Do you believe the universe can send you signals or is it just a glitch in the matrix?

[GeminiM]

This past week I’ve had to make a difficult decision that will impact my life, not drastically, but something I’ve been mulling over for a number of months has finally come to a head.

Not sure if this is a woo thread, or what. And please feel free to tell me I’m losing the plot.

Since I’ve made the big decision strange coincidences have been happening.

On the day I decided someone I haven’t seen in years randomly sent me tokens in the post that massively relate to the decision I made. Think along the lines of getting a dog and randomly given a dog collar. Not that but you get what I mean, I hope.

Couple of days later I had a meeting with a new person at work. Within 30 minutes of meeting them I had a friend request on social media from some random person with the same name as new colleague. The friend request person said they were just looking to connect with like minded people. They are a spiritualist and healer.

Then I received another out of the blue letter in the post. Only to find out that someone I work with received the same thing. Like a jury summon or such like.

Ive lost the plot haven’t i?

😱

My opinion? Probable coincidence, probable scammer, probable coincidence, in that order. No messages or glitches.

Ah pp you’re killing my vibe 😂I thought I might be getting told something important.

There is a saying 'there's no such thing as a coincidence'. Yes, I believe in signs but don't rely on them anymore to make decisions. I take it more as a little nod from heaven, a confirmation of sorts but wouldn't let them sway me. I think a lot in the spiritual world prey on vulnerability. I am very spiritual but not to the point where I would give my power away anymore, there would be those that put all of their power into signs, cards, etc xx

Sorry 😅 I just want you to be wary of the spiritualist/healer person, because you sound like you could be currently at one of those points in your life where you're particularly vulnerable to a certain kind of dishonest individual.

Thanks for your reply @Rowen32 . Do you think it’s some sort of alignment? I’m not religious, but consider myself a spiritual person. I’d like to think this means I’m doing the right thing.

Ah thank you @ClumpingBambooIsALie , don’t worry the friend request was swiftly deleted when they said we don’t know each other.

Ah great, I'm glad to hear you're just having a wondering moment, rather than being at risk of an emotionally and financially devastating con As you were…

Ye, that's what I always take it as - like someone is saying, you're on course. Before, when I was younger, I would have been looking for signs to tell me what to do but that's all gone now - I make the choice and then if I get a little sign it's a nice 'icing on the cake' :-)

It could be put down to pareidolia where one looks for patterns, I could be synchronicity as described by Carl Jung. I had a spate of the latter a few years ago and it was freaky. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Thing is, there are millions of things that happen to you or pass through your mind during the 30 million minutes or so of your waking life. It only stands to reason that with so many millions of thoughts, decisions and events, every so often you'll get two things happening close together that feel related somehow.

And in the same way as when you drop peas or something on the floor, the random distribution will end up with little clumps here and there rather than resulting in perfectly evenly-spaced items, sometimes you'll get clusters of these coincidences.

Human brains are really terrible at intuitively understanding probability, and also really bad at intuitively understanding really big numbers. Add in the fact that we're wired to look for meaning in things, and you get a strong feeling that something meaningful is happening even when it's random chance.

It sounds a bit like it could be the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (aka new car syndrome): something is on your mind and suddenly it seems like it is everywhere! It hasn't actually started appearing in reality more than it used to; it's just that you have become more aware of its existence.

Ok I will bite. I really loved this song, and when I applied for a certain job I noticed the boss has a very similar name to the singer of the song. The song tells a very specific story with places, details etc. I took the job and the story of the song happened. Was is prophecy? coincidence? The universe aligning?

To me, it doesn’t matter. I believe that magic is woven into the fabric of this universe and that if you open your eyes, it is everywhere. If you have ever studied the Tree of Life, And it’s significance, you will see the Group consciousness, the higher spirit etc. (please have a read I cannot begin to do it justice here). Maybe what you sensed is that group consciousness? Maybe this is how psychics and mediums work too?

The question is, do you want to sit there believing in science and rational arguments or do you want to believe in spirit? Which one do you think will be more beneficial in your life? Your choice.

I doubt it's supernatural but sometimes something can come along at the right moment to cheer you up.

A few years ago we were driving to collect a new rescue cat to bring home. I was fretting to my husband in case something went wrong, catastrophising as I aim wont to do, and then the record 'Don't worry, be happy' came on the car radio, making me suddenly feel much more chirpy.

He's proved to be a wonderful cat and along with his companion, the joy of my life, so the words of the song were very apt.

Synchronicity. If you haven’t already done so, read ‘The Celestine Prophecy’ by James Redfield.

I'm interested in why you think that believing in science and rational arguments involves stodgily sitting there whereas believing in spirit doesn't, and seem to imply that believing in magic is more beneficial. I feel there's a lot of joy and beauty in the world as it is, and as we have discovered it to be through countless human lifetimes of endeavour and inquiry and discovery all around the world, by people from many different cultures and backgrounds and faiths. (Incidentally I don't "believe in" science as a set of facts, more as a method of discovering and understanding the world, which can sometimes lead us into misunderstandings but which ideally is self-correcting, human weaknesses notwithstanding.)

I'm not sure that it's possible to choose what to believe, really. I guess it's possible to choose what ideas to repeatedly expose yourself to, in the hope that they'll begin to feel true to you through repetition. (Seems like self-brainwashing to me, but it seems to work for some people who decide they want to believe in a particular religion for whatever reason.)

I personally don't feel I can choose what I believe to be true. If I hold an orange in my hand, I cannot get myself to believe that when I let go, it'll fall up.

I have an extremely rational job, as far from woo as it is possible to get! But being rational, I know there's just things we can't explain, and it'd be wrong for us ultimately to dismiss them just because we don't have all the information. What you see could be glitches or signs, what do we know? I've had a few things happen to me that are very unusual. I'll keep an open mind as to why they happened, rational or otherwise!

There is also confirmation bias. A happy cheerful person with a positive view if the world will tend to believe random events confirm the positive world view, whereas a negative person would see events as confirmation of their negative view. You’ve seen it on this thread- a couple of people have assumed the spiritual person is a scammer and tgat you are vulnerable, which will be based either on their view of the world or life experience. In fact, spiritual type people very rarely ask for money, if anything they might be karma farming or seeking knowledge. They might possibly be selling some type of spiritual course but this is extremely unlikely.

I believe in messages. I've been on the list for social housing for years. A few months back I had to get some forms filled out by a solicitor and they got my address wrong, it was a house the other side of town from where I lived. A few months later I got an offer of that house from the council . Some might say it was a coincidence but i like to think it was a sign

The universe isn't sending you signals. It's a huge mass of stars, burning rocks, black holes etc, and we are but the tiniest blip. It wouldn't even notice if we were all vaporised by a comet tomorrow. The universe certainly doesn't revolve around the meaning of human life!

Clumping I think you misunderstood ny point- which was; does it matter if it is the universe or coincidence? And if believing that it is the universe makes you feel good, then that can’t be too bad, can it?

I haven't "assumed" the spiritual person is a scammer, it's just that the chance that a "spiritualist and healer" — who you don't know, and who contacted you unsolicited — is looking to prey on your vulnerabilities is high enough that it's worth warning someone who's obviously going through some big changes in life. There's positivity, and there's unnecessarily putting yourself in the path of danger. Even if not financial loss, I also mentioned the risk of emotional harm.

No, I didn't misunderstand your post. You suggested choosing to believe what makes you happy, and implied magic is better for happiness than rationality; I suggested that rationality isn't a barrier to finding the world amazing and said that it isn't that easy to just choose what to believe.

You are of course entitled to believe in magic as much as you like; I'm sure I have some equally irrational beliefs somewhere that I haven't interrogated, since I'm human and all.

I was on the bus on my way to start my (much delayed and much longed-for) university degree where for no reason a character from a film with a slightly ridiculous (in my view) alliiterative name popped up in my mind.

When enrolling it turned out a fellow student had a very similar but even more (IMO) ridiculous name. Think character from film: Kathleen Klonk. Person I met called Kallee Klonk.

I thought it was "a sign,"but I never met Kallee Klonk ever again. She was very nice though, I think I have missed out.

That would mean the universe knows we are here - and cares. The Earth is 4 billion years old. And there has been complex, multicellular life for around half a billion years. Homo sapiens are just a branch of primates that have only existed for around 100,000 years. Eventually, like 99.9% of species, we will go extinct. There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and our galaxy is one of 100s of billions of other galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. When you meditate on all that, the idea that the universe is sending Carol Thompson messages about her driving test seems laughable.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie I love both your username and posts! (sorry about the fangirling)
I only came on to say confirmation bias and someone beat me to it 😳