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Strange Coincidences?

Swifty said:
To bump an old thread, I've just been to our local car boot sale, was wandering about when the tune 'Young at Heart' (the 80's version by The Bluebells) suddenly popped into my head so I started humming it ... about ten seconds later, I came across a stall selling 'Young at Heart' sheet music sang by Norman Wisdom. I retraced my steps back to the other stalls but didn't spot any books about bluebells or young at heart items .. weird. The very next stall had a Norman Wisdom book on prominent display.
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Ah that reminds me of some musical coincidences!

My dad was a semi-pro musician. Every time he visited us he'd go to the music shop in town - old fashioned shop that still has sheet music, etc. The very last time he was up here, as we walked into the music shop, 'Barcarolle' from 'Tales of Hoffman' started playing in the shop. That had been my late mother's favourite piece of music. He looked at me and I looked at him but as my stepmother was there who didn't like any mention of dead first wives, neither of us said anything. But I knew he had clocked what was playing and was taken aback by it - literally started as we stepped in the shop, too. At the time I didn't know that was going to be his last ever visit there, too.

He was a huge opera fan, and one of his favourite operas was Cavalleria Rusticana. I was with him the day before he died. He had been ill a long time and we knew he was going to die. I was out shopping in town the afternoon he died and went in Poundland. There was a 1950's recording of Cavalleria, unbelievably, Jussi Bjorling whose voice he'd loved - and I bought it. Seemed an odd find for Poundland. An hour or so later the phone call came that dad had died around 4 PM. The time I saw the CD.
 
A minor co-incidence but hey ho. I read the link to the Amazon review for the toilet drops to stop poo smelling, that was posted on here. Reading the product reviews i was amused to read the term "would make a maggot gag" because I hadn't heard the term before. I went on to carry on reading John Ronson's "Men Who Stare At Goats" and almost immediately read about a disgusting smelling spray that could dispel crowds, one that would "make a maggot gag".
 
Spudrick68 said:
A minor co-incidence but hey ho. I read the link to the Amazon review for the toilet drops to stop poo smelling, that was posted on here. Reading the product reviews i was amused to read the term "would make a maggot gag" because I hadn't heard the term before. I went on to carry on reading John Ronson's "Men Who Stare At Goats" and almost immediately read about a disgusting smelling spray that could dispel crowds, one that would "make a maggot gag".
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Perhaps John Ronson wrote that review?
 
A truely odd coincidence happened to me four years ago. My husband and I had previously won a weekend break in Anglesy for a family and for various reasons had to postpone taking it. We eventually set it up and took ourselves, 13 year old daughter and her pal off for a long week end. It was lovely and as the weather was nice we decided to attempt Mt Snowden-Husband and daughter being really keen, daughters pal and i not keen but promised cake at top and told it really was not a proper mountain or very big (hah) well they sprinted up and we winged along behind through the fog, shale, sheep etc, eventually at the top we heard singing through the fog- which sounded like angels welcomimg us at journeys end ( I later found out there was a choir group up there 0
We staggered into the heaving tea shop. Having got the girls settelled in a corner joined the throng in search of sustenance. I turned to spouse to demand cash only to find myself face to face with my cousin who I had not seen for some years.

He had decided om the spur of the moment to come to Wales for a long weekend with his teenage son and friend with son of similar age. At that moment the sun came through the clouds and the choir started warbling again.....

Nic
 
nicnac168 said:
A truely odd coincidence happened to me four years ago. My husband and I had previously won a weekend break in Anglesy for a family and for various reasons had to postpone taking it. We eventually set it up and took ourselves, 13 year old daughter and her pal off for a long week end. It was lovely and as the weather was nice we decided to attempt Mt Snowden-Husband and daughter being really keen, daughters pal and i not keen but promised cake at top and told it really was not a proper mountain or very big (hah) well they sprinted up and we winged along behind through the fog, shale, sheep etc, eventually at the top we heard singing through the fog- which sounded like angels welcomimg us at journeys end ( I later found out there was a choir group up there 0
We staggered into the heaving tea shop. Having got the girls settelled in a corner joined the throng in search of sustenance. I turned to spouse to demand cash only to find myself face to face with my cousin who I had not seen for some years.

He had decided om the spur of the moment to come to Wales for a long weekend with his teenage son and friend with son of similar age. At that moment the sun came through the clouds and the choir started warbling again.....

Nic
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Lovely! :)
 
The minute I graduated High School the Class of '77 seemed to start dropping like flies. A very popular girl had a fatal heart attack, others committed suicide, died in car crashes, or just simply died. Were we cursed?!

Had to do with me being insulated in my ivory tower, apparently. I found out over the years that they were victims of spousal abuse, drug overdoses, drunk driving, and other sordid activities. One of our top (American-type) football players shot himself, apparently because he was in a gay relationship and his partner broke up with him. Didn't see that coming!
 
The day my dad died one of the nurses looking after him was killed in a car crash.
 
Yesterday we went to a large shopping centre about 45 minutes away which is closer to my eldest daughter.
We were meeting her family for an early birthday lunch and to buy Christmas presents that they wanted. I had included in the bag with her present a card for her inlaws as they had moved and I didn't have the address,
We were a bit early so walked further into the centre when who should we see sitting with a friend but her inlaws.
They were a bit surprised when I handed them the card and asked if I had been carrying it around hoping to see them.
 
Perusing FB, seconds before I scrolled to a FB friend's post about a nightmare wherein he dreamed about a shoebox dead baby, my hub & I were discussing a horrid local story about householders finding two or three such boxes in their attic.
Synchronicity. Not always comfy.
 
I had to go get a new tyre on my car on Saturday (got home after a week away to find I had both a flat tyre AND a flat battery - nasty little coincidence in itself). Went to one of the four tyre repair shops in town to get it sorted, and was making desultory (grumpy) conversation with the girl on reception while I waited. A couple came in, and the woman greeted the girl with "Good grief, you're Brenda's grand-daughter, aren't you? I haven't seen you for years!" They went on to have a chat about Brenda, and the woman's mother, Mary, who were apparently neighbours and friends of many years standing.
As I'm not from the town originally, I didn't take much notice till the woman turned to her husband, and explained to him that the aforementioned Mary and Brenda were neighbours in the same street that my late mother in law had lived. Upon mentioning my mother in laws name it transpired that she was the third in the trio, known to their neighbours as the three wise monkeys.... Pretty neat in a town of over 60k inhabitants.... Well, I thought so...
 
I am a chain reader. Finish one book, pick up the next. I also will read anything, the closest thing to my hand. Yesterday I finished a teen adult book about a wizard forensic detective (!) with a side character called Caxton, a name I hadn't really come across before. So then I pick up an adult fiction inspired by the wave of UFO sightings that occurred over the Havens in the winter of 1977. Page 6, the main character asks about a Dr Caxton. 2 Caxtons in consecutive books. I had a muse about whether it was amusing enough to post on Fortean boards, turn the page and the next section is prefaced by a quote from Charles Fort. Nice little synchronicity I thought.
 
This is a fairly mild one and impossible to prove it happened, but posting on another thread just reminded me of this thing that happened to me, either on Dec 31st 1980, or Jan 1st, 1981.

As I was saying on t'other thread, I grew up near Leeds and was a teenager during the time of the Yorkshire Ripper. My mum's family knew George Oldfield, the later discredited police officer, leading the investigation. So I suppose I had an unusually well developed interest in the case.

When the Ripper was still at large, I probably had a near miss - crossing the same part of campus where his final victim was killed; alone and in the dark, not too long before. When I saw that one on the news I knew he wasn't remotely out to kill prostitutes. Incredibly, I have just looked it up to check it was where I remembered and have seen that a victim who survived was also attacked in Headingley on the very night I was there with a friend (I remember the precise date because it was my last ever night out in Leeds - the next morning I started university 100 miles away and at the time, now I think of it, the attack on that lady who survived wasn't reported as a Ripper one).

That evening I wasn't alone but with my six foot odd boyfriend, so I was no doubt safe. Might have walked right past him though.

Anyway, fast forward a few months and I had my first xmas at home, since I went to uni. I wanted to get back and it must have been either New Years Eve or New Year's Day (probably NYE?) I got a National Express coach back. In those days it went through Sheffield to get back to the Midlands. At a roundabout or junction, this massive lorry caught my eye, with SUTCLIFFE emblazoned on it in massive letters. I remembered it and it caught my eye in the first place, as I was at school with 'the Sutcliffe twins'. I probably was wondering where they were now as they'd left school at 16 and I'd never heard what happened to them.

Next day or the day after, now back in the Midlands, I saw the news of Sutcliffe's arrest.
 
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Yesterday was my birthday and I went to a restaurant with five friends. One of my friends gave me a couple of presents. While she had put wrapping paper on them she hadn't taped it down. I'd brought some crackers (Christmas type) with us. When she pulled hers her prize was a tiny sticky tape dispenser with tape. We did laugh. The cracker gods thought that's what she needed. :rofl:
 
GhostInTheMachine said:
This is a fairly mild one and impossible to prove it happened, but posting on another thread just reminded me of this thing that happened to me, either on Dec 31st 1980, or Jan 1st, 1981.

As I was saying on t'other thread, I grew up near Leeds and was a teenager during the time of the Yorkshire Ripper. My mum's family knew George Oldfield, the later discredited police officer, leading the investigation. So I suppose I had an unusually well developed interest in the case.
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There was an item of YR Forteana: when he went over to his estranged brother's house to tell him of the death of their mother, in an awkward silence following both they and his sister-in-law witnessed an ashtray lift into the air of its own accord and clatter back down again.
 
Rache. The German for "revenge". Not a word that crops up that often in the English-speaking world. I was catching up on 2000AD again tonight (progs I've not read before) and a character proclaims "I want rache! I want revenge!". About half an hour later we watch the latest episode of "Elementary" - the victim has a tattoo that says "RACHE" (which is significant to the plot). I hope this doesn't mean anything.
 
A longish one, simply because of the multiple overlapping coincidences:

I used to have a close friend who I fell out with 5 years ago, we've had on off contact since but we are strangers now and I've no contact with him since the end of 2014, nor obvious means to do so. In November 2014 I recounted on here the only, accidental, meeting I had with him that day in the middle of a shopping street....because I appeared to know it was going to happen or even to make it happen. http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/did-i-foresee-it-or-did-i-make-it-happen.58132/

Well that was the last of him, but in September last year in the course of one day it felt for all the world like the universe was trying to tell me something....

With my usual discretion I'll refer to him only by his initial, "Y".

1)I saw an online profile of someone else called Y (an unusual ethnic name, I knew of no other), the same age and studying the same course at the same uni as "my" Y when we first met years ago. Striking.

2)As soon as I turned my attention back to my Facebook wall I see a comment by someone called Lewis on a friend's wall. I don't know Lewis but I knew who he was.. he was closely connected to Y around the time I met him. Double coincidence.

3)That same day, in the evening, an old Facebook account automatically generated an email, making a friend suggestion. "Do you know Y?" it says. (In the past it has produced this same message specifically about him multiple times in a single day). So we have three connections in a row. Didn't stop there.


4) Immediately below that email is another from Facebook: "Do you know Aston Merrygold?" (the former member of the group JLS!). It suggested him based on him supposedly having a mutual friend with me called Darren.

So? Well firstly Aston is someone whom I had in years past claimed was a celebrity lookalike for Y. It was a running joke in fact.

5) More than that the surprising connection between Aston and Darren rang a bell.
I searched my records and sure enough I'd once told Darren about a dream I'd had involving him and Aston Merrygold (who I had no reason to imagine he could possibly know). Re-reading my account of this dream I suddenly realised it described exactly my own later encounter with Y in the street 15 months ago which I mentioned at the start of this tale!

6) As an aside I found it improbable Darren knew the actual pop star, so checking if the profile was bona fide I found that there are indeed dozens of facebook profiles falsely claiming to be him. Some of them give his middle name, which I had never heard or known about... Ian. Ian is the name that Y went by when I first knew him......

I reiterate this was all in one day.

And it all lead to...nothing. He wasn't dead, so it wasn't his spirit getting my attention. He never got in touch so it wasn't a premonition. It meant...nothing. But it sure felt like someone was trying to tell me something.
 
Gattino, it could be that 'Y' has been searching your name and the various adbots have linked you in with his recent or most frequent searches.
 
Amoradala2 said:
Gattino, it could be that 'Y' has been searching your name and the various adbots have linked you in with his recent or most frequent searches.
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Not likely...the "do you know" was to my old account (under a false name) and from HIS old account, which he's not used in a couple of years (that's to say he changed it, as did I)
 
gattino said:
And it all lead to...nothing. He wasn't dead, so it wasn't his spirit getting my attention. He never got in touch so it wasn't a premonition. It meant...nothing. But it sure felt like someone was trying to tell me something.
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Not really nothing, just something you haven't got around to seeing yet. :) I suspect you're the type who has to come to things in their own tme before they click. I'm still going to recommend The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, though. http://www.amazon.com/The-Self-Aware-Universe-Amit-Goswami/dp/0874777984
It's not the definitive, "last word" on the subject, IMO, but is food for thought.

There was also a quote i've written on this board before, too... i can't find the original now, but it was said by some random mystic on the internet. It went something like - "when your dreams keep coming true, your unconscious mind is reflecting your conscious mind. When synchronicities happen, your external reality is reflecting your internal reality."

That was my own personal *mind=blown* moment, which explained the whole synchronicity mystery for me. I'm not suggesting that this would satsify everyone, not by a long shot, but...Gattino, judging by the nature of your posts over the years, I suspect that the thing that "someone is trying to tell you" is that. ^
 
Possibly Ula..may I call you Ula? :p... I tend to break down things, even the spooky "irrational" stuff into practical, logical steps. Anything more profound is lost on me. So in the case above for example I'm prepared to believe it possible that a particular person's name will crop up over and over again because:

a) someone or something...the universe, a spirit, my higher self..is prodding me to take some particular course of action. But the only course of action I can percieve of in this particular story is to get in touch with Y. Well I did eventually take the hint and drop him a line..no reply. So my assumption about what was being instructed...the only thing I can come up with...was mistaken. So I conclude I wasn't being instructed to do that...or possibly instructed to do anything at all.

b) the coincidences formed part of some natural mindless synchronicity which might foretell the future...his name was cropping up so intently because he was about to appear in real life in some way. But again..nope. So it wasn't a portent.

c) And perhaps this is closest to what you're describing, outer events were created around me by some unconscious thought or longing for contact or some such...but, as the witness said in the dock "if I'm doing it unconsciously how would I know?" And more to the point if thats what my unconscious mind wanted and if it can affect reality around me in that way why not simply make the desired outcome itself happen?

So none of the theoretical paranormal processes that give meaning to these coincidences appear to be very good at seeing it through to the end!
 
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Lb8535 said:
Actually it's Sir Arthur not the bbc. A study in scarlet.
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It certainly is in the BBC Sherlock as seen here. Of course it was taken from the original. But the BBC one might have been about lately.
 
Ok well I didn't think this was too earth shattering, but it was weird. On my way to work I saw a car similar to the one pictured (but not exactly the same), you don't often see them in this day and age. Anyway on my way back home I saw the same sort of car again. It was different as the first one was white and the second one blue. It's strange enough to see an old car like this one in a day never mind two. Also when I was looking up a picture I had trouble finding one that was close enough to it, making it look like this car was never really popular. The thing I noticed was the lights back and front were very narrow and it was all pretty square.
 

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How ..dare I say coincidental?..that MorningAngel's post has re-alerted me to this thread and my account above about the friend "Y" being brought repeatedly to my attention by the universe for no discernible reason...as there is an update of sorts.

Shortly after I posted all of the above we did indeed slowly build a recent if short lived period of renewed communication. And so a week or two ago I got to ask him if anything unusual or traumatic had been happening with him at the end of September when all these "signs" about him were popping up around me (I'd not yet told him about the events themselves, merely asked about him). At first he couldn't think of anything in particular happening at that time. Oh , except....."That was when I had alopecia..clumps of hair were falling out, due to stress. It got worse in September."

Now the connection for me is hard to resist... he's suffering a high amount of stress for whatever reason at the time I'm bombarded with coincidences that draw my attention to him.

Is that itself a coincidence? Or could synchronicity itself be triggered in the same way we imagine crisis apparitions or poltergeist activity may be...one person's distress affecting the material world around another person they are connected to? Hmmmmm......
 
MorningAngel said:
Ok well I didn't think this was too earth shattering, but it was weird. On my way to work I saw a car similar to the one pictured (but not exactly the same), you don't often see them in this day and age. Anyway on my way back home I saw the same sort of car again. It was different as the first one was white and the second one blue. It's strange enough to see an old car like this one in a day never mind two. Also when I was looking up a picture I had trouble finding one that was close enough to it, making it look like this car was never really popular. The thing I noticed was the lights back and front were very narrow and it was all pretty square.
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Ooh a Nissan Silvia (I think).

There are only a couple of hundred of those left on the road in the UK, so that is a coincidence!

I don't just know that off the top of my head, this website tells you how many of any car are currently licenced or SORNed https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/

I love that site.
 
I've had the song Broken Wings by Mister Mister going round in my head for a few days, I haven't even thought about that song for years. I was humming it walking to work yesterday and saw a little black bird hop past me with what looked like a broken wing (the right one sticking out at a weird angle). It looked pretty sprightly and was still able to flutter up to someone's front door guttering so it should be safe from any cats or foxes hopefully ..

(the song in case anyone hasn't heard it)

 
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plastic wiganer said:
looks more like a Bristol to me? cant remember the model??
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I tend more towards Carlos' guess of a Nissan. At first, I thought it was a Toyota, but in any case, it's Japanese.

I sort of see where you're coming from, though - Bristol have made some cars with fairly... idiosyncratic designs over the years, but one of their favourite touches has been to store the spare wheel under the front wing. You certainly couldn't do that on this one.
 
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