synchronicity

I used to be fascinated by synchronicity in my life…it has always been there but I had started putting it out of my mind until recently when a friend of mine told me about something that just happened to him. Out of respect I can’t share his story but will tell you one of my own after helping clarify what synchronicity is in the context that I mean it. The Penguin English Dictionary defines it as the coincidence in a person’s life of two or more events which seemed to be linked in significance but which have no causal connection. Here are some examples I found on the internet:

“On Nov. 8, 1979, my brother came for dinner. He drops in for a surprise visit every four or five years, and on this occasion he wanted to hear about our trip to Scotland. I mentioned ospreys which breed at Loch Garten. Immediately afterwards my wife turned on the TV where a nature film had just begun. It was about ospreys and their life and breeding near Loch Garten.”

“On July 31, 1985, I was reading a textbook on anatomy and physiology in connection with a back injury, and I got the idea to measure my height, possibly to see if I had shrunk in the joints. Last time I measured my height was 2 years earlier. Less than two hours later the main character in a Swiss movie on TV had his height measured by some doctors.”

Ok, so here’s my story…it actually prompted me to start a book that I’ll never finish:

About three years ago, an old friend living in Detroit phoned me unexpectedly, I was listening to the song Deathwatch by Art Bergman. He began telling me about a dream his cousin, Alexia recently had that prophesized my death. She made him call me. I pissed my pants laughing and ridiculed the poor bastard to death. Four days following that, I received another phone call. I heard that Alexia’s mother passed away, very unexpectantly. Her brother, Nick and I had always been childhood friends but lost touch throughout the years. At the funeral, following the proceedings, Nick came over to me and said, “Alexia told me about the dream she had where you passed away, and then our mother dies. I thought to myself, so? There’s no connection there, and then I remembered something…Happy Birthday, he said. His mother died on my birthday, the exact hour I was born.

Life is mysterious, I haven’t decided if it’s fate or coincidence yet.