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Synchronicity & Brain Hemisphere Communication
As creatures of Reason, our greatest skill is making up reasons. They do not, however, always employ Reason™, in the Platonic sense. They are more like justifications. I am coming to believe that this is where the internal monologue comes from. To fully eliminate making justifications to oneself and others, you must be always acting according to your best (”best possible”): in other words, you must yoke intention and action. When action is fully intentional and authentically felt and understood, there is no need for excuses - that is another word people use to describe this sort of thing. Maybe that is all the ego is: a big bundle of excuses that just echo and echo into habits and patterns until those patterns become so complex they begin to take on aspects of self-hood; they become semi-conscious autonomous complexes. I think this is what Jung meant by the term.
I know I am going to have to simplify all this for later delivery, but the only way I can do that (I should say, “At this time, it is my presupposition that…”) is by talking all of it through first. But maybe that is just me resisting changing old patterns. Probably. See, this isn’t even what I was going to talk about.
What I wanted to talk about was what happens in this video. I am trying to eliminate some of the spaciness in my writing, but it is a challenge (”gradually daily”).
It’s a short video about a man whose corpus callosum was cut. This is the fleshy part that connects the two hemispheres and facilitates communication between the two (most people are not using this optimally). In certain cases of epilepsy (haven’t heard which, quite yet), they cut this tissue to counteract the uncontrollable quality of seizures? I don’t quite understand the specifics, but this video shows a man who, during tests, looks at two images: one in each eye, each of which travels to a separate side of the brain. The one that goes to the language part of the brain, this image the man can easily name. The other image he does’nt “know” what he has seen. He literally does not “see” it. Watch specifically for the part with the wheel and the car…
What happens is that his right eye (left brain: language center in majority of population) sees an image of a wheel. And his left eye (right brain: “unconscious” side, ie it does not communicate in spoken language - but it does communicate) is shown an image of a car. When asked to draw with his left hand (right brain) what he saw, he draws the car. When asked verbally what he saw, he says “wheel.”
This to me is just about the perfect explanation of why and how the “23 phenomenon” works, or for that matter just about any synchronicity. I feel like people who subscribe to more mystical “explanations” of things of this nature may not like the hypothesis I am about to put forth. But since it is a hypothesis, the point is to test it and re-test it under different circumstances, pick it apart and break it down. Or at least that is how science works though. And honestly, I think the best types of mysticism, that’s all they are: science. Do this and this other thing happens. Very simple. It’s a cause effect truth exchange.
But anyway, my theory to explain synchronicities is basically this: you become, for a time, consciously fixated on a complex of interlocking words, images, etc. During that time, you will have certain innerly held images which begin to present themselves in the world at large, as if by magic. The world becomes like a magic mirror for the contents of your mind. At times it can be so strong of an effect as to be quite overwhelming and undoubtedly the cause of many a nervous breakdown.
Perhaps whatever happens in synchronicity is something *like* (analogous to?) what is happening with the patient in the video above. One “conscious” part of his mind (simply meaning nothing more than the language-based part of the mind) sees one image. And the other unconscious (simply meaning not having direct access to the language center) part of your mind sees something else entirely. The effect of seeing a wheel but drawing a car could be somehow analogous to having a conversation with a stranger who oddly brings up a book you’ve been reading all weekend. If that is what synchronicities really are, then that explains so much. It would seem that the time synchronicities begin happening most strongly is during times of your life with heavy symbolic content. That is, times which are rich with imagery and other non-verbal types of human communication. The “unconscious” portion of your mind is good at making associative webs; that is simply its method of file-storage, unlike the linear left brain storage system which keeps things in lines and boxes (the place where they store the Ark at the end of Raiders). It annotates things that occur according, then, to thematic webs which are operating in your perceptual realm. If you have a fairly strong system of symbols in your life (usually they take the shape of people you know and things you surround yourself with…), then your perception will naturally seek out things which match itself, filtering against things that don’t relate. Thus you will start seeing things with 23 everywhere, because your non-verbal (not unconscious) mind is trying to assert communications through to the linear-verbal part/side/whatever. I have my doubts that the *whole* thing splits down a left-right brain hemisphere explanation, but certainly a good lot of it seems to hang very heavily on that within the limited field of my own experiences.
The way to deal with synchronicities then, from what I can see, is to not run off half-cocked because of them thinking that God is speaking to you directly as a person. I mean, he may be, but it takes more than synchronicities to prove this one way or another. Especially if there is even the remotest sliver of truth to the idea that synchronicities are simply a signal of inter-hemispheric brain communication. If that is what they are, it doesn’t take the mystery or importance out of them. Quite the opposite. It gives us tools for exploring them directly and working with them to align our intent and action on all levels within our lives and in all parts of our bodies and brains.
What are these tools, you’re asking? It’s simple. It’s symbols. I’ve been wanting to talk about this for over a week but have been lacking the linguistic components to deliver it quickly and easily to people who are *not necessarily* experiencing inter-hemispheric communications on this scale. So this is my fumbling attempt to rope in another part of my non-linguistic mind, not to make it “conscious” necessarily (because that means something quite different to me now), but to create pathways (muscle memories) for future communication between the two. I had a dream last night with a symbolic chain that is so concise, it almost seems made of language - it is, picture language, rather than verbal). It was me as a woman (Jung’s anima?) holding the red and black notebook I carry (my friend and I refer to these as our “grail diaries”). She held it out to two locked large old wooden doors. From the notebook fired a red beam of light, unlocking the doors and revealing a balcony that juts out over the ocean. In words that is: The new knowledge you’re working on has the power (laser) to open doors (two doors: two brain hemispheres? locked - incomplete communication between the two sides) into a greater view of things (the ocean, the “unconscious” non-verbal mind).
The tool to communicate BACK to the non-verbal mind then, whether you’re trying to respond to sleeping dreams or waking synchronicities in your life: is use concrete objects as symbol chains to communicate back. Tell it both that you got the message, and in what way you want to modify the filter: that is, what do you want to begin perceiving more of in your experience of life? Because that’s what filters like the number 23, or even simply being in a bad mood do: they tell the non-verbal part of your mind what you want to see more of. Its job is to mimic as best it can the intentions of the verbal instructions it receives, translating them into non-verbal images, symbols, actions, characters and events (the terms in which its vision of reality operates: the “musical performance world-view” we’ll call it for self-referential purposes). So if you can communicate to it directly in the ways that it craves: images and symbols, then you’re going to establish a better working relationship with it: it will reward your investigations with better and richer imagery and allow you to direct it towards the completion of specific tasks which begin with internal images and manifest through the bridge of the body/mind into the world via the actions we take upon it. This is why your non-verbal part of your mind is so damned important: it is functionally closer to the level of concrete existence. But if you’re treating it like a non-entity, a non-exister, “un”-conscious, then yeah you’re not going to get much from it beyond the occasional blast of bizarre coincidences. But if you can get together on good terms, well then, that’s where all the *real* fun begins…
(Next Time: or sometime soon, promoting intent/action harmony through the use of symbolic objects and ritual acts)
August 28th, 2007 at 3:56 am
> you will have certain innerly held images which begin to present themselves in the world at large, as if by magic. The world becomes like a magic mirror for the contents of your mind.
Sounds about right, though I don’t know about the hemispheres thing. It’s like, you’re thinking about someone, and then they call you up… the mind interprets that as powerful juju. I wonder about how this relates to all sorts of other things. Time. The perception of cause and effect. The foundations of science. It feels like a really deep important thread. Creation. ‘A’ did not /cause/ ‘B’ /but/ the two are related. Like a circular bootstrap argument, lifting itself into existence out of nothing.
‘People think time is like a line. But it’s not. It’s more like a sort of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimeyness’ - The Doctor [something like that, anyway!]
August 28th, 2007 at 4:09 am
Yeah I don’t necessarily think it is solely a hemispheric thing, but I was hoping it would be a useful analogy to help us find a more accurate one. What I guess I ended up getting at here is: why do we notice synchronicities, which is another question entirely to “why do they happen?” If that is, they happen at all outside of our awareness of them happening?
August 28th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Tim, So what does your right brain think of synchronicities?
August 28th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Tim,
I think God does give you messages. I think its good to nail down what isn’t a message from God and what is, probably you could have instances where your mind plays tricks on you, and things actually that are a message.
Speedbird,
I think that when you think of some one and then they call you, its an example of “non-locality” that is somehow, you tap into each others consciousness from wherever you two are in the world. For example, I was with my mother at the airport recently and she was keeping her cell phone turned off. Occasionally she would check it and always when she did she had just gotten a message. She said “ooh, I must be psychic” actually she is. I am too. Maybe everyone is.
But anyway, I work here and am on the computer, then I go do something and whenever i have written somthing on my blog or a message board, and someone responds, I know. My explanation is that space/time is an illusion that part of my consciousness transcends. I am simply open to signals from this consciousness. People with a materialistic model of reality probably have these signals too and block them out.
I am prescient too, but my symbolic language I use to forsee events is not well developed or somthing. I know somthing signifigant is about to happen but I don’t know exactly what. Like this past weekend I was driving my sisters car with my Mom, Sister and my niece and Nephew, and we were going from Newhampshire to New York. I knew somthing was going to happen related to my driving the car, that would get an emotional reaction out of everyone in the car, I couldn’t tell what it was. I could feel the emotional aspect though. The picture I had in my mind was the car driving over a highlighted section of road. What the hell could that mean? I thought maybe it meant I would have to hit the breaks or skid and have a near miss or somthing, but everyone would be ok. But the mental picture was not clear.
So anyway, I was nervous, and driving slow, because the roads were windy. Then I was driving down a big hill on a straightaway on a new section of road and then I got pulled over and got a ticket. Everyone had the emotional reqction I felt ahead of time. Then after I took off i could relax it had passed.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:55 am
http://hypgnosys.blogspot.com/2007/08/this-is-strange-picture.html
synchronicity.
and things have been disappearing form my apartment recently.
small things. a flashlight. a t-shirt. irritating.
and when i posted the picture of the bvm something wonderful did happen, not more than an hour after i posted the picture.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:05 am
So what I am saying is, I think our minds are hooked up to somthing really big and powerful and that our puny left brain has trouble verbalizing it. When our left brain filters too much out Its like some manager guy that isn’t good at his job and wants to discount others contributions, because he gets intimidated by them. “Oh, that’s just some insignifigant thing….I am not sure what it is…but there must be a perfectly rational
I think the goal is to have a high level of integration between the left and right brain, have amazing visions and understand their real world value and be able to verbalize them and bring them into existence. That looks like the track you are on Tim.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:12 am
I don’t know what the hell I did above but part of me knew somthing was wrong. I got a signal that somthing about the post was not right. I thought i was getting a signal that maybe I was being too intense or not personable enough so than I threw that little sentence on the end “That looks like the track you are on Tim.”
You know, like a little pleasantry? Because I get signals to do that stuff.
but that still wasn’t it, so stubbornly, I hit submit anyway. Looks like I screwed the code up.
See what I mean? There is all this communication going on, but I don’t translate it accurately, and not only that, all the parts of my brains don’t get along and even get passive aggressive with each other.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Not sure: nothing? It doesn’t “think” in that way at all. It instead notates things that are important, and then links them to other things it “thinks” are important…?
Without having a meaningful way to sort all that out, we are very much stuck.
Yes, what is being exposed is a faulty assumption about separateness and identity. Reality itself is not being busted.
August 28th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Well, I don’t know hat you mean about reality being busted but I don’t think “non locality” means we are all one. I disagree with the Buddhists on that.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
I had a long dream and all elements fo the dream have come true so far. The one I tried to manipulate changed on me. I thought a woman would accuse me of trying to steal her man and chase me down a hallway. I became convinced that I knew the man and took what I considered subtle steps to reassure both his wife and a female coworker of ours that, no way, not my type. (He’s the man who’s name my Mom saw float across her field of vision in a previous comment. He’s a gay married Alpha Male so way too screwed up for me.) The moment passed and what happened? I left to spend the weekend with my best friend. I just happened to take the same commuter train her husband took. When she picked us up we ignored her suggestion to cross the street where she wanted us to cross at and made her circle around and she was steamed for a day in a half. The images in the dream were flexible enough to allow for both events. Sneaky dream weavers!
August 28th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I went backwards and read the comments section first. I don’t do dream imagery well but “those” dreams happen when I get dipped in water. I’ve always thought this is why people created baptism. The “big dream” I referred to above happened after people walked me through a watery park, through a temple and into a pool. They had to relax me to get me to go into the water then they changed the pool into a kiddie pool but I kept trying to avoid drowning. When I couldn’t take it anymore the dream stopped. I thought this was just my dream imagery but I read someone else’s discussion of her dreams and she saw cityscapes of people in pools. When I read this I thought that this was a way that “they” could create the future.
In another dream I was allowed to see some sort of mechanism behind this but it can’t be explained. I’ll have to see something related to this and use that as an example. Since I bucked so hard and got myself out of the water the next time it happened I was led to believe that I was in a sort of submarine on a couch. The water was drained from the chamber I was supposed to go into (so I felt safe) and I saw what I was supposed to see.
You’re hitting super wow territory with an ocean. Good thing you don’t have a problem with water (hee, hee, hee.)
August 28th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I love how simple but also completely neologized that sentence is. It’s like out of a scifi novel.
I have also been ritually putting my head underwater three times at the completion of every bath for the diminishment of that as a fear I have had since being a child.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
From my perspective you already drowned a few months ago and you already survived so it’s ok. It won’t happen because it already did, it’s finished, you just didn’t notice when you died because you were too caught up in the emotions of what was happening. If you interpret emotions as water then you died from drowning in emotions and were reborn. You were born from a theoretical life totally connected to another person to a life in the physical world. I didn’t mention it because I though you knew.
Now, take that ocean and hit it against some territory.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Oh yeah, I knew. Or I know rather. Not so much at the time though. Now I am floating in a little boat on top of it: walking on water. Stepping out without sinking.
Coast line coming up!
August 28th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/08/21/crossin-bridge-to-holy-grail-brb/
August 29th, 2007 at 3:03 am
> when you think of some one and then they call you, its an example of “non-locality” that is somehow, you tap into each others consciousness from wherever you two are in the world.
Personally I don’t think it’s quite that esoteric. But neither do I think it’s as mundane as ‘coincidence’. It’s more about how people think, and what counts as significant. Which when you dig into it starts to look /really/ bizarre. Like, a very simple explanation with huge and unexpected ramifications.
At first it looks like your thinking about the other person caused them to ring you. But maybe their ringing you caused you to think about them ringing you: cause and effect reversed in time. Or did their ringing you cause the subliminal thought ‘they might ring me’ to become significant? Like Schroedinger’s cat, the thought bimbled around your brain for a while in an unresolved state, and would have been dismissed without being remembered except for the coincidence of your being rung. The phone rings and your brain opens the box, and discovers that the thought ‘they might ring me’ is alive and well. The interesting question is: where did the half-thought, the hypothesis ‘they might ring me’ come from?
> I knew somthing was going to happen related to my driving the car
I’ve heard this off loads of people. Where they suddenly feel they’re going too fast, so they brake, and round the corner there’s like a tree across the road or something. There’s a really famous example with a racing driver who avoided a crash for reasons he couldn’t explain at the time… later, photographs of the scene revealed that the crowd were all looking the wrong way as this guy came into the grandstand (i.e., not at him, at the pileup round the bend) and he realised the problem entirely subliminally and slammed on the anchors.
Subliminal awareness of someone about to ring you is harder to explain. But one could imagine shared brain patterns triggered by some external stimulus that gets each party thinking about the other. Non-locality? Or one cause, two simultaneous effects? Or is that the same thing?
It’s like, when there’s two people, between them they can drag an idea out of the ether, give it a name. This has dark magic overtones. But it also reminds me of a verse in the gospel of Thomas.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
speedbird,
I sense certian peoples whole energy signature, when they comment on my blog or leave a message in my inbox. Its almost like i can smell them. I am very in touch with the energy signatures of anyone in a room I am occupying.
So in that sense I think its non locality in terms of the space dimension. The time dimension in terms of cause and effect is harder to gauge but In the case of an e-mail. My impression is I have an e-mail from so and so and I feel their energy and I check and there it is.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
The thing with the car trip was before any of us got in the car. So subliminal signals are out of the question on a weird impression I got a few minutes before driving for five hours.
But its good to really study these variables like you are doing.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
the flashlight and the t-shirt haven`t re-appeared either.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
OK, you twisted my arm, I have to tell you my disappearing stuff story. I’ll try to shorten it. I had a dolly (a metal pushcart with small flat base that reaches up to my shoulder level and that can carry several hundred pounds in case it’s called something else in other parts of the country) and I wedged in under a particle board bookcase while trying to move the bookcase an inch or two. It was impossible to move without destroying the bookcase and by the time I realized that I was too tired to take everything off so I left it there. Every time I ate the thing was staring at me and finally I tuned it out.
One day while sitting at my table I got a strange feeling that someone was at the table with me playing a trick on me about something in that room. Several months later I came home to find my dolly outside in the rain. My landload had borrowed and returned it. I asked my Mother when he had come by to move everything and she replied that he hadn’t, everything was exactly as it had been on the dusty, double stacked, bookcase. I remember seeing him from a distance with a dolly like mine weeks before but thought he had bought one like mine at a flea market because mine was very old.
The next day my landload apologized for having kept it for so long. He just knew that I thought he was planning to keep it forever and he showed me the new one he had bought. He told me that my Mother let him borrow it. She wouldn’t have forgotten that because she would’ve had to tell him, ok but you have to get it yourself, and she know I would have to put everything back on the shelves.
I lived in two apartments in that building and stuff disappeared from each one. Sometimes it reappears, usually not. It happens in cycles.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:02 am
The above should read landlord, not landload. Duh.