Co-Incidences

by Sharon Mendenhall

Reality and existence, as we know them, have a mysterious nature, a vagueness that permeates and causes us to question those coincidences that happen ever so often.
Since I was around six years old, I was fascinated by coincidence. I saw it as threads that wove through my life and connected me with other people through incident. And those incidents were many, each more inexplicable, each more intricate. I definitely was the center of my own universe, as we all are, but I could connect myself with anyone else, anywhere else, by just willing it so. Actually it was more like wishing it so, but not even that strong. Sometimes a casual passing whim of a thought was the most effective.
If you think I’m trying to tell you that wishing makes it so, in a sense you are right. I knew I could do it, I’m just not sure exactly how I do it, nor am I the only person who has ever experienced the enigma.

Mark Twain was not only a famous American author, he was also a complex and intriguing personality. Although writing was his profession, it didn’t come easy. He found writing to be very painful, and would consistently put off writing letters because it was arduous for him. In those days letters were the main basis of communication and an absolute necessity.

Eventually, after much procrastination and deliberation, Mark would finally sit at his desk, compose his thoughts, scribe his letter, fold it, place it in the envelope, address the envelope, affix postage and mail it. But he began to notice a curious occurrence happening over and over. Much too often to just be written off to simple coincidence. He would receive an answer before his letter had sufficient time to reach its destination. The letters would cross in the mail.

Mark Twain coined this anomaly ‘Telegraphy,’ and took it very seriously. But, of course, being Mark Twain, the eternal humorist, he would have to play with it just a little, partly because he was fascinated, and partly because he intended to bottle and sell it. So he simply changed the last two items in his normal letter writing routine, he did not affix the postage and then he placed the letter in his desk drawer, feeling the letter was effective whether he mailed it or not. And he could also save the cost of postage.

According to his own writings, he proved himself correct, the letter did not need to be posted. When Mark received the written answer to his un-mailed question, he had a member of his family open the letter and read it silently to themselves while he gave them a verbal synopsis of the contents. The results were astonishing, but like me, Mark knew he could do it, he just didn’t know how. If he had perfected his method, thought mail would now be as common as email.

I’m sure everyone has casually given thought to someone else and almost instantly that other person calls, writes or visits in person. We all can do it. It’s something to do with focused concentration combined with the casual, relaxed aspect. Maybe it’s ambiguous intent. Hard to define, much less bottle.

In my twenties I began to seriously investigate all aspects of what I thought was metaphysical, checking out books at the library and reading most anything that pertained. Finding little gems of knowledge like the Mark Twain ‘Telegraphy Story’ was a personal triumph.

I have a special interest in science and psychology, in the conventional sense, and a basic distrust of most organized religions. Pondering the spiritual, whether it be from a scientific viewpoint or a religious viewpoint is a special passion, and each volume I read contains both answers and more questions.

I had begun to notice the similarities in theory and felt that there must be some ‘basic truths,’ but for the most part, reality is an illusion, and a very convincing one at that. It is, for each of us, EXACTLY what we believe it is, and that is what makes it so convincing. Every one of us is speaking his/her own particular truth, thinking that what is the true reality is for one, must also be the true reality for all. But each of us are only entitled to one, and only one personal perspective. Until we realize on a collective basis, that each perspective is as valid as the next, that every perspective should be respected and honored, and that there is no right or wrong, just perspective, will we be able to live in harmony in this great ‘shared dream,’ called reality.

I have always had vivid dreams. Technicolor, stereophonic dreams. Upon waking, if I concentrate on remembering, I can record the previous nights experience. It wasn’t until I began to place major importance on the contents of my dreams that I noticed the prophetic quality of dreaming. Another existence, the nightly reality, exists not separate, but intertwined with my day reality. Human beings can exist indefinitely in the dreaming state, for example, those in a coma, but humans do not function if deprived of their dreams. Dream deprivation leads to psychosis and physical dysfunction.

Whether we remember our dreams or not, it is a required element of this physical life. I personally believe the rich symbolic and visual language of dreams should not be ignored. There is much to investigate and much to learn, and the process of self examination is so simple and available. Like our day reality, dreams are exactly what you believe they are. The symbology is personal, and cannot be defined in a ‘dream book,’ although such books are often helpful tools. It is what you feel, and requires individual intuition. You define the symbol and you determine the message.

From my personal perspective, I view both realities as being equally significant. The dreaming process is the same as the day reality with one major difference, it is not as rigid. That gives us lots of room to experiment without the constraints of time or physical space, and it can be pure delight. If you have a nightmare, or feel out of control, simply wake up. I think the procedure is two-fold, as when the waking state becomes a nightmare, simply wake up spiritually.

I think our culture is spiritually deprived. We are too engrossed in the material aspect where everything must have a scientific basis. Even religion has become scientific. We have taken every aspect of life, viewed it under a material microscope, and defined and dissected it. We examine all the pieces in magnification, name all the parts, describe it in full detail, all the while ignoring the essence of living it. It is the essence that is the spirit. We cannot learn about living by dissecting the dead. We must embrace the spirit of life without trying to destroy it in order to comprehend. Society craves the essence of life and cannot find it by any conventional means. It is the essence that provides the meaning and everything else is just a drill.

I find it curious that science turns its back on the innuendo. Suggestion is intangible, therefore not subject to scientific dissection. But a true scientific analysis uses the double blind system. One group gets the true item being investigated, the other a placebo, to prevent the power of suggestion [that elusive, evasive, prerogative] from taking effect. Sounds like a contradiction to me. Shouldn’t we just investigate the power of suggestion instead? Investigate the power of our own beliefs, or is it just too hard to get suggestion to hold still under that materialistic microscope?

Even quantum physics leads science right back to the fact that everything is exactly what each of us expect, what each of us believe from our own individual perspectives. Perhaps it’s just too simple, or perhaps it’s a sort of taboo because science can’t jam it into a bottle, label it, and sell it at an inflated cost, anymore than Mark Twain could. And Lord knows he tried.