How many coincidences have you had?

[hedgetrimmer]

In a spectacular show of amazement every day for the past two weeks I've had at least one coincidence.

For example today I was looking up the art of Brett Helquist and found a book titled "Chasing Vermeer".
I went to the library later and as I was checking out one library worker handed to another library worker a book and my wife said hey there is that book, "Chasing Vermeer".

I sat down on the subway one day and my wife pointed to a marking on the chair, we looked and it was my name.

Have you encountered the strange phenomena of coincidence? What are your experiences and what do you think they represent?

[progressoid]

1. I was just going to post a coincidence thread!

WOW

[Swede]

2. Google synchronicity.

It seems when you accept sychronicity the more it will happen.

[Southsideirish]

3. I was dreaming about adopting a cat and my friend called me up regarding

a lunch date to celebrate my birthday. I didn't get to the phone in time to answer it so I just got her message. When we got together a few days later -she gave me my present - a statue of a cat! I've known her for 20 years and she has never given me anything cat-related before.

[Scout1071]

4. Weird. I was just thinking of starting a coincidence thread.

Coincidence?

[hedgetrimmer]

5. Weird. I was just thinking someone was going to respond to get closer

to 1000 posts. You can respond and get a little bit closer. Congratulations.

[Scout1071]

7. What can I say? It's freakishly addictive down the stretch......

Don't know why it matters.....it just does!

[swag]

6. Probabilities

". . . in the specific case of coincidences ... there is an unspecified element, which make s the probbility of coincidences higher than we otherwise might have thought. Although the person is specific (you), we do not specify what kind of coincidence will take place . . . I'm not saying coincidence is common - only that it's not as rare as we think. The reason is that the aggregation of causes happens in so many possible ways that eventually a coincidence becomes unavoidable."

Chance by Amir D. Aczel

[gate of the sun]

8. I've had a lot of coincidences in my life

coincidentally I'm the wife that pointed out those coincidences to you.

One time I was walking through an area where there was alot of clover and i thought to myself "i really wish I could find a 4 leaf clover " and I looked down and there one was.

just one of many......peace

[libodem]

9. A few,

A couple of weeks ago...I went to a girlfriends house and we watched a movie. I was the first time we'd visited in quite awhile. The next day we were walking into the same grocery store at the same time, grabbing our grocery carts. We couldn't have planned it to be that exact if we'd tried. We continued the conversation we were having from the evening before.

[FreedomAngel82]

10. Not too many with me

Just finding various things like finding stuff. I believe that everything happens for a reason and there's no such things as coincidence. :)

[Mnemosyne]

11. There are NO coincidences!! All for a reason. IMO and experience.

[DrDebug]

12. Many times

Synchronicity has happened so often that I sometimes think of it as normal. It started to increased since 1999. It usually depends on how I feel - I don't feel that great today, so it will not be likely on such a day - but in general I happens often.

And if I find something really out of the ordinary than I usually take it serious and try to discover the meaning behind it, because if it was beyond ordinary chance then I do believe it to have happened for a reason.

[bertha katzenengel]

13. Almost daily, and it freaks me every time.

I don't have time to list them. In fact, they're so frequent I can't call a single one to mind right now.

[gardenista]

14. Funny you should ask...

I was just thinking about coincidences.

Here's a weird one for you:

My sister worked at a bank. One day she was doing some big printing job and collating stuff in the conference room. The phone, which normally gets no incoming calls, as it is in a conference room, rang. She picked up.

"Hello, is Mr. ***** there?"

My sister is flabberghasted because this person is asking for her father, who does not work at the bank, and never has. She asks him to repeat it:

"Yes, is Mr. ***** there?" and then another question, "Is this (my sister's name)???? What are you doing there?!"

She says, yes, convinced now that this is a lame practical joke on the part of her co-workers. But she finally recognizes the voice. It's my brother, who, of course, never calls her!

It turns out that the phone system at my dad's organization has been changed, freeing up the old phone numbers, and my dad's old office number is now in her conference room.

Can you imagine how many phone numbers there are in the downtown area of a large city? Very strange coincidence. I guess it was the only way she could get him to call her!

[gizmo1979]

15. There are no coincidences.

[driver8]

16. I had one happen last week....

I dated this woman named Karey a few years ago and for some reason, she was on my mind one day. I had not thought of her in a long time, but could not get her out of my head.

So, I'm sitting at home later that night and watching tv. I flip to a channel and see this woman's face; she looked very familiar. The woman's name was flashed on the screen and it was Karey...I could not believe it.

[Tikki]

17. An amazing coincidence... some years back....

...the company that my husband worked for offered a free family dentist...but it meant driving 75 miles round trip from our Ventura County home down into the San Fernando Valley (the SF Valley covers 464 sq miles and has a population of a million+)

After a trip to the dentist the boys begged me to stop by an In-N-Out for a hamburger...this franchise hadn't made it's way up into our neck of the woods yet, but, there were three or four in the Valley.

Not real familiar with the SF Valley, I wasn't sure but decided that I remembered there might be an In-N-Out a couple blocks over from the dentist's office. I made a couple wrong turns trying to find it..but then I saw the store sign ahead of me. As I was heading down Van Nuys Blvd my oldest son yelled..."STOP MOM, TURN AROUND, GO BACK...that's uncle Larry walking back there."

Larry isn't actually his uncle, but my son remembered him as someone close to the family. We had completely lost touch with Larry. It had been over four years since we had heard from him and we had finally quit asking other's if they knew where to contact him.

I told my son that it just couldn't possibly be Larry, it must be someone who looks like him and that the odds of us seeing Larry walking down the street on this day in huge San Fernando Valley were astronomical.

"If you won't turn back then let me out of the car and I'll walk back there and get my uncle Larry" my son said. So I drove back by... and I guess you know you what was what...

We have never lost touch with him since.

Tikki