How does my phone know?! AIBU to be freaked out by this.

[OuiOuiBonjour]

Yesterday I was driving with my Mum, I live in a small town with barely the basic shops in it as almost everything has closed.

I got stuck in traffic lights for a while.

A woman came out of a beauty salon, evidently to lock up. She was around 12 metres away wearing a very unusual item of clothing. If I'm honest it was a bit bizarre. I have never seen any one wearing anything like it. It was a cross between a puffer gilet and a dress (to her knees), rose gold metallic material and it had some sort of writing emblazoning the edges in a bold bias type tape.

My exact words were,

"I wouldn't wear that but I think Katie would like it. It's very unusual. Do you think it's Victoria's Secret Pink? It looks like the kind of thing I've seen there in America."

My Mum said, "It could be. The writing might say Love Pink but I can't make it out."

My phone (iphone XS) was in the back of my car in a bag. My Mum didn't have hers and it's a dumb phone anyway.

That was the only conversation. The lights changed and we moved after a minute or so.

Just now, here on MN, I've had an advert for the exact item. From an Italian Designer Website I have never heard of and is definitely not a mainstream company (and definitely not VS Pink). It's an item of clothing that will never be mainstream. I've never seen anyone wearing it on Instagram or the like so it's not like it's suddenly being worn by influencers and that's why it's on my phone as it's popular.

I saw it with my eyes. My phone was inside a bag. I never said "Rose Gold Metallic Puffer Gilet Dress with bold writing on" - I had no need to describe it. If I'd had received ads for VS pink I would have understood. I didn't google afterwards to find out where it was from, I totally forgot about it until now.

But it's like my phone saw what I saw. But it can't have...so how did it know?!

Recently I also had the thought "I would like to try an Improvisation class". Literally just a thought. None of my other hobbies are remotely related to that. I didn't google it. I didn't speak about it out loud. It was just a thought in my head. The next day I was getting targetted ads for part-time Improv courses and classes in a city 2 hours away.

AIBU to be freaked out and wanting to ditch my phone?

@OuiOuiBonjour

No it's not a consumable item and it's quite rare even for a van.
I don't use the van. I was actually checking up on one of my teams from afar -concerns about their work rate- and one of the issues was clearly that they faff around too much in the back of the van and certain objects were hindering them. That van is already racked out and I just thought they could do with an X in there too.

Hadn't done a thing to move that forward yet and personally haven't been with in 50M of that van for months...

Add for X 2 days later...

@SukiPook

You're experiencing sychronicity (as defined by Carl Jung). It's can't be just from phones hearing us. Happens me all the time, one example would be having a conversation about something and then 10 mins later someone on tv having the exact same specific conversation. I don't know the cause but suspect it'll turn out to be something later easily explained by quantum mechanics, e.g. entanglement, and perhaps because the universe is (as is suspected) holographic in nature. I'll give you an example..

I was in the kitchen having a conversation with my sis years ago. My videotape of the film Eraserhead was sitting on the counter. My sister picked it up,looking at the cover.

"What's this film about anyway?"

"Oh it's really weird, David Lynch's first film... there's this alien baby, it's sick and it keeps crying, it's really freaky" (words to that effect)

So then I walked into the living room, started flicking round the channels. I shouted to sis "There's some Kiefer Sutherland film on 2".

So I'm watching it and a few mins later am screaming "Get in here, quick!" to my sis. Why?

Kiefer Sutherland's character is in the kitchen with his wife. She picks up THE VIDEO OF ERASERHEAD off the kitchen counter. (It is identical... same cover, price tag stuck in the same corner) .

She says: "What is this film about anyway?"

Kiefer Sutherland's character replies with the same reply I gave.

Then the film continues as normal. Myself and my sister are stunned. We've both experienced lots of synchronicities beforehand, but ones you could easily write off. This one feels ridiculous. Like we have just acted a scene in this reality and then the characters inside our tv scene immediately act out the same scene. What the hell?

I always think, ok, it must be holographic then, all the information contained in every part of the whole. And I know time isn't actually linear, that space-time is somehow an illusion, and that what we see in the universe is dependent on the observer. Still.... seems weird AF. Same when you get ads for what you're just thinking about.

No wonder people get paranoid and think they're being bugged etc (and of course,phones could well be doing that too),but I do think it's helpful to remember we don't know everything yet and there will be a perfectly rational scientific explanation for this, even if it's weirder and more wonderful that we currently know about.

I prefer the data swap explanation.

I had to drop out Philosophy elective in first year of university. I became too freaked out and anxious by the whole Plato's Cave Allegory thing and spent the whole time wondering if life was real or a hallucination/holograph.

[quote Watchingyou2sleezes]@OuiOuiBonjour

No it's not a consumable item and it's quite rare even for a van.
I don't use the van. I was actually checking up on one of my teams from afar -concerns about their work rate- and one of the issues was clearly that they faff around too much in the back of the van and certain objects were hindering them. That van is already racked out and I just thought they could do with an X in there too.

Hadn't done a thing to move that forward yet and personally haven't been with in 50M of that van for months...

Add for X 2 days later...[/quote]
Synchronicity innit?

I recently had an experience like this. I bought a kaftan from an outdoor market in Majorca. Later that evening I had an advert for the exact same kaftan while scrolling the daily Mail!

@OuiOuiBonjour
Synchronicity,
Obviously,😂😂
25 years of buying vans and I've never specced said device, never mentioned it to anyone and 2 days after thinking "they need an X" an ad for an X shows up. 👀👀😮.

I do have 5 vans in another business where an X comes as part of a very specialist racking system, that's the only reason I know that an X exists.
Got best part of another 50 vans none of which (currently) have an X.

Makers of X are going to be happy to hear from me next week,this electronic mind-reading witchcraft has done the job, I'm getting some Xs fitted.

[quote Watchingyou2sleezes]@OuiOuiBonjour
Synchronicity,
Obviously,😂😂
25 years of buying vans and I've never specced said device, never mentioned it to anyone and 2 days after thinking "they need an X" an ad for an X shows up. 👀👀😮.

I do have 5 vans in another business where an X comes as part of a very specialist racking system, that's the only reason I know that an X exists.
Got best part of another 50 vans none of which (currently) have an X.

Makers of X are going to be happy to hear from me next week,this electronic mind-reading witchcraft has done the job, I'm getting some Xs fitted.[/quote]
You may have your Xs but will you have enough fuel for 50 vans soon? I'm genuinely worried for you!

I've heard someone saying this about their phone recently, that it does listen and that they've received specific ads based on what they thought were throwaway conversations with acquaintances.