Synchronicity, the curious science of coincidences

“The world is a handkerchief” or “how small the world is!” They are expressions that you have surely used or heard at some point. They are said when a casual or unique situation happens. A chance meeting with someone you know in a big city can be a good example of serendipity. But what if we knew it might actually have to do with a science called synchronicity?

Although it may seem incredible, important researchers have studied and tried to identify the relationships that could exist between two phenomena that are considered very improbable or that seem unrelated. And they are not exactly unknown names who have tried to give an explanation. We can talk about people of the stature of Carl Jung, for example, who coined the term synchronicity.

What is synchronicity?

Sometimes we think that the universe sends us signs when coincidences happen that seem amazing to us. However, for Jung it was simple synchronicity, which could be defined as the simultaneity of different events linked by a sense that is not that of causality.

That is to say, we can summarize this unique science in a temporal coincidence of a series of events (two or more), which, although related to each other, are not the cause of one another. However, there is a content relationship.

To try to make it easier, imagine that you have a good friend. One day, while chatting with your father, you talk to him about this friendship and tell him his name, who his relatives are, etc. Thus, pulling on the thread, your parent observes that you and your friend have a distant family relationship because it turns out that your grandfather and his grandmother were second cousins.

We observe in the example that the fact that you and your friend are distant family has nothing to do with your friendship and how it occurred. However, there is a content relationship, but not causality.

More curious details about synchronicity

Many authors have studied or spoken even without knowing about this peculiar science. For Friedrich Schiller, for example, Chance arises from deep sources, so chance would not exist.. However, the surrealist André Bretón considered the existence of objective chance, when your desires come together with everything the world offers.

But According to Jung, when we talk about synchronicity, we are referring to the union of internal and external events.. Thus, the individual who experiences these events finds meaning in the unification of both.

Although we turn to metaphysics to justify these events, such as chance or luck, even magic, they would actually occur in the form of non-conscious attraction. An unconscious attraction that causes them to occur or at least that is what Jung considers it to be. This brings us to pattern recognition.

That is why this theory of the author, which is born from psychoanalysis, clashes with rationalist and materialist movements. Nevertheless, The famous psychologist established periods more prone to the appearance of synchronicities than others.

Pattern recognition

Notably Jung established synchronicity or occurrence as a search for recognizable patterns. For this reason, according to the psychoanalyst, phases after the death of loved ones or job changes cause greater energy for chance. All of this is because the changes that are caused in us after these situations lead us to look for recognizable patterns that give meaning to our search. Thus, that impulse of recognition that we all seem to have would be the basis of synchronicity.

According to some studies, in moments of high amounts of dopamine in the brain, in the case of stressful or emotionally charged situations, we tend to engage in magical thinking. However, that magic, which would be chance, is actually synchronicity.

However, the need to look for patterns should not be demonized. It is something natural that we have had in the human mind since the times of the caves. What’s more, this type of thinking is linked to anhedonia, the absence of which could cause the inability to experience pleasure. That is It is actually a skill that has helped us survive for thousands of years.

So don’t think about the madness of chance and causality. We are prone to looking for patterns and on many occasions our brain manages information unconsciously. However, it is a valuable mechanism that helps us in making decisions. Maybe there is no magic of chance, but it can be nice and useful to think so..

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