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chelle21689's avatar

How do you explain synchronicities in life?

Asked by chelle21689 (7907points) October 8th, 2015

Is there an explanation or is this plain coincidence? I think there is some kind of “out there” explanation with Carl Jung’s theory but I would like a different perspective.

For example:
I had been thinking about a new car and contemplating which car go buy, doing research, etc. while I’m thinking about buying a new car, an episode from“King of the Hill” comes on about buying new cars.

I shared that little story with my coworker and she found it funny because as she was testing out her new smoker, an episode from Simpsons came on when Homer got a smoker too.

Another little moment… My bf and I never go out on weekdays but we just happened to be out at night down town. We decide to turn on radio and the song “Downtown” came on and that was the only time we have heard it play since then.

Or when you have a dream and someone else has the same storyline dream….

I would love to hear your experiences or theories,

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6 Answers

dxs's avatar

Humans applying reason to random events. If anything, I’d say it’s confirmation bias. Maybe someone else has a more spiritual answer.

_Seek_'s avatar

The human brain has evolved over millions of years with the result of developing pattern-seeking behaviour. We notice things that form patterns and dismiss things that do not fit.

A simple term for this is particular instance is “confirmation bias”. You’ll note you probably don’t remember every song that wasn’t “Downtown” that you also heard that evening, nor every television show you watched that did not focus on automobile purchases.

LostInParadise's avatar

Think of all the possibilities there are all the time that some coincidence should take place. From that point of view, it would be unusual for coincidences not to happen. What are the chances that someone will win a lottery two times in a row? Given all the lotteries and people who play them, it is almost a certainty to happen.

Having said all that, I find synchronicities all the time, to the extent that it can get a little spooky and somewhat annoying.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Crapshoot. Coincidence. Stuff happens. No meaning to it at all.

rojo's avatar

We used to refer to this as the Blue Beetle Syndrome. If you buy a blue VW Beetle, you will begin to see them everywhere whereas before you had one you never saw any.

ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

I can’t count how many times I think of an old show or something and only to find that when I turn on the TV it’s on. Then I think…Oh, statistically this is bound to happen.

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