The Oxford dictionary describes “synchronicity” as “the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.”

Wikipedia has a longer definition: “Synchronicity (German: Synchronizität) is a concept first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl G. Jung “to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection.”^[1] In contemporary research, synchronicity experiences refer to one’s subjective experience whereby coincidences between events in one’s mind and the outside world may be causally unrelated to each other yet have some other unknown connection.^[2] Jung held that this was a healthy, even necessary, function of the human mind that can become harmful within psychosis.^[3]“

As a Bipolar 1 woman who was not diagnosed, let alone medicated, until I was 28 years old, my life was full of synchronicity.  I was working as a clerk in Columbia University libraries, cataloging art books.   My family did not “believe” in psychiatry nor in mental illness.  I kept everything secret from them until I could no longer, when I had my breakdown at age 28.  At that point I went for emergency care to the Columbia Counseling Service and was told to stay with my family for a week or go to hospital.  I was lucky enough to be able to go to my parents for a week .  I had begun therapy with the psychiatrist I would wind up staying with until age 74.  But at the time I was all alone.  I had a best friend from grammar school who was living in France at this time.  She and I corresponded every week. We remained close until she died at age 39. I had a few friends at work, but I lived alone and was isolated.  And I became psychotic at times.  Synchronicity ruled my life. Parts of a song on the radio, or a program on the TV, a man singing in the street… they all had special messages for me.  I thought of people in the street as “teachers” for me to learn from and the people who worked with me, as “mystics,” who understood me, and who were trying to train me.

It was exhilarating when the teachers were happy with my progress but terribly depressing when I did wrong.  There were “signs” for me to interpret all over the place.  And at work, I regarded every book I catalogued as something that held secrets to help me get mentally well or learn truths about life. I would do my job faithfully, most of the time, but while doing it, I was on the constant look-out for special messages meant for me.  I did what I called “readings”.   I would find some lesson in each book.  One book I was working on held a special secret about the womb and the egg and the sperm uniting and becoming a zygote.  I pictured the uniting of the egg and the sperm as fireworks.  (Thirty years later, saner and married and actively creating art, and, writing a newspaper column upstate on the side, I created an abstract photograph called “Conception”.)  But in the library, I did what I called “time travels.”   I didn’t talk to people much during this period.  I listened to co-workers and street people, read extensively and deciphered messages.  People would come up to me at work to actually talk to me sometimes, to be nice, I guess, and I would leave the world of the womb, and zygotes or some such thing, and talk to them normally as if I were in their world.  I was not!!

In other words, to put it in professional terms, I was WACKO!

That is all behind me now and fortunately, though I have had some hard times, but they have occurred within the realm of a marriage, to be 35 years long this May. It has offered me the only stability and deep love in my life.  Gone is the world of readings and messages.  Gone is the synchronicity.  Sometimes I miss it but not the craziness that went with it. Now I have more meaningful, everyday experiences of sanity. There are still some epiphanies, but not like the old days.

Before I close I must add, there was at least one incident that was truly synchronicity… that was not delusional… that felt distinctly like a message from God, the Universe.  I was working at my desk and suddenly my scalp felt prickles all over it.  I grew alarmed and so decided to go to the reference room for one of my “readings.”  Clearly this warranted research.  I went to the Reference Room of the library and found a one volume encyclopedia which I pulled off the shelf.  In order for the reading to give answers impartially, I had to open it at random and then put my finger on the page.  So that’s what I did whilst my scalp prickled.  My finger pointed to a picture.  It was a print of Christ with a crown of thorns.   I was stunned.  I felt like it was a message from God.  And to this day I think it was.  It was a message of hope and love. 

Yesterday I wrote to a fellow blogger, Anneta Pinto-Young, at Devotionalinspirations.com, who is a Social Worker and a Christian Minister and recounted this story briefly in response to her post on coincidences in her series on “Hearing God Speak.”  She told me something very wise.  She said that religion and science have always clashed over these type of things.  Sure, I was delusional for much of the time, but I did have occasional experiences like this one.  And, she said, that was God sending me a message of his love and encouragement.  I felt that then and I feel it today.

Maybe I don’t need the secret messages any more.  God’s word comes through friends now and most definitely through my long-suffering husband. 

What can I say but look out for synchronicities and see what message there is for you.