Stressing the Point

The numbers. They were at it again.

Not that they'd ever stopped (or had for the last several years, for that matter). But, rather, they were just on an uptick again, inordinately present and ridiculously abundant, as well as particularly ornery -- even witty, seeming to toy with me. On the day in question, I'd not only seen the number 37 and its variants somewhere in the neighborhood of several dozen times (at least that many; I just lost count around the 30-40 mark), but the number had appeared to track me down. In parking lots, for instance: everywhere I parked, the number would be on a neighboring car(s) in some fashion, usually the license plate, and always in a manner both conspicuous and unlikely (and impossible to have been even subconsciously orchestrated by myself, due to, say, invisibility of the number until I parked and, hence, brought it into my view).

Naturally, with so many number-repeats that day, I made several entries into my endless log of such incidents, that evening. However, even at that late hour, there was still one more in store.

As it were, I was making said entries in a gym lobby of all places, staked out on their complimentary couch with my laptop on my knees, the setting sun coming in through the picture window at my back. It was then, while pecking the day's synchronicities into the keyboard, that it happened: with a dull roar from behind me, the window darkened, drawing my attention. Instinctively, I turned around: a truck had parked at the curb outside, feet from me, with a large trailer hitched at the back. And, the way I'd turned around, it was the rear half of this trailer that crowded my vision.

Advertising a landscaping business of some sort, the trailer was crowded with a phone number in large, eye-grabbing type, the last four digits of which were directly in my line of sight: "7337."

Precisely as I was writing about the dozens of 37s, as if to stress the point. No, I'm not making this up.

With a chuckle, I simply made a new entry in my log, transcribing this latest head-spinner. It took seconds; I still had the log file open in my computer's text editor.

Welcome to the Living Dream

You know how you can lay in bed sometimes, neither awake nor asleep, in those twilight hours between late night and early morning? That's how it was for me that night: a long, purgatorial period of non-sleep, of which I was conscious but not really awake.

Until, suddenly, something woke me up all the way -- I don't know what, just a vague, silent prompting to Get Up, involuntary and almost physical. So, I got up.

A split second later, an alarm went off nearby, as to coincide perfectly with my totally spontaneous wake-up.

There followed a moment of stark confusion on my part, as I simultaneously clawed through my blear of half-sleep while trying to trace the source of this alarm that had so synchronistically announced itself. This alarm, I determined, was my watch ... except, I hadn't set any alarm (I don't even know how to; best I can figure is, some buttons got pressed randomly during the course of the preceding day). And, equally eerie: I tried to tell myself that the alarm had started before I woke up, thus signalling said wake-up ... except, it hadn't. The alarm had sounded only a hair after my awakening -- but definitely after, as to coincide with my levering upright instead of the opening of my eyes.

I then sat on my bed in the perfect dark, in an awkward, half-risen angle, listening to the alarm chirp its minute-long chirp. Once again, I'd been synchroshocked.

I remained in this awestruck position for some minutes afterward, long enough to irritate my back. Finally, I reached for a pen and a Post-It, and wrote "alarm synchro -- with blog post."

Mind, Machine, and the Empathic Revolution: Manifesto for a New World

Free eBook from Aaron Garrison:

Blurb:

Like most revolutionaries, I have a dream: of genuine empathy between people -- as to truly see through someone else’s eyes, and discover all it can teach us.

Also in the revolutionary spirit, I have a manifesto, presented as the following essay.

Available as an eBook from the following vendors (for free, except at Amazon and Barnes & Noble):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Lulu | Kobo | Smashwords

Available as a print book, via PoD, from the following vendors:

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More Number-Fun

I've reported on my fun with numbers, certainly; and I've reported the newish, "combination-types" of these sort of incidents, too. Well, here's a little more of the latter.

This time, it involved bumper stickers.

First, I've been seeing numbers lately (which goes without saying, really, for the phenomenon hasn't stopped since it started, years ago). Second, the predominant repeats as of the last couple days have been 317, 144, and their variants (73, 14, 44, etcetera). Which brings us to the bumper stickers I got in the mail today.

The bumper stickers in question were for my websites, to be put on my newest vehicle, as to promote my little web-enterprise (the extent of my advertising, as it were). Upon opening up the mailer, however, I gave pause: there, staring up at me, were more my latest, most-popular numbers -- a whole cluster of them, at the bottom of the bumper stickers (their print numbers, I guess). I found this notable from the outset, due to the sheer amount of the repeats, and their total randomness, and their arrival precisely admidst a storm of these very numbers, lasting for days.

Though, what really made this incident blog-worthy was the underscore of irony, given that one of the stickers was for (drum-roll) SynchronicityBook.com. (Another patternistic component of these incidents, as it so happens, such as when I experience book synchronicities while reading books about synchronicities ...)

But wait, there's more!

When I opened the scanned image in my photo editor, to crop it for this very blog post, I was met with yet another number-repeat, now in the scanned file's timestamp, as a Sundae-topping cherry of sorts.

Upon seeing the cluster of numbers on the bumper stickers, I'd smiled. Upon seeing the file's timestamp, I laughed (which, it felt, seemed to be the point of that little footnote, as if some force wasn't satisfied until getting that response ...).

More Definitions

I've made several "definitions" posts, as to keep the world abreast on the latest types of synchronicities to ping my radar. And, as of a couple days ago, I now have a new one to define.

First, some preliminary definitions.

A "Compelling" -- when I am intuitively urged to do something, often of an illogical, unnatural, or seemingly counterproductive nature (but that turns out to be beneficial in the end). Example: when I was once Compelled to stay put in my car after parking, only a split second before a bicyclist stormed past my driver's side, from my blind spot, as to occupy the space that would've been filled by my door.

A "Repeat Number" -- when I repeatedly see a specific number (or its shuffled-up variants, such as 173 or 317 instead of 137), typically in improbable, provocative, or otherwise conspicuous ways. Example: encountering an overwhelming number of cars with license plates containing the repeating number, and in independent, unsought-out ways, as to establish an objective and validating factor to the incidents, thus ruling out subconscious bias like selective perception or subconscious suggestion (such as, for instance, randomly stopping to let a car pull in front of me, only to reveal its repeat-number-bearing license plate -- and, typically, many, many times within the course of a day, as to be astronomically unlikely).

A "Receipt Synchro" -- a variant of the Repeat Number, in which I will receive a receipt bearing a repeat-number, often in such a patternistic and conspicuous manner that, also, precludes some type of subjective or psychological bias. Example: randomly going into a store, without planning on it, and then buying an equally random and unplanned selection of goods, only to find the receipt riddled with the repeat-number du jour (and, typically, with other randomizing factors that make the appearance of the number even more unlikely, such as, say, buying a random piece of produce that weighs in at .173 pounds and, thus, ups the total to exactly $11.73, when I Just Happened to check out at exactly 1:37 PM, after Just Happening to get in a long line that held me up such that I would check out at exactly that time and not 1:38, all perhaps after being Compelled to go into the store in the first place -- etcetera).

A "Litter Synchro" -- when I randomly pick up a piece of litter, only to find it to be somehow synchronistic. Example: picking up some unused napkins to throw away, only to find myself developing a mysterious and spontaneous nosebleed just minutes later, to be plugged with the fortuitously found napkins (and, again, perhaps with some illogical and troublesome Compelling thrown in the mix, such as having to go out of my way to pick up the napkins, as happened with the nosebleed incident in question).

And, now, I introduce the newest addition to my synchronistic lexicon: the "Compelled, Number-Repeating, Receipt-Litter Synchro." (No, it's not a handy-dandy new gadget you can get for a limited time at only $199.95 if you call now!!!)

This incident was just as it sounds. While walking down a supermarket aisle, minding my own business, I was Compelled to go out of my way and pick up a stray piece of litter, which turned out to be a receipt. After a second Compelling (did I mention I was late for an appointment, and had absolutely no time for messing with litter?), I unfolded the receipt and read it over, only to be met with the predominant repeat-number for that day, 37. And then, a couple lines down, there was a 73. Then, another one.

On it's own? Yeah, it could've been chance. However, after the past precedent of the dozens upon dozens of prior incidents, all of similar pattern and nature ... unlikely. In any case, it was something of a synchronicity salad, I felt.

A Good Day for a Duck (or, An Introduction to Animal Symbolism)

"Animal symbolism" is an old and complicated concept. It goes by many names ("animal totems," "power animals," "augury," "omens"), and is associated with any number of belief systems and traditions, with countless cultural and subjective spinoffs from each, all anywhere from closely similar to wildly different. So, when folks talk about "animal symbolism" and the like, there's no telling just what is being referred to, since the term covers as many hugely varying ideas as there are people to discuss them.

It is for these reasons that I have, until now, avoided the subject.

But, I can't anymore. These days, I've experienced it so much, and for so long now, that I've, first, determined that there is, beneath all the fluff and superstitions that have become attached to it over the millennia, indeed something to the idea (and with enough certainty to satisfy the relentlessly skeptical part of myself that I retain in order to ensure that I'm not deluding myself). And, second, I've just recently had several incidents that have been coherent and consistent enough to establish both a distinct definition and a pattern of action. Namely, my "animal symbolism" synchronicities will, typically, involve a series of notable, statistically unlikely, or otherwise conspicuous encounters with a given animal (or, alternately, with the underlying archetype of a specific "animal," such as, say, repeatedly seeing images of alligators, or signs reading "gators," or meeting several "gator-like" people, etc).

Case in point: the urban ducks.

This exemplary incident of animal symbolism spanned several days, earlier this month, beginning at a hotel on the outskirts of Charlotte, NC. The hotel was pretty ordinary, a middlebrow Best Western in a big plaza of middlebrow hotels, in a big strip of equally button-down medical offices and shipping warehouses and other industrial architecture, all alongside a bustling seven-lane highway. That is to say, this hotel was, in a word, urban, smack dab in the middle of your stereotypical concrete wasteland -- the last place you'd expect to meet any wildlife, much less a duck.

Yet, it was there that my first symbolic duck crops up.

Though, I didn't just see a duck in the vicinity of the hotel. No: the duck was directly in my path upon leaving the hotel, forcing me to take note lest I trip over the thing. As it were, I'd parked my car around the side of the hotel, in an odd, out-of-the-way spot in order to ease the loading of my stuff; and it was there that I encountered this first duck, waddling casually past my self-made parking space, the only other living thing in the area. So unexpected was the sight, I stopped and did a double-take, and then stopped a second time, looking around for a fountain or pond or an overturned duck-crating truck.

There were no ponds or fountains, though. Not that I saw.

(Here, I should note another, book-type-recurrence synchronicity that occurred in conjunction with this one: less than an hour after encountering this hotel-duck -- my first ever, as it were -- I read randomly in a book of a hotel with a resident duck, also in classical patternistic fashion.)

The next duck comes a few days later.

For this one, I'll summarize: another stray duck in an urban landscape where you'd not expect to see anything more than a roach, much less waterfowl. This time, the encounter occurred at a similarly urban-wasteland convenience store, and our meeting was even more conspicuous: as I was emerging from the store's jangling door after paying for gas, there was a mother duck, waddling down the sidewalk with her chicks, directly in my path. In fact, "directly" is, again, a poor description, for this cluster of ducks was right there, precisely as I emerged, dead center in front of me, once more forcing me to stop and give pause lest I trip over this creature.

Had someone been standing by with a duck-box, trying to time the duck's crossing with my exit from the store, they couldn't have done a better job.

The last duck appeared only the next day, as if to ensure my attention.

It was the same as the last two, and as conspicuous, except this time I was in my car, driving through a parking lot. The lot was big, and totally concrete, and every bit as urbanized and un-duck-friendly as the last two environments -- yet, there was a lone duck, in the midst of it all like the proverbial sore thumb, and waddling directly in the middle of the lane I was driving down. Again, I had to stop in my tracks, now to avoid running over my symbolic animal. There, in view of a busy Starbucks and a strip mall of shops and restaurants, I idled patiently in my car, watching this third duck-that-should-not-be ... be. (And, it bears mentioning: I'd felt Compelled to enter the parking lot from this way, against all reason and logic and convenience, passing up the prior entrance and, instead, pulling into one farther down, which forced me to cruise the length of the lot and, thus, encounter the third duck in my little trifecta.)

What's it all mean? That, unfortunately, is hard to say. However, after three conspicuous, patternistic, highly improbable duck encounters, all within a matter of days ... I find it unlikely that the local duck population has been conspiring against me.

Intuition Is Real

I'm an intuitive kind of guy, it would seem. And, lately, this "skill" has been a little more active than in the past, as to warrant sharing.

First, a few months ago, I started seeing a pattern in my parking: wherever I would park, however randomly, I would find myself confronted with certain, repeating numbers on the license plates of neighboring cars (or, alternately, on a bumper sticker or other adornment). Now, my repeat-number drama is another phenomenon I've made some noise about, but the parking-space thing lent a new, intuitive dimension to it. The pattern goes like this: I'll be strongly and distinctly Compelled to park in a certain spot, and these Compellings will, almost without fail, land me squarely behind a license plate bearing one of "my" numbers (usually the number-repeat du jour). And that's how it goes as of late, again and again, such that, within the last few months alone, I've had it happen dozens of times, to the point of it becoming as common as the wind.

This particular flavor of the phenomenon is, admittedly, a tad murky, since you'd have to be me for such hard-to-convey subtleties like the Compellings and the conspicuous number-repeats to really have an impact (that is, seeing these numbers dozens of times over the course of a day, every day, for years on end, and always in nearly identical fashion). But, still, I found its mention appropriate to this post.

I dunno. Maybe someone will find this part notable (after all, I'm sure I'm not the only one experiencing this stuff).

* * *

Anyway. Moving along.

As for the second recent trend in my intuitive adventures, this one's a tad more somber: predicting the behavior of my fellow motorists. Or, rather, their rash, mortally dangerous behavior.

This hair-raising variant of my intuitive Compellings has popped up infrequently over the years, always in the gravely conspicuous fashion in this post's first link. However, unlike other kinds of synchronicistic phenomena I experience, these near-mishaps have, thankfully, been few and far between -- until last month, when I got two "near misses" within weeks of each other, both of them almost exactly alike.

The first was on 2/15, when I was stopped at a little four-way intersection within the parking lot of a large shopping center. I came to the intersection, stopped, waited ... but when my turn came up, something inside me said, "Stay" -- another Compelling, impossible to describe but no less striking. So I stayed. Then, a split-second later as I watched a truck approach the intersection, I had a second stirring, hot on the other's heels: that truck wasn't going to stop.

Well, the truck didn't stop. It sailed right through with barely a pump of the brakes, penetrating the exact space that my car's driver's side would've occupied had I gone through (as was logical and legal and totally "normal" to do). And need I mention that there was zero indication of the truck's murderous behavior beforehand (nor enough time for me to react even if there had been) ...?

And then, on the 29th, two weeks to the day, it happened again.

Another mini-intersection in a shopping center's maze-like parking lot. Another insistent Compelling to stay put when my time came to proceed. Another car barreling through the four-way stop, precisely as I somehow knew that it would (despite having no business of knowing such). And, of course, this all happened with no outward, logical indicators that would've allowed me to predict what was coming, even on a deeply subconscious level (or, again, to have time to react, with everything transpiring within a second or less).

This time, the only differences were that this car didn't even slow down, and that part of my Compelling was that it would not only blow through the stop sign but swerve through (which it did). Oh yeah, and this time, I wasn't in a car, but instead on my moped (which, for those unfamiliar with mopeds, are no match for any car, especially not a demonic minivan swerving by at speed).

* * *

My latest intuition was of a different, less-"Oh my God!" kind, and did not involve a motor vehicle in any capacity, parked or intersection-ignoring or otherwise.

This one involved food.

Umeboshi plums. The Japanese are fond of these, or so I've read. Ever heard of umeboshies? I hadn't, not until I happened across them at the health-food store.

Long story short: I saw this curious concoction, and was instantly seized by another Compelling: buy this stuff, and eat it. I read over the plums' Asian-character-marked packaging, looking for some possible reason why I should be interested in an odd ethnic food from an ethnicity that I cannot claim. And then, after I saw the plums' outlandishly high price ($35 and some change for a teeny little bottle), I reread the box, thinking I'd missed where the umeboshi will clean my house or cure cancer or do something to justify their cost. But, nothing other than nutrition facts and some optimistic marketing jargon.

My Compelling, however, remained unfazed: get the plums, ridiculous price or not.

I bought the plums.

Once again, I'll summarize: within a day after eating one of these zesty, salty little plums, I felt different. Better. My health is not what it could be; specifically, my digestion. And that's just what the plums seemed to address: my digestive issues, and the many systemic symptoms that result therefrom. I let myself get excited, but only a little; after all, my improvement could've been coincidence, if not outright placebo (despite my having no notion that the plums would improve my digestion, conscious or otherwise). So I experimented, noting the specific improvements that seemed to implicate the plums, and when/if they corresponded with my eating the stuff.

The improvements did correspond, without question. And the benefits continue to this day.

One thing bears mention here: my digestive woes were not a recent thing, nor something that I hadn't tried to address in the past. As it were, I've tried many, many, many remedies, from supplements to radical diets to yoga and special exercises to herbs and unguents and foul-tasting spices, all the way to fringe experimentation either too obscure or personal to expand upon -- without noticeable improvement. But then, from out of nowhere, I'd blindly bought this unfamiliar, expensive imported food, going on nothing but a classic "gut feeling" -- and it worked. (Though, as some after-the-fact research has pointed out, my results are not surprising, for umeboshi plums are traditionally known as a highly effective digestive remedy (known to the Japanese, at least -- and, it would seem, to whatever hidden force lay behind my intuitions).)

And, for what it's worth: umeboshi tastes damn good. I like to mix it with something sweet and savory, myself. Bonus.