computer and typed in "pack-and-ship jobs in california". i found a listing for a job in carmel, california, and wrote about it. the guy had been looking for experienced help for TWO YEARS. in a few days, i had that job, and in a couple weeks, i was headed 2200 miles away to california, a place i had never even visited.

on that drive out west, i was texting back and forth with my beloved best friend who is also my sister. she and her husband were in alabama. i told her, "i just entered the (name i forget) indian reservation! that sounds so COOL!" she texts me back, "well, we are in eufala alabama right now, its not nearly as awesome hahahah". upon reading that text, i look up, and i was crossing the eufala river.

me and my sister have had that sort of synchronicity ALOT. she knows what i am thinking and vice versa. i don't know if you would call it synchronicity, but i always consider synchronicity to be a road sign that tells you you are on the right road.

one last story-
my favorite year is 1966. so many great albums, great style, just always felt close to that year, although i was born in'73. hence, my citydata handle, nighthouse66. i love route 66 as well.
i got the idea years ago to find a 1966 quarter and make a necklace of it. weirdly enough, although i worked as a cashier often, i never found one.

about a year before i moved to california (see above), i had a crappy car that just, as my daddy would say, "plum gave out". i had always wanted a van to fix up and possibly live in, but had never done it. this time, i said, "screw it. that's what i want".

one night while looking, i had a very clear dream of a white van. i was standing by the back doors and opened them up, and the inside was red/purple. i had this overwhelming feeling that this van was gonna take care of me. i always get attached and a little "christine" like with my vehicles : ). but i just knew that i should be looking for a white van. so when i went to this one car lot and i saw a white van, as soon as i opened those doors up and saw its purple interior, i knew. it was outside of my price range, more than i had ever paid for a car, but it was the right one. and i indeed wound up driving to california and living in it, until a lady pulled out in front of me after running a red light and i t-boned her and totaled my van. but i digress.

cleaning it out, after a couple months of owning it (it was IMMACULATE when i bought it), i was searching through the back pockets and what do i find. a 1966 quarter.

after my first van bought the bullet, i wound up buying another white van. it made noises, the skirts were all scratched up, and the interior was totally trashed. but still, i knew- this is my van. i wound up having to move in with some friends in joshua tree while i redid the interior.
pulling up the back window blinds, i was astounded to find a joshua tree sticker on the inside of the window.

and i was even MORE astounded to find a 1966 dime in the console. a silver one. to me, it showed that something was still watching out for me, and i DID chose the right van, and it may be ten cents, and not the quarter like before, cause sometimes you have to work a little harder for the things you love. but it was silver. a big fat metaphor.

once i got her all fixed up ( i shampooed the carpets, gutted the interior, built a bed, bookshelves, even a sink in it) i stuffed my books on my bookshelf in back to take her on a shakedown cruise, to see if the bookshelves would hold, i noticed something strange. i had been reading a book about how objects, especially objects that had been discarded or unloved, are taken up by someone and properly seen to and loved, that they tend to absorb some of the soul of the owner. that must have been what happened, because i noticed that the one speaker that had never ever worked, suddenly worked. and it was my first real cruise in the van since i fixed her up.

i still got that van. she rules. and the speakers still work. maybe its not synchronicity, but i don't know what you would call it.

[ljd1010]

I love reading everyone's stories, they are truly fascinating. Thanks for sharing!!

[Columbia Blue]

Yes I am enjoying reading the stories as well. Is it intuition? Chance? Just random coincidence. Do you the events in your life have meaning. If you carefully analyzed them would your life began being filled with "Coincidences"? I would like to add one of my favorite stories. It happened in 1950:

On March 1 1950, all fifteen members of a choir were late for a rehearsal at a church in Beatrice Nebraska. They were all due to meet at 7:20pm, however the minister and his wife were late so that she could iron her's daughter's dress. One girl stayed late to finish a math problem, two others were listening to a radio program and let the time get away. All the others were late for similar mundane reasons. Ten drivers and a total of fifteen people. All were late on this particular day. Predestined? Perhaps...for five minutes after the choir was supposed to meet at 7:20, the church building was destroyed in a explosion. The story was featured in Life magazine that year. of course the churchgoers considered it an act of God. But if that were the case shouldn't it have been a bit easier simply to stop the explosion? It also could have been a "signal" that somehow got communicated to all the choir singers to not show up at 7:20? Anyway, it is one of my favorite synchronicity stories.

[OwlKaMyst]

What a 'coincidence'... That church choir story is the same story I linked to in my coincidence discussion over in the philosophy forum.

I like to play with numbers. Oddly, while I'm a pro-tarot reader and have studied astrology for over 25 years, I'm not really learned in numerology. When my first born was almost a year old, we moved on to 80 acres of raw land. One of the first things was to make a driveway and eventually put up a gate. We got the gate up and put a combination lock on it.
My (ex) hubs set the lock to our son's birthday, minus the zeros. I'm not sure how I found it out, but the day hubs and I got married had the same four numbers when removing the zeros.