Strange Things

[Intoscience]

Just a thread to openly discuss what you might consider strange. Whether that be personal experiences or stories you have heard about, inexplicable coincidences, spooky experiences etc...

For instance,

I have been reading a few novels (paper back fiction) just lately and within those novels some of the details used in the narratives are often based on real events or real places/agencies/people. 

I read 2 books related by author but unrelated by story line. Both are fictional stories, but feature real life details that I had not come across previously. The things I read in each book, one was a place and one was an agency. Both which I had never ever seen or heard or had any idea existed, so never mentioned previously. 

On separate occasions following reading each book I flicked on YouTube to find exactly to the letter what I had read, the exact thing being prominently advertised. Now, I have heard of and witnessed this happening when verbal or electronic discussions are made, where you get advertisements popping up on based key words that have been identified. But on this occasion it really appears that something read my mind!

Now being skeptical on these matters I dismissed it as a very unlikely, but a possible coincidence.

Even so it spooked me somewhat. 

Do you have any similar experiences to share? 

[Genady]

(1) There is a similar thread here: 

(2) Online it happens all the time. As soon as I touch a topic by reading or writing online, the ads and news related to the topic start flowing onto my screen.

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

On separate occasions following reading each book I flicked on YouTube to find exactly to the letter what I had read, the exact thing being prominently advertised.

If the novels you read were by Jane Austen or Dickens, I would find this astonishing. If they're contemporary, however, it may be because the author is familiar with You Tube content - that is, aware of and concerned with the same subjects that are in the public eye.

 

1 hour ago, Genady said:

As soon as I touch a topic by reading or writing online, the ads and news related to the topic start flowing onto my screen

That's just the clairvoyance of AI.  

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

I read 2 books related by author but unrelated by story line. Both are fictional stories, but feature real life details that I had not come across previously. The things I read in each book, one was a place and one was an agency. Both which I had never ever seen or heard or had any idea existed, so never mentioned previously. 

On separate occasions following reading each book I flicked on YouTube to find exactly to the letter what I had read, the exact thing being prominently advertised.

So, to make sure I'm following, this is like I read a novel where some scene took place at Cawker City, Kansas, home to the world's largest ball of string, and then I later opened YouTube and its homepage prominently places a video on this very roadside attraction in Kansas.  Is it possible that, as you read the book, you stopped and did a quick Google search on the place/agency and then forgot you had done so?   Or  mentioned the story element to a friend via social media?  (either that or, as others suggest, the place/agency is trending in popular culture these days and this led the author to use it.  It could have been on previous YouTube homepages you opened and you didn't notice it until you read the novel)

If your example had more specifics, this could be helpful in gauging the degree of coincidence.

[Intoscience]

First, apologies for creating a copy cat thread - Spooky Experiences - I'm more than happy for the threads to be merged if that's ok with the mods and OP of the original thread?

Yes I think my experience is a coincidence, as unlikely as it may have seemed to me though.

The 2 words/phrase that came up in the book are - dark web & antifa. At the time of reading I was completely unaware of either term and definitely never searched either of them ever in the past. In fact I haven't searched either since nor did I click on the ad links to either as displayed on YouTube. So I'm still non the wiser on either of them now.

In answer to your questions - The Vat - I never spoke the words and I never searched either before or after since. In fact writing them in this response is the first time I have mentioned them since reading them in the book. 

What spooked me was that I had not typed or spoke either word, I had read part way through the book and took a quick coffee break at which point I flicked on YouTube (as I often do) and was shocked to see those items right there as the very first adverts. I can't ever recall seeing them advertised beforehand and I have not noticed them since. 

I'm not claiming anything I really do think its a spooky coincidence but I thought I'd share my experience with you all. I just found it very strange and somewhat unnerving at the time.  

Edited July 18, 2023 by Intoscience
spelling

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

The 2 words/phrase that came up in the book are - dark web & antifa.

Both subjects very much in circulation. It's quite possible that you had come across them previously - indeed, it's hard to imagine anyone connected to the communications webs no to have encountered them - but never had reason to focus on them. Ideas and topics, phrases and names, even colour or flavour combinations, circulate in cultures so that almost everyone who shares the culture is touched by them in some way at some time.

There is also thins:

Quote

In psychology, synchronicity is defined as the occurrence of meaningful coincidences that seem to have no cause; that is, the coincidences are acausal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/synchronicity

As for the duplication, be not perturbed.

The other thread is old, and I'm always happy to discuss matters arcane and psychological.   

 

 

[Intoscience]

19 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Both subjects very much in circulation. It's quite possible that you had come across them previously - indeed, it's hard to imagine anyone connected to the communications webs no to have encountered them - but never had reason to focus on them. Ideas and topics, phrases and names, even colour or flavour combinations, circulate in cultures so that almost everyone who shares the culture is touched by them in some way at some time.

There is also thins:

As for the duplication, be not perturbed.

The other thread is old, and I'm always happy to discuss matters arcane and psychological.   

 

 

Yeah, I tend to agree.

nevertheless, when this sort of thing happens you can't help but wonder and its easy to see why it can be spooky. 

On another note I mentioned a while back, possible on your original thread about getting a sense or feeling when certain people's deaths are imminent.

So recapping I have had on a number of occasions as "sense" about someone a day or 2 before they die. It's always been random and it's also often been about people I have little or no contact with previously or for a long while.  Anyhow I was sat working just the other day and I had the "sense" just randomly pop into my head about a person I have only met once years ago. It was a friend's father, the friend which I have lost contact with over the last couple years and I had only once met her father around 10 years previous. Low and behold I had a message yesterday informing me that he had died the day after I had the sensation.

Another spooky episode indeed.

[Genady]

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Yeah, I tend to agree.

nevertheless, when this sort of thing happens you can't help but wonder and its easy to see why it can be spooky. 

On another note I mentioned a while back, possible on your original thread about getting a sense or feeling when certain people's deaths are imminent.

So recapping I have had on a number of occasions as "sense" about someone a day or 2 before they die. It's always been random and it's also often been about people I have little or no contact with previously or for a long while.  Anyhow I was sat working just the other day and I had the "sense" just randomly pop into my head about a person I have only met once years ago. It was a friend's father, the friend which I have lost contact with over the last couple years and I had only once met her father around 10 years previous. Low and behold I had a message yesterday informing me that he had died the day after I had the sensation.

Another spooky episode indeed.

I'd hypothesize that "senses" about that person randomly popped into your head thousands of times before and were forgotten because of having no handle to remember them. But this time the memory of the "sense" is accessible because of the dramatic connection to the real-life event.

[Peterkin]

It's true that memory can be tricky. We recall what seems to us significant for whatever reason - the commonest reason being association with some other idea or event. Seems that thoughts and the noticing of things gain buoyancy as more of them are linked in some way: the larger the association-cluster (if I can call it that without treading on more knowledgeable toes), the more frequently and easily it bobs to the top of memory. Meanwhile a random thought or feeling or observation that doesn't become with linked with an event or person is dismissed, ignored and allowed to sink out of our awareness. 

That doesn't necessarily mean that such random observations are utterly forgotten: sometimes they can be coaxed forth under hypnosis.... But then, they can also become associated with a suggestion from the hypnotist and become distorted.

Minds are weird!

[Genady]

I remember one morning on my way to work in A train shortly before my station a voice of a friend of mine, Alex, suddenly popped in my head. When I got out of the subway, I found myself in the middle of a mess... It was about 9 o'clock on September 11, 2001. The station was WTC. I looked up and saw a huge hole in the upper part of the North Tower. Alex's office was on the 97th floor... 

I was sure he was dead, and his voice kept playing in my head until I finally got home that day and found Alex's message on my answering machine. He missed his train that day and was late to work.

I don't think I would remember about his voice popping in my head if not for these circumstances.

[Peterkin]

I'd call that a fairly spectacular association!