Know the dangers of the feeling of seeing coincidences in everything

Were you thinking about a certain person and all of a sudden they get in touch? Or do you usually look at the clock at the exact same time? Or do you start to see references about a certain country just when you are preparing a trip to the same destination? In these moments, we can come to believe that there is some kind of fateful algorithm in the path you have chosen, and that chance is conspiring for everything to flow in your favor. But is this real?

O awesome.club researched this mysterious “conspiracy of fate” and explains everything below.

Welcome to the world of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Or rather: let’s leave aside the scary German name and use a more charming term: world of frequency illusions🇧🇷 It is a distortion of our thinking, when, after receiving some new information, we are left with the feeling that it appears everywhere, even where it should not appear. We tend to see the situation as an incredible coincidence, and in severe cases, it ends up becoming an obsessive, paranoid idea. There are even those who start to consider all that as a divine sign.

As the word “illusion” implies, obviously only we have that impression. Such an effect arises independently of our will because of two characteristics of the human mind:

Our attention allows the mind to choose to think only of information that is relevant at that particular moment. Everything else is “discarded”. Thanks to this focus of attention, a certain detail gets stuck in our mind, and we start noticing it everywhere. There is another distortion of our thinking, such as a tendency to confirm our point of view. In general terms, regardless of the information we obtain, we try to “adapt” it to our own thoughts. Therefore, even the most absurd of assumptions can seem true in our eyes. For example, you pass a group of friends, and everyone is laughing at a joke. But you are sure: “They are laughing at me!” The same mechanism works when we see something repeatedly. From then on, involuntarily, we started making things up in our head.

For example, the cult French film Cleo from 5 to 7, belonging to the movement new wave, is entirely based on this phenomenon. The protagonist suspects that she may have cancer. To confirm the diagnosis or not, she has to wait between 5 pm and 7 pm. During those two hours, she receives a strange prediction from a riddle, hears stories about death, breaks a mirror, sees a movie about a hearse and even finds herself in a traffic jam next to the shop selling African masks that invoke death. The effect of the frequency illusion is evident: during these 2 hours, she constantly thinks about the negative diagnosis, and that’s why her conscience selects images about the subject, “adapting” them to her terrible theory.

Another reason is quite banal: people forget about statistical probabilities. For example, someone decides to go to Los Angeles to try their luck in the cinema field. Suddenly, on the sidewalk just below your hotel room window, Steven Spielberg passes. The person would certainly regard this as a special sign. However, as Spielberg works and circulates a lot in Hollywood. It would be possible for him to pass by some sidewalk in Los Angeles, since he lives there – like most movie stars, for that matter. Thus, it is relatively easy to come across stars like him in the American city.

Even if the illusion of frequency appears, as we have already said, against our will, it is possible and recommendable avoid the phenomenon🇧🇷 The reason is as follows:

Coincidences and the tendency to confirm your point of view can lead you to false thoughts/goals and irreversible consequences. For example, as the main character of the novel Crime and Punishment, of Fyodor Dostoyevski, who before visiting an elderly moneylender who lends him money at very high interest rates, when he thinks about that woman, he begins to hear several people talking about his parasitic life. And he ends up turning into a killer.
We have every probability of being victims of advertising campaigns. Yes, this may seem trivial, but the truth is that several companies resort to the illusion of frequency in their marketing strategies: bright logos, slogans that “stick in the ears”, new formats such as sponsored posts on social networks and promotional videos in theaters. All this makes people unconsciously think about a certain product or service. By constantly looking at the details of an offer throughout the day, you’ll end up thinking that coincidences are making it clear that that purchase is really necessary.

Have you ever had that feeling in your life? How do you deal with her? Comment!