It's just a coincidence!!!

FSM said:
Agent Orange, Welcome! And don't forget to post in the Welcome Thread. It's a nice place to go to introduce yourself.

Thanks for sharing your story. I thought it was touching and wonderful.
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I didn't even realize there was such a thread - I wanted to jump into the crazy right away. ;)

Thanks!
 
TTLer said:
I find the amount of my "coincidences" skyrocket during time frames where I'm pursuing a project involving many hours of research and reference, then adding in some local TV, radio and movies for relaxation, plus a favorite bestseller novel, and an outing with my friends. Throughout all this activity, on a daily basis I encounter brow-raising crossover coincidences among the different and unrelated sets of information currently occupying my thoughts.

The human brain thirsts for pattern among chaos, and often achieves it in creative and unexpected ways - if you feed it enough daily grist and social activities, it will indeed come up with some fairly dandy coincidences.
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I'm the opposite. Coincidences come in droves when I'm relaxed, doing something really mundane. I guess my brain gets bored and amuses itself this way. I did go through a six week period when there were about 4 or 5 a day adding up to about 40 or 50 overall. Some really funky ones too. That's when I read about Jung's Synchronicity. They still happen quite a lot. It's embarassing when people are around when they happen. I get wierd looks. There was one more recently at work. I was in a team of 250 people. One guy asked if I would call so and so and ask this or that. The phone immedately rang and there he was so I could ask him on the spot - actually I just handed the phone over.
 
I thought of another odd coincidence today. When Supersize Me came out, I ended up seeing it about half a dozen times. First it was On Demand and I saw it alone, then I wanted to show it to my sister and we saw it together, then someone came over and my sister showed it to them, another time it was on TV and my mom wanted to watch it and that's not even mentioning all the times I ended up seeing it in school, in gym class, health class and when the teacher wasn't there and a substitute showed it.

After seeing it the first time, it kept bouncing around my brain. The scene where a kid guesses that Jesus is George Bush bounced around particularly and I wanted to laugh or just talk about it with someone.

So I turned to the girl sitting across from me and, taking a chance, I asked her "Remember the scene in Supersize Me where the kid says 'George W.Bush' and he turns it around and it's Jesus?" The girl gaped at me and said, "I was thinking about the same thing all day today! The whole day, just thinking about that." Turns out she happened to see it for the first time the day before, too. Oh her own time, too.

Now, this incredible coincidence seems less incredible when you consider that most people who can afford it have cable now and it was a heavily hyped movie so chances could be we both happened to see it On Demand on the same day.

Also, she had a bit of an offbeat sense of humor and was pretty religious, so chances are she could have remembered that scene. Also, it's just a very surprising scene; many other people remember it strongly as well.
 
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I notice when adverts have pings and dings which are supposed to be "positive" tweaks in our subconscious (I think). Its quite blatant. Then theres the less subtle methods used by cilit bang - "Dave" shouts at the top of his lungs about how wonderful it is. Do you know the subliminal face in the Exorcist? They cut those bits out of the film because they were a tad illegal or something. Well they re-instated them. I guess no-one cares whether we're fed subliminals or not any more. Viewer beware - they're messing with our heads!
 
No doubt! Many people agree that subliminal messages abound. I hate any form of mind control. We must be careful about subliminal messages, for The Love of All That's Holy.
 
laalaa41 said:
I notice when adverts have pings and dings which are supposed to be "positive" tweaks in our subconscious (I think). Its quite blatant. Then theres the less subtle methods used by cilit bang - "Dave" shouts at the top of his lungs about how wonderful it is. Do you know the subliminal face in the Exorcist? They cut those bits out of the film because they were a tad illegal or something. Well they re-instated them. I guess no-one cares whether we're fed subliminals or not any more. Viewer beware - they're messing with our heads!
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I think you'll find that the reason they're back is that these days, consensus is that subliminal messages don't work. At least not that particular method.

But that aside, yes, they are messing with our heads, and quite blatantly as you note.
 
FSM said:
No doubt! Many people agree that subliminal messages abound. I hate any form of mind control. We must be careful about subliminal messages, for The Love of All That's Holy.
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@_@ must-nominate-FSM-for-TLA...... must-nominate-FSM-for-TLA...... @_@

Yeah, myself, I don't believe in them!!



;)
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
I think you'll find that the reason they're back is that these days, consensus is that subliminal messages don't work. At least not that particular method.

But that aside, yes, they are messing with our heads, and quite blatantly as you note.
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I remember watching a documentary (and I use that term loosely) about subliminal messages when I was a kid, so it must have been in the late 70s/early 80s. I remember it scared the hell out of me because they explained it as a weapon that the powers to be uses to brain-wash their citizens. You could get a subliminal message through any media, never know about it, and one day just become a robot who mindlessly did their bidding :D I wish I could find that documentary to watch it now, it must be hilarious.
 
SusanB-M1 said:
Apologies! I should have added that it was over 25 years ago too.
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Ahh... I was 12 years old then, so maybe a bit young :) I just realized though that I do have a name that kind of fits the old fashioned seers with their crystal balls and such. :boggled:
 
Agent : Orange said:
Hi all...

This is my first post on the JREF message boards. I just found this place yesterday and I immediately signed up. it's finally nice to see some rational, sane, like-minded folks posting on the internet. :)

I want to post a personal coincidence that happened to me that has a very special place in my heart. It starts off as a bit of a downer so I apologize in advance.

In 2003, my Mother passed away after a terrible ordeal with liver cancer. She fought for two years and lasted for as long as she could. It was a terrible nightmare to watch someone you know and love physically crumble apart. I was 23 years old at the time.
She passed on April 14. Despite grief and emotional trauma life does have a way of moving on, and the first thing my Father and I needed to confront was getting our taxes submitted for that year. We pulled out the paperwork and got to it. We submitted both of our tax forms on paper (a rarity now here in Canada).
When we received our response several months later, our envelopes were sent back to us. My Father's envelope contained a small photographic negative. When we saw the image on it, we immediately got the photo developed. It was a picture of my Mom during my parents honeymoon. She was sitting on a bench in Hawaii. She had a hybiscus flower in her hair and a sweet smile on her face. My Father was very touched and our family generally felt that it was a "sign".
Of course it wasn't hard to see what exactly had happened - we were sorting through old photo albums for pictures for the obituary and to remember old times. There was stuff scattered everywhere when we began to do our taxes so it's not unreasonable that a small negative somehow fell into Dad's envelope before he sent it off.

However, that photo to me was an amazing gift. Thinking about the coincidences that led to it not only being accidentally sent away but also accidentally returned to us are pretty amazing. What an astonishing universe we live in so that all factors concerning that photo could contribute to put it right back in our hands, hearts and minds at a time that we really needed it. That photograph was a gift, a gift from an unaware, dispassionate and non-intelligent universe. But a gift nonetheless, in the same way that every sunrise and sunset is a gift for those who are around to watch them and give them personal meaning.

My Mom never got to see me publish my first papers in a scientific journal, never got to see me get my B.Sc, never got to see my wedding - my wife had hybiscus flowers in her bouquet - and never got to see me begin my Ph.D. studies. That picture hangs in my cubicle in the grad office and reminds me every day that no matter what odds are stacked against me or what the universe happens to throw at me, I will never give up the fight. Just like my Mom.

The picture reminds me that even though we live in a chaotic, violent and fundamentally uncertain universe it is not impossible to find inspiration and meaning within it.

No woo necessary. ;)
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Welcome to the forum Agent : Orange! I agree with the others, it's a touhing story, and inspirational too, in its sadness. I agree, we can add personal meaning to a coincidence and it doesn't have to mean that it's woo, or that we think it's paranormal. Your story is a great example of that.
 
Cuddles said:
I don't think 7 days is because of Christianity. The whole 7 days thing is from the old testament which is actually Jewish. No idea if the idea is originally Jewish or came from somewhere else first though.
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It doesn't matter that the idea is Jewish becase the reason 7 days in a week was adopted by the Western and Christian calender is because of Christianity. The idea was originally Jewish and taken from them, to be sure, but implemented because of Christianity in the Western world.

That's like saying spaghetti sauce and pasta aren't Italian but American cause tomatoes came from America. Yes, originally, but what people did with tomatoes later was all their own.
 
EeneyMinnieMoe said:
It doesn't matter that the idea is Jewish becase the reason 7 days in a week was adopted by the Western and Christian calender is because of Christianity. The idea was originally Jewish and taken from them, to be sure, but implemented because of Christianity in the Western world.

That's like saying spaghetti sauce and pasta aren't Italian but American cause tomatoes came from America. Yes, originally, but what people did with tomatoes later was all their own.
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I did some research, and it seems that, yes the 7-day week originally came from Babylonia and Egypt and was later adopted by Judaism and later Christianity. And yes, the Christians spread it further. But apparently it is not quite right to say that the Christians are solely responsible for the spread. It seems that the seven days named after the Norse gods, were established before Christianity reached Scandinavia. The old norse people didn't get it from them, but the system found its way up here independantly of Christianity, and the naming after Old Norse gods is an adaption of the pre-Christian tradition to name the days after the major planets = the major gods. So, it would seem that Christianity didn't have as much role in this as one might think. There's a reason we still say Oden's day, Tor's day and Frej's day, and so on, and that is that Christianity actually did not implement it into all of the western world all by themselves.

All this, if you are to belive the article I read in Wikipedia, which is not always a 100% sure thing to do :o but it seemed logical enough, and we can't look away from the fact that the names of the days in many countries seem to speak of a spread of the 7-day system independantly from the Christian spread of it.
 
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-Fran- said:
Welcome to the forum Agent : Orange! I agree with the others, it's a touhing story, and inspirational too, in its sadness. I agree, we can add personal meaning to a coincidence and it doesn't have to mean that it's woo, or that we think it's paranormal. Your story is a great example of that.
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Hi Fran, I read through this thread and was really impressed with your style of writing, and your coincidence stories were great too! Next time I see a little girl crying I'm going to ask if her name is Sara. :)
This was a great idea for a thread.
 
robinson said:
Yeah, but single frame inserts, which are NOT subliminal, work quite well. Don't they?
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In the context of the Exorcist, that's what is meant by 'subliminal messages' - the single frame inserts of demonic faces. This may be incorrect, but it is a popular perception. Indeed, it's all that is possible in a standard theatre or on a DVD (you could have single field inserts, I guess).

I don't think single frame inserts work for much except raising a stink with those who harbour that perception. That is, they will get noticed and someone will accuse the advertiser of trying to place subliminal messages. In the case of McDonald's, the publicity of that in itself is worth it.

Oh Tyler Durden, we hardly knew you.
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I caught at least some of those in the theatre. Great film, BTW.
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
In the context of the Exorcist, that's what is meant by 'subliminal messages' - the single frame inserts of demonic faces. This may be incorrect, but it is a popular perception. Indeed, it's all that is possible in a standard theatre or on a DVD (you could have single field inserts, I guess).

I don't think single frame inserts work for much except raising a stink with those who harbour that perception. That is, they will get noticed and someone will accuse the advertiser of trying to place subliminal messages. In the case of McDonald's, the publicity of that in itself is worth it.



I caught at least some of those in the theatre. Great film, BTW.
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I was 16 when the Exorcist came out in the cinema with all the furore and excellent hype with priests sitting outside waiting to assist the distressed. I didn't have the nerve to see the film but my big tough sporty boyfriend did. I met him for dinner right after he'd come out of the cinema. He was very pale. Anyway, some of my contemporaries still complain they wake up screaming sometimes with THAT face.

I saw it once at a party. We were giggling and a bit the worse for beer but it looked soooo dated. We have much scarier images now I think. I do like horrors. I watch them on my own, in the dark then switch off the light and sleep like a baby.

My sister slowed the vid down to the frame and it is really horrible. Its a human face but they've pulled the lips and eyelids back and colourised bits. No oil painting.:scared:
 
Agent : Orange said:
Hi Fran, I read through this thread and was really impressed with your style of writing, and your coincidence stories were great too! Next time I see a little girl crying I'm going to ask if her name is Sara. :)
This was a great idea for a thread.
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Hey, thanks :) And if you like my writing style, then I am especially happy, having to struggle here with a language that is not my own :)

JoeTheJuggler said:
I knew you were going to say that!
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I always knew you were a psychic ;)
 
-Fran- said:
Hey, thanks :) And if you like my writing style, then I am especially happy, having to struggle here with a language that is not my own :)
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Wouldn't have guessed it from the elegance of your responses here.
What is your native language?
 
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