An Echo's Echo

I was writing a tweet while eating dinner, multitasking. As it were, the tweet in question was a synchronicity "report":

"1/26/16 synchronicity: randomly reading 'rumbling' in a book, precisely as a rumbling sounded from the neighbor's RV next door (as randomly)"

Then, mid-tweet, a new synchronicity unfolded: precisely as I typed "rumbling," my guts rumbled audibly, in digestion. The noise and the typing's completion coincided with the same perfectly synchronistic, "impossible to replicate even if I'd practiced it" timing -- the very same unmistakable timing with which the original "rumbling" had occurred.

I laughed. Then finished the tweet, and expanded the original incident's log entry. Then made this blog post. Then laughed some more.

This Is What A Living Dream Looks Like

A few days ago, I started reading a book, The Ashes of Waco, by Dick J. Reavis. A recounting of the 1993 Waco incident, in which "David Koresh" and a group of associates burned to death in their compound, the book describes Mr. Koresh as a gun-toting, beer-drinking Messiah, who smokes cigarettes and "plays a mean guitar," and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible and like books (and, by his own description, was the Lamb of Revelation, capable of reading God's book of the seven seals).

I read that colorful description on January 8th specifically. As it were, it was the first time in a while that I'd encountered anything involving such a worldly Messiah -- if not the first time ever. Not the most common breed of Christ, that.

The next day, the 9th, I received an email: I had a new Twitter follower, a "Bodie Myers." Upon opening the email, I was met with the avatar and mini-bio screenshotted above.

Guns. Beer. Guitar. Books. All elements of that unlikely, Koreshian Messiah were present, recurring in less than 24 hours.

I don't know Mr. Bodie Myers (assuming this individual is male). But I'll send him/her my thanks, all the same. Besides synchroshocking me, your Twitter follower-ship gave me one hell of a laugh.

The Book Synchro, Re-revisited

Once again, I must share a reading synchronicity, thus revisiting a thoroughly visited phenomenon.

Actually, "revisit" isn't quite right, because I've already touched upon this particular flavor of synchronicity several times. In fact, I've devoted so many posts to it, even inventing a word like "re-revisit" isn't right, either. No. Poke through this blog, and you'll find it riddled with book- and reading-synchro posts, with a new one coming each time the phenomenon evolved or shifted or complicated -- so many I can't even insert a clever little link to point you to them.

Well, it's happened again: I've experienced the newest iteration of the book synchro. And though I'm hesitant to add another book-synchro post to the stack, I must, for this last one was a whopper.

* * *

Picture this, if you will: you sit down to read a book, and things in it start to happen. The book describes your surroundings. Echoes your thoughts. Corresponds with stuff happening to other people, even. Surreal, right? Right. It would, really, leave you quite unhinged, were you not ready for it (or even if you were).

But it's also impossible, too. Right ...?

Wrong.

Yes, that scenario is exactly what I've experienced -- or, at least, in the book synchro's latter incarnations. The phenomenon started out quietly enough, albeit not unnotably so (nor much less surreal): I would, say, read of the exact same, unlikely things in two random books, back to back, when the chances of such a recurrence were incredibly low (and there were no outward indicators of the books' contents, or any parallels of subject matter, or anything else that might have resulted in such a coincidence). Or, later on in the timeline, the phenomenon might've become a little more active and dynamic, such as reading exactly what I'd just then been thinking, in the back of my head (in a separate, independent chain of thought that was in no way related to the text). Or, later still, to send me deeper into this particular rabbit hole, the book might echo the speech and actions of those around me, visible and nearby but in no way connected to my book (or connected to me at all, beyond being in my proximity).

But these were all just coincidences, right? Even though they were hugely unlikely, and even though they happened again and again and again (and again), dozens of times and in the same basic, coherent pattern -- all just coincidence. Because, Mr. Garrison, that sort of thing is, simply, impossible.

But, I repeat: wrong. It is possible, and it has happened to me, a great many times. And, likewise, the book synchros (and all kinds of other, similar incidents) continue to happen for me, daily.

But, enough of the old "is it or isn't it real?" debate. Nothing I can say will convince the unconvinced (which, to be fair, is how it should be, considering that I am without objective evidence and can only give my word as to these events' reality -- got to show discernment, and be healthily skeptical, after all). So, let's just move on to the latest string of incidents, those which have demanded this post.

Shall we?

* * *

It started routinely enough, if mind-bending synchronicities can be at all routine.

A few days ago, I sat down to read, and almost immediately, as if on a switch, I started getting the hits: one sentence after another, echoing my reality in some respect, be it random thoughts or something I'd recently been thinking, or unlikely topics of inquiry I'd been exploring just hours or minutes earlier, or something going on across the street just right there-that-wow! Etcetera. But, at this point, not too big a deal (can you believe that I've really gotten used to this sort of thing ...?).

Soon, however, things got interesting.

First, there was just more: more echoes, more frequency, more parallels. But then it all graduated in intensity, as well as in timing, with things coinciding in a "perfectly synchronistic" fashion that is as impossible to describe as it is to consciously orchestrate. Next, as I read on, experiencing this rheostat-esque intensification like a passenger on a shuddering aircraft, I noticed a qualitive difference in the incidents, with the echoes and such beginning to overlap and intertwine, as to gain a multidimensional character that, also, I haven't the words to convey.

And that was just in the morning.

Fast forward to that afternoon, at lunchtime, when I sat down to read again, and had the "storm" repeat itself. By the time I'd finished eating and closed my book, the text had been spitting out a running commentary of what was, more of less, happening in my head and immediate environment. Right as I thought of getting some extra coffee, then decided against it because Starbucks double-brews their drip coffee and, thus, would be too much caffeine -- "too much coffee," reads the book. A long, random chain of thought that ended in my thinking of "1999" by Prince, and its lyric "the sky was all purple" -- "beginning to purple the sky," reads the book. Etcetera, etcetera, again and again, until even my sky-high tolerance for wow was in danger of being reached.

At the storm's tail end, the phenomenon even gained some irony, when the book's narrator began questioning his sanity and whether his experiences were objectively real (because the guy in the book had been presented with irrefutable proof of psychic experiences) -- when I'd been thinking that exact same thing (down to the same terminology, "objectively real"), in regards to this very phenomenon. More echoes, sort of. (Irony, or mockery?)

Oh, and the name of this particular book? Stir of Echoes. And what was it about? A man who experiences all kinds of weird, "impossible" stuff and has to reconcile with it. (And did I know this the day before, when I'd felt so strongly Compelled to buy it at a thrift store, totally randomly, like all the other book-synchro books ...?)

Yes, surreal. Surreal indeed.

* * *

"But surely it stopped there?" you say. I mean, after all, even the guys in books like Stir of Echoes get a break after such a crescendo of their impossi-weirdness. Right? Right ...?

No, didn't stop there.

The next day, the same thing happened, for the most part. If anything, the phenomenon just kept intensifying, for it not only continued through the rest of Stir of Echoes, but right on into the next sequential book I started on (plus a random magazine I read in between the two). And, throughout, it was the same deal: stark, explicit reflections of my inner and outer reality, coming in big, minutes-long bursts that left my head spinning. Dozens of individual "echoes," each wow-worthy enough to merit its own blog post.

"Living dream" says nothing, friends. Nothing at all.

 

All in all, these reading-synchro whirlwinds happened for three sequential days, spanning several books and other assorted reading material, and all following nearly the same pattern. On the fourth day, when this long-winded meta-incident finally ceased, it wasn't without another note of irony: it stopped only when I began expecting the phenomenon, anticipating a repeat when I sat down to read that day.

Oddly, a part of me knew that would happen -- and was expecting that, too, as to add yet more irony to the stew (along with some humor).

* * *

Good thing I'm just a guy on the internet, though. Just another faceless voice making fantastic claims without a shred of proof.

Yes, good thing. Because books just don't behave that way, thank God.

The Radio Reads My Mind

When it comes to radio synchronicity, I'm pretty bold. Most folks wouldn't admit that their precise thoughts and feelings are repeatedly and frequently echoed by the various radios and other vocal devices encountered in daily life. Even fewer would confess this publicly, online.

Then again, when something happens enough, and with enough consistency and reality, one is prone to boldness.

So, why not a little recounting of some of my funner radio-type incidents as of late?

Copied verbatim from my personal log:

12/7: "A whole bunch of radio/thought/reading synchros this afternoon, such as lot' coming over the radio perfectly synchronous with my thinking "which lot is that guy on?" at the end of a long and random chain of thought, and then 'sentimental feeling' on the radio coming perfectly synchronous with my thinking, at the end of yet another objectively begun chain of thought (spurred by seeing a nearby woman), of how I was feeling mawkish and "sentimental," that word exactly."

12/7 (continued): "Also, a cool radio synchro, much like that one from a few years ago with the in-house pharmacy radios. I heard a 'Feed the World' song randomly on the radio after leaving the gym, and it stood out to me, in that Noticing fashion. It played over the mile from the gym to the market, then finished right before I went inside. Then, as I entered the market, the exact same song was playing. Granted that it was a Christmas song and it's Christmastime, but still pretty unlikely. And now that I think of it, didn't I have some other radio synchro involving this song last year at this time?"

12/10: "While I was getting a massage from Val, she had random music playing in the background, and just when she randomly said, totally offhand and tangentially, 'there were birds chirping,' a bird chirped in the background music. It was notable enough in itself, but doubly so considering that there'd been no chirping before she said that. Damn surreal (and she thought so too, once I'd pointed it out)."

12/10 (continued): "The coolest of the day, however, was on the way home, when a star came into view through my windshield at the precise moment 'a star, a star' came over the radio -- again. It was not only a highly precise, perfectly synchronistic, and hugely unlikely due to the logistics involved (once again, it was the one point on the road where this star, again the only in the sky, was visible, both due to the height of the road and its effect on my windshield/field of view, and also due to there being a "valley" of trees lining the road and obscuring the sky, such that that precise point at which the road both curved and raised and the trees parted at just the right way was that (single) star visible). Utterly surreal and notable in itself, but then, *it was exactly what had happened just Monday, on the way home from myofascial release.* Damn cool in so many ways."

12/13: "A really cool standout, three-way thought/radio/event synchro. I passed the Living Waters church on the way out of SC, and I took notice because, just yesterday morning, I'd found a card for this church randomly in the trash bin at the gas station, and it had Lept Out at me/Nagged me in Compelling/Noticing fashion until I'd taken it out and read 'Living Waters' church. Then, precisely as I passed the church and read its sign and had the thought 'That's the church I'd just picked up the card for yesterday,' when the radio sang out 'water' on some random song."

12/13 (continued): "Standout, classical radio synchro: right as I'd passed a sign reading 'young world,' the radio sang out 'young,' so perfectly synchronous I had to take note, despite the one-word shallowness of it. Also, similarly: 'lift you up,' precisely as the gate lifted for the drawbridge, right in front of me. Damn surreal, that one."

12/14: "Another classical radio/thought standout: after I'd taken a deep breath and felt it hit my chest in that good, rare way, the radio sang out 'feel it in my chest,' perfectly synchronistic. And, again, gains notability given that 1) nothing in the song had said that beforehand (it wasn't a refraining chorus or something, that is), and 2) I'd had that thought for a 100% objective reason, because I'd taken a good, proper deep breath and had it enter my chest as it's supposed to (and for the first time today, as it were, coinciding perfectly with that random lyric on a song I'd never heard before ...)."

12/15: "One cool one this morning, a radio-type incident with a twist: when I'd come out of the tag office and started backing out, a passing woman started directing me out, and I'd lowered my window and we'd talked briefly, and I'd told her (illogically and because of confusion, it bears mentioning) that the enormous, full-size truck I was driving was a rental that they'd given me in place of the small car I'd reserved. Simultaneously, the song 'Mother Trucker' by James Taylor came on the CD player, with the lyrics "I'm a truck-driving man" or something to that effect coming on almost perfectly synchronistically with my telling the woman, objectively in regards to our conversation, about how I was, as it were, a 'truck-driving man.' Really notable, and cool, especially with its illogical/confused context."

12/16: "A highly notable and precise thought/radio/sign standout: hearing 'risk your health for me' on the radio, perfectly synchronous with my thinking almost exactly that, in regards to the lover/merkaba theme. Also, a two-part one on the way home tonight from Charleston, even more notable: right as I came upon a freshly crashed car/accident and almost ran into a spray of broken glass/car debris and had to slam on my brakes and stop short, thereby stopping several cars behind me, 'can't stop the traffic' sounded on the radio (though, oddly, I *did* stop the traffic; perhaps only the "stop the traffic" was the relevent reflection/synchronous manifest?). And then, minutes afterward right down the road was a second crash, and precisely as I came upon it and saw that it was indeed a second crash (and had time to think 'crash,' as it were), 'crash and burn' sounded on the radio. Surreal."

12/17: "Right as I stopped at the road at the park's driveway, I thought, first, of how I was now in a twenty-year-old used van after just driving the brand new rental truck, and how I was now back to being a 'commoner'/everyday Joe Schmoe-type. Immediately as I thought that, an oncoming car appeared, this too a "commoner" vehicle, probably as old and with some paint imperfections, etc, and so I felt I felt a sort of camaraderie with the driver and their car -- and then, a split second after these two things happened, the song 'Working Man' started on the radio. Note that, though not quite perfectly synchronistic (maybe a half-second gap in there), the timing actually added notability, since the song starting only after the thought/car ruled out any sort of suggestion/trigger, etc."

12/18: "Another classical thought/radio synchro, where 'problems you don't want to talk about' sang on the radio precisely as I was thinking of problems I didn't want to talk about. Very precise and notable."

12/18 (continued): "While paying in Starbucks, a classic radio/thought synchro: 'five-and-ten' coming over the radio precisely as I decided upon a ten-dollar bill and pulled it out of my wallet, my thought of 'I'll use the ten' and the radio's 'ten' coinciding perfectly synchronistically, etc."

Etc, etc, etc. Yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the point: the radio echoes my reality in amusing and intelligent ways.

Or so it seems, at least. No shortage of people would easily write off each and every one of those examples, citing chance or psychology or the influence of certain spiritual entities. To them I say, "Perhaps." However, I should mention that that list of incidents is just from the last week or so (and only partial at that, quoting only the more-coherent or less-complicated of incidents, as well as the great many incidents too subtle or subjective to be logged ...). There's plenty more where that came from (like, hundreds).

But really, guys, do call off the butterfly-net men, eh? After all, could someone truly delusional maintain such an elaborate and wonderful blog?

Synchroshock -- the book!

So, here's something of a trip: a book that contains this blog ... posted on this blog.

Blurb:

We've all experienced coincidences.

Yes, some have explanations. Buy a certain car and suddenly you're seeing them everywhere -- selective perception. Get hungry for a certain food soon after seeing its advertisement -- subconscious suggestion. However, then there are those other kind of coincidences, the ones that are just a tad too ... coincidental. When it comes to these, one can't help but wonder: Is there something more than meets the eye, something going on behind the scenes of reality? There, we enter the realm of the "synchronicity."

I, Aaron Garrison, have experienced many such suspiciously coincidental coincidences. So many, in fact, that I began logging them -- and, eventually, blogging them. This book is, simply, a compilation of that data, reading as a personal diary of dozens upon dozens of incidents that all beg the question, "What are the odds?!"

In ‘Synchroshock,’ discover where coincidence ends and synchronicity begins.

Essentially, it's a free eBook version of this blog, offered as a convenience, for free (at vendors which don't require a .99 cent minimum price, at least).

Grab the eBook here:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo (free) | Lulu (free) | Smashwords (free)

Get the Print-on-Demand version here (book is big, and thus costly to print):

Lulu | Createspace

11/27/15: Negative Ions

Negative ions. They're good for you, if you didn't know.

These days, you hear a lot about this stuff. There are ionizer gizmos that plug into wall outlets and renew the air, and those big, pink, warmly glowing salt lamps that are seen ubiquitously in health food stores and head shops. Also, there are the "detox foot baths," which, supposedly, work their magic by ionizing the body directly, via the feet.

Me? I'm a foot-bath guy.

Say what you will about them (and, yes, there's plenty of controversy over the practice, like any health gadget that's attracted miraculous claims), but I personally have found, through relatively objective personal experimentation, that these foot baths do in fact exert a real and positive effect on the body (or, at least, on mine). And, likewise, I've determined that this effect does seem to stem, in some way or another, from the induction of negative ions, for I've discovered markedly similar effects from other supposed means of ionizing oneself (salt caves, ocean air, and earthing/grounding, for instance). Consequently, I enjoy a foot bath from time to time, and am always rewarded with a general pick-me-up of some fashion.

So, that's how I came to be sitting down to a foot bath today.

Upon putting my feet in the soak, I was struck with the thought: Negative ions. It just hit me, in every sense of the term, as if remembering the very concept after a long time. And, I guess, that was sort of true: after a year or so of my discovering the foot baths, and my subsequent research of negative ions, I hadn't really given them much thought. Today, however, I did. For some reason.

Negative ions. The words were etched across my mind as I began my latest podiatric ingestion of the things.

Naturally, I cracked a book just after the bath began, to pass the half-hour, as is my custom for these sessions. As it were, today's selection was The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthieson, a first-person account of one man's physical and spiritual journey through the Himalaya mountains in 1973. It's one of those famous classics that, somehow, I'd just missed up until now (so many books, so little time, you know). In fact, I only learned of the book's fame after buying it; at the time I'd stumbled upon it, The Snow Leopard was a totally random purchase, a library discharge in fact, which just announced itself to me and demanded to be bought. So, blindly, I'd paid the quarter for it and been on my way, after which it joined my towering stack of unread books (where it would remain until, just two days ago, over a month afterward, I'd felt Compelled to choose it for my next read ...).

Two pages into my reading, I gave pause: "... there are recent speculations that negative ions, which seem to be positive in their effect on animals and plants ..."

I did a double-take. First, because my unexpected pondering of Negative ions still lay across my mind, having occurred literally a minute or so beforehand. Second, because I'd had to turn the page to expose this passage -- that is, I couldn't possibly have subconsciously read it in my peripheral vision, thus ruling out psychological suggestion of some kind. It brought about that synchronistic sense of "echo" which characterizes these experiences, literally making me stop and blink like a cartoon character.

But then, third, there was the book itself: I wasn't reading a health journal, or even one of those duplicitous supplement advertisements disguised as such -- nothing where one might expect to encounter talk of negative ions. Instead, my book was about a pilgrim struggling through rugged country on a wildlife expedition (written nearly forty years ago, nonetheless, before the whole negative-ion craze was even a twinkle in the internet marketer's eye).

I smiled, in muted wonder: synchroshocked again.

It persisted through the rest of my foot bath, like the icing on a very surreal cake.

Publication: Weird, Weirder & WEIRD

New short-story collection from A.A. Garrison: Weird, Weirder & WEIRD.

Blurb:

"Weird is a sad clown in church. Weirder, that the congregation is all clowns. Weird: you’re a sad clown, too, and you think you like it.

            That says it all. In Weird, Weirder & Weird, descend into the depths of A.A. Garrison’s particular brand of strange. Begin with the traditional, sci-fi weird (“Suffer,” “RIP, Krokinski”), progress to the hauntingly peculiar (“Faith,” “Chesterfield Drive”), and then end with some full-throttle, no-apologies bizarro (“The Enema Flower: A Love Story,” “GG Allin Must Die”). Altogether, these twenty stories deliver a full spectrum of weirdness–and then some.

            Come on, don’t be shy. Everyone likes a little weird. Or are you afraid you’ll like life as a sad, church-going clown?"

 eBook available from the following vendors:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Lulu | Smashwords

Print version available here:

Lulu | Createspace (cheaper)