Monday, December 28

Coincidence Or Synchronicity - Example 1

I wrote in the About section of this blog that I have an interest recently in coincidences and synchronicity.

I thought I'd enlarge on this subject and start off by writing a few posts about coincidences I have had personally. Some are pretty ordinary but some might be of more interest.

After I've listed a few of these I'll move on to try and discover the reasons for these coincidences. Is there a power or a reason behind them? Or do they occur purely by chance and have absolutely no meaning at all?

I'll also see if perhaps we can make coincidences happen!

Okay, I'll kick off with my first coincidence.

Coincidence in Rye cottageMy wife and I were in Rye, England where we had rented a 16th century holiday cottage. We parked our car on the narrow cobbled street to unload.

As I took the first bit of luggage inside the old cottage I noticed a trap door in the beamed ceiling of the living room. I said to my wife, "I wonder what that was used for?" She didn't really answer so I went back to the car to get some more of our stuff.

There was an old lady standing outside of the cottage shaking a stone out of her shoe. I said words to the effect that I hoped my car wasn't in her way. She shook her head and said, "I used to live in that cottage twenty years ago. It's got a trap door in the lounge to take the coffins in and out of the bedroom, when somebody dies. The stairs are too narrow and steep otherwise. It's also used for furniture." And with that she went on her way.

16th century cottage bedroomThe old lady had answered the question I had asked my wife. It felt quite spooky as I hadn't asked her anything about the cottage.

There were two coincidences with this example.

(1) The old lady had stopped (by chance?) outside of the cottage to remove a stone from her shoe and
(2) She answered a question without being asked (she couldn't have heard me ask my wife about this).

So how did this happen: by coincidence, synchronicity or pure chance? Who knows.

An interesting book on Coincidence: The Power of Coincidence: The Mysterious Role of Synchronicity in Shaping Our Lives

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the new blog! This coincidence business is very interesting. I think it's the Universe talking to us.

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  2. Anonymous20:09

    I think you CAN make them happen more often - or at least make youself more open to noticing them. Ingredients I've found useful are - following intuition, going with the flow/cultivating randomness, being present in the Now, being grateful, etc. Not sure what synchronicity is, but it definitely seems to involve people's minds being able to access information that they shouldn't be able to ...

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  3. Suzie: Thanks for the visit, hope all is going well for you.

    teapotshappen: Thanks for that, interesting what you write. I think, like most things in life, once you start taking notice of something you become more and more aware of whatever it is - coincidences in this case.

    Thanks for the comments - appreciated.

    Mike.

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  4. Nick00:21

    Once, me and my friend were sitting in a park having a smoke on a bench. We were talking about a television program we saw, in which i squirrel had to decide if it was going to get eaten by a jungle snake or jump out a a tree from high up in the branches. The squirrel jumped and i brought up the question to my pal, "would the squirrel have died" litteraly 15 seconds later a squirrel fell out of the tall tree we were sitting under and ran off. I guess our question was answered!

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