Dreams and synchronicity

What does it mean if a symbol from your dream appears as a synchronicity the next day, or as multiple synchronicities in the days to follow?

Let’s start with an imaginary example:

Cass buys houses to renovate and sell for profit, but recently she had a run of bad luck. She lost money on a couple of houses then invested in another one and worked long hours doing all the renovating herself to save labour costs, but it didn’t sell as expected either.

She falls asleep and dreams.

She dreams of a fire-damaged house and she wonders, in the dream, how she can rebuild it.

The next day, three real estate agents phone to tell her about a fire-damaged house in town that she might be interested in buying and renovating. She’s too tired to think about it at the moment, so she decides to take a drive out of town to the beach to get some fresh air.

The sea looks inviting as Cass parks in the first vacant spot she sees. She gets out of her car and the first thing she notices is the remains of a burned down house right in front of her. She walks the esplanade, feeling a little spooked. The burned down house seems meaningful in some mysterious way, coming right on top of her dream about a fire-damaged house.

On the way home, she listens to the car radio. An author is being interviewed about her new book, a story about finding buried treasure in a burnt out house.

‘This is definitely synchronicity,’ Cass thinks, …

‘This is definitely synchronicity,’ Cass thinks, ‘the three phone calls about the fire-damaged house, the burned down house at the beach, and now this book about finding treasure in a burnt out house! Is it a message from the universe? Or from my dream? Should I phone the real estate agents back and look at buying and renovating the fire-damaged house in town? Maybe it’s a sign that this time I’ll make a profit!’

Well, what do you think? Should she take the synchronicities as signs to follow?

Let’s take a step back:

What is synchronicity?

Synchronicity is a coincidence that feels deeply meaningful, whether or not you can grasp that meaning or put it into words.

First defined by Carl Jung as the ‘simultaneous occurrence of two meaningfully but not causally connected events’, it more typically manifests as a number of meaningful coincidences experienced over a short period of time, such as in the example of the burnt out house.

Science has two takes on synchronicity.

Take 1.

There’s a network of nerves in the brain stem called The Reticular Activating System (RAS) that has many functions, including maintaining arousal and consciousness by activating the cerebral cortex, and regulating our sleep-wake cycles. It also acts as a filter, screening out things we don’t need to stay conscious of (like safe background noise) and alerting us to things we need to know or are interested in.

It helps us to focus, to notice what’s important to us. It’s the RAS that explains the observation that ‘what you focus on you get’.

It’s the RAS that makes you notice burnt out houses when they’re on your mind, but it’s not the RAS that determines that the only free car parking spot is right outside a burnt out house, or that the only subject on the radio during the short drive home is a story about a burnt out house.

Take 2.

In its truest form, synchronicity is a simultaneous occurrence. The moment you hear a story about a burnt out house, you see one. Quantum Physics acknowledges simultaneous occurrences, events that take place beyond cause and effect at the quantum level of life.

Now let’s add your unconscious mind and your dreams into the equation:

Synchronicity happens when a new perspective is breaking through from your unconscious mind into consciousness. The enormous psychic energy that accompanies this shift can resonate with similar energies in the world around you. It’s as if the emerging shift attracts or creates similar forms in your waking world, or deeply draws your attention to them. You may be familiar with looking at your outer world as a reflection of your inner world: what you see is a reflection of what you believe. As your beliefs (or perspectives) begin to change, so does your outer world. (See my book, The Shape of Things to Come, first published by Random House, to explore this further.)

Our dreams process our conscious and unconscious experiences, sometimes resulting in new perspectives that break through quite dramatically into our waking lives.

In our example, Cass dreamed of a fire-damaged, burnt out house because she was burnt out from all the effort and labour she had put into her business. The dream house symbolised her burnout.

The thing is, she hadn’t realised she was burnt out. She had been pumped on adrenalin, running hard and fast to make her money back, even doing most of the hard labour on the last house herself instead of hiring contractors. Then her dreaming mind presented the true picture: burnout.

‘You are burned out’ was a new perspective beginning to break through into Cass’s consciousness but although we can see this in her dream, it would typically take a while for this revelation to seep fully into Cass’s awareness. Meanwhile the psychic power of this breakthrough was strong enough to result in simultaneous synchronicity in her life. As her day progressed, and the breakthrough continued to gain momentum, it continued to reflect as synchronicities throughout her day.

Knowing this, what do you think now? Should Cass buy that fire-damaged property to renovate?

Or would she be wiser to wake up to the symbols in both her dream and her waking life, and face the fact that she is burnt out? She might reflect upon the radio story about the treasures found in a burnt out house and consider the treasures she might find within herself if she takes time out to explore her inner world and what drives her to burnout. Then she might find a better, healthier, and more profitable way to proceed with her renovation business. Or she may pivot and change direction entirely.

If you experience synchronicity following a dream, return to your dream, explore it, and interpret it, so that you can understand and name the breakthrough. Be guided by what you discover about yourself through your dream. Think of the synchronicities as delicious prompts to open to the deeper symbolism of life, rather than as literal signs to follow.

Oh, and if you experience synchronicity but you are unaware of a preceding dream, explore the synchronicity situation itself as a symbolic dream. Apply your dream interpretation tools and techniques to the waking life synchronicity and surrounding drama. You’ll strike gold.

 

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