Mark23

Imagine you are sitting somewhere during the day, perhaps in the office or at home on the computer, and a song enters your head - one you haven't heard in quite a while. You mentally take a note of the song and the fact that you haven't heard it in a while.

Later that night you are having a cup of tea watching television when an advertisment comes on and what do you know? That song you hadn't heard in ages is playing in the background. Even more conincidental a scenario involves someone putting the radio on only to find the same song playing on a certain station.

Other occurences involve the sudden remembrance of a friend that perhaps you hadn't seen in quite a while, only to find them telephoning you later that same day. Or maybe you have dreamt of a certain place only to discover yourself visiting that same place in real life.

Now, my question is, what do you make of all this? The skeptics of the crowd will contest that it is merely coincidental and not to be dwelled upon - that of the sheer amount of thoughts entering your head each day it can hardly be surprising that we find a few matches between these and what happens in the real world.

Then there are the people who believe they are actually premonitions of the future - that somehow you are able to receive some form of telepathical transmission concerning places you are about to visit. Some people will even go so far as to say that dreams fortell the future, and that is their main purpose.

If anyone has any of their own stories to add then please feel free to tell them and let me know what your stance is on this rather peculiar phenomenon.

Ch'i

I'm starting to think that time is not linear at all, we only percieve it at such. If that's true, then it could be possible that our mind can pickup on stuff like that. I'm still pretty sure stuff like what you're describing are coincidences though.

Sugarmouse

these sorts of thngs happen to me a lot and often make me wonder..i always think its supernatural..and ihave also pondered the linear time thing ...

i have read books recently about people who have lost loved ones..and this sort of thing crops up a lot..people hearing their lost ones' favourite song everytime they turn the radio on,or on a jukebox or whatever...strange.

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Zyr

Most likely, in my opinion, is that it's just a conincidence. You only dwell on these particular events because of the coincidence. If it hadn't happened, you wouldn't give it a second thought. After all, how many times have you thought of a song you haven't heard in a while, and it doesn't come on the radio? How many times have you thought of an old friend and they haven't rung you later that day? Every time that stuff happens, you think nothing of it, so when something a little wierd happens, you think it's coming out of nowhere.

With the shear number of thoughts you have in a day, it's not really surprising.

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"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

ironman

I don't know what it is about, but i have to tell you that those moments make life wonderfull

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Bittertalker

I guess it is one of those things, like a koan or rhetorical question. How many coincidences must there be before a connection is made? The simple answer might be something along the lines of well popular songs do appear on the radio and television quite often, but there are those strange times where an idea or message seems to be following you- Perhaps having to do with the subconscious mind. I’ve turned on the radio in the car to find a song on the radio and find it again on another station soon afterwards. Then again I have also listened to literal the same song on three different stations one right after the other. How can I explain that, well it was a popular song at the time- still coincidence or not I can choose to add meaning to that situation and the song. It is strange I stumbled across the same song playing right after it ended on one station, and still as I try to reason it, maybe a part of me wants to see the something behind it.

Zyr

Humans are very good at seeing patterns, even to the point of seeing them, where there aren't any.

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"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

Ch'i

Does imagination cloud our perception, or does it add to it?

Not everything can be beaten with a logic stick, sometimes we need to employ the creative side of our mind to fill in the gaps.

Zyr

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science...you/index.html
http://www.duggmirror.com/general_sc...ing_About_You/ Mirror. The first one might not work.

Very interesting study. Also, quite coincedental given the timing of this topic.

__________________
"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

hiredgun

I think it's more a matter of perception than true coincidence.

People often notice when a digital clock reads 11:11, or perhaps 9:11. They tend to notice these particular digits, and when they see them several times in the span of a few days, often assume it is a bizarre coincidence. In truth, their experience belies the fact that we glance at the clock subconsciously - far more often than we would guess - but only think to remember it when there is something notable about the time it displays.

RCAlyra2004

If you think its supernatural, consider the concept of "hits" and "misses".

Every day I have millions of thoughts. I think about friends, songs, girls, work, and memories of the past. If I get one "hit" a day, (let’s say that I have thought about a friend and they coincidentally call me on the phone at the same moment), I must count the misses before I claim anything extraordinary happened.

The same logic applies to the song played on the radio after have thought about it. I likely have remembered thousands of tunes over the course of weeks before such an event takes place. It really isn't extraordinary in any way at all.

Statistical probability DEMANDS that these types of coincidences are going to happen in our lives.

If you ever notice that you have the ability to accurately predict what is going to be played on the radio that is another thing all together. To my knowledge there has never been a person who has successfully shown that they are able to defeat the odds and prove this is anything more than coincidence.

If you think you might have the ability to somehow beat the odds check out http://www.randi.org/ see if you can win the million dollar challenge. The million dollars has been up for grabs for years now, even the best psychics have never been able to do it.

RCALYRA

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Johnny Rotten

A "natural" explanation would be that, in the first instance, the song was actually playing on the extreme periphery of your hearing. I've done that a few times myself. I start humming or whistling a tune for no particular reason, then I'll realize that it was playing in a store or other location I was just in. I wasn't really paying attention to the music while in the store -- Instead, my mind was on other things, or I was distracted, or I was drowsy because it was the morning (and I'm not a morning person). Music can re-inject itself into the front of your consciousness after getting deposited, even partially, in the back of your mind.

In the first instance, there might also have been a television nearby playing the commercial, or a car radio playing the song as it drove by your window.

Also, as a regular poker player, I can tell you that probability ebbs and flows. Sometimes you'll get a string of "hits" then a string of "misses." It averages out over a sufficient period of time, but as RCAlyra and Zyr note, one tends to remember the "hits." For example, try to remember all the times you've passed under a street light that didn't turn off. You can more easily remember all the times it did, I'll wager. (No pun intended )

Sometimes the hits will be extraordinary. I still vividly remember one Hold'em hand where everyone left at the table (four people) had pocket face cards. And on the other end of the spectrum, through the dozens of times I've played at that table, I have never seen quads (four of a kind).

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Ustwo

Think of all those times you thought of a song and then didn't hear it on the radio later on.

Based on the short play lists these days, odds are if you think of a song at some point that song will be on somewhere where you could possibly hear it.

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Lady Sage

With me it usually happens that I am thinking of a song and hit the scan button on my radio. Nine times out of 10 it will come on before the scan has finished a single cycle of the stations.

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Ustwo

I bet you have never really tested this.

80% of all statistics are made up on the spot

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Dungeon_Shade

One thing that really gets me is that I will often learn a new word or phrase that I have never heard before, and the moment I learn that word, I hear it absoultely everywhere. An example is the other day, I learned what a dipthong is in my speech class. After that class, I read a newspaper, and found the word three times, once in the comics. I listened to conversation, and people kept using the word.

It happens with images, too. I will see a peice of artwork that I have never seen before, and it's suddenly everywhere. Can't tell if it's all coincidence, but it is strange. Anyone else have experiences like this? I hope this is relevant.

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Ch'i

When you are introduced to something new you tend to notice it more. Example; You just recieved a ring for your birthday. The first few weeks you wear it, it has contrast with the way your finger would normally feel. However, after a few months, you can hardly tell when it is, and isn't there. Your experience is more spacial than this, but the idea is similar.

Nimetic

Time is essentially parabolic with some expontial bits and discontinuities - the latter which map to sleep periods.

And yet, strangely, three egg-timers in three different locations will all measure three minutes as being of approximately the same length.

bruno7

I want to share a quote with Tilted Forum Project members...
WE ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS HAVING A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS HAVING A HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

MuadDib

I've had both scenarios happen; where I thought of an obsure song only to turn on the radio to hear it and thinking of a long forgotten friend only to bump into them later that day. These types of events are definately off-putting and give you somewhat of an eerie, supernatural feel. However, I put these types of events into perspective they seem like nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Try to conceive of the number of times you've thought of a song or a person and DID NOT have any experience involving them in a relatively short time span. We think nothing of that non-event, nor should we. However, when the statistically miniscule, yet certain, event occurs where there is a short time span between our thoughts and a related experience it seems like providence. In reality, it is just the statistical certainty that we recall so many memories in the average day that eventually a close-following random experience will be related. No big deal at all, but when it happens we don't think of all the times nothing follows so we perceive it as a bigger deal than it really is.

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surferlove007

I've had similar instances myself while getting into the car a song pops into my head and then I'll turn the radio on it's playing, kind of weird.
Also, when I was younger if I had a dream about something I tended to write it down in an online journal and then maybe a week later, I would look back and it had happened in the same meaning just perhaps a deviated way.
For example: I had a dream about this guy Justin I had been dating and that I found him with another girl and he denied it. I didn't think too much of it, and then a few days after a friend from school told me he was cheating on me. I didn't make the connection until months after when I was going through old entries. Kind of gave me the willies.
I have had instances of deJa vu where I'll get a less than second flash of a place or something happening and then weeks down the road it does happen. Creepy!
So yea, I believe that stuff to an extent.
I've done reading on paranormal stuff in my spare time and have read about "hypersensatives" which are people with a really keen sense of the "spiritual aura" around them, making them more susceptible to such events. My dad told me our family is pretty intuitive when it comes to being able to guess whats going to happen, he does it all the time. He said, I perhaps wouldn't go this far, but we have a bit of a physic ability in our blood.
However due to past experiences I'm tempted to believe it more seriously. Haven't had too much of a recent event happen but they were pretty frequent back when I was in high school, even more so at my old house in GA.

Johnny Rotten

I can probably explain all of those -- not to undermine your beliefs, but to maybe assist you in understanding what might have happened.

The incident with the song can be explained by probability. You were likely thinking of a popular song, and the radio plays popular songs.

With the dream, your premonition may only have been anxiety, backed up by how you saw the two of them behaving. A person's mind often receives information subconsciously, but doesn't immediately process it on a conscious level, especially if the information is subtle and fragmented.

Deja vu is an interesting event, and it can range from coincidence and brain signal echo/delay to actual pre-cognition. But without knowing more details about those events, I can't tell you where they might fall in that spectrum.

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"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine