SYNCHRONICITY Theory by Carl Gustav JUNG

They all must have thought, "Look what a coincidence!" I am referring to an encounter, a phrase read in a book, an unexpected discovery, a piece of news that took us by surprise. Synchronicity is when something happens to you that seems "by chance" but that blends so perfectly with the events of your life that it makes your heart beat and think: "It seems destiny!".

Synchronicity is what makes you feel aligned with the universe, as part of a great design. Who spoke for the first time in an organic and profound way about it was the great Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung in the middle of the last century. In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about the synchronicity theory by Carl Gustav Jung.

Index

1. What is synchronicity according to Jung
2. How synchronicity works according to Jung
3. Examples of synchronicity according to Jung

The word synchronicity derives from the Greek roots syn ("with", which marks the idea of ​​meeting) and khronos ("hour"): meeting in time, simultaneity. Synchronicity as a concept was introduced by the psychoanalyst

Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity states that no event is a factaccidental, but our life is full of a set of coincidences; or rather, those that we are used to considering coincidences but that in reality are not at all.

The definition of the term Jungian synchronicity crowned the psychoanalyst's uninterrupted effort to understand how humans create connections:

• How our unconscious world connects with the conscious world.
• In what way our personal and collective past is related to the present moment of consciousness at the service of a process that tends towards greater integration.
• How our inner life, subjectivity, comes to the surface, finds other lives and creates links with them, first with parents, then with family, and then with ever-widening circles of friends, acquaintances, even society as a whole.

Synchronicity Categories

How does synchronicity work? According to Jung, it does not reside outside of us, in a supernatural destiny: it is within us and is a principle of psychological connection. According to Jung's analysis, there are three types of significant causalities that are part of the synchronicity discourse:

1. Coincidence between psychic content and a specific event: a thought, dream or wish that coincides in time and space. The classic example is thinking of someone and meeting them after a while.
2. Coincidence between a psychic content and a general event: a thought, dream or wish that does not materially affect your life, but is relevant to what your conscious or unconscious mind is generating (remote coincidence in time and space). It is the case of dreams Premonitory of catastrophic events, which not by chance affect thousands of people in the world. Shortly before September 11, 2001, there was an increase in dream activities on a global level that had as its content the sinking of the twin towers in a symbolic or realistic way.
3. Coincidence "out of phase" in time between a psychic content and a distant event: a thought, dream or wish and an event that nevertheless occurs at a distance, perhaps years later. For example, you can dream of details about your cousin's wedding with a stranger that will later come true.

According to Jung, one can speak of synchronicity when there is a significant coincidence between a psychic event and a physical-objective without any causal relationship between the two events. In this case, a psychic event can be understood as a premonition, a dream, a vision, a feeling, an oracle or an archetypal image that will find tangible feedback in the person's life, thus revealing itself to be true.

Jungian synchronicity has three distinct characteristics:

1. The events are acausal connected, and not thanks to a chain of causes and effects in which an individual can recognize the result of an intentional decision.
2. The occurrence of the event is always accompanied by a deep emotional experience which usually manifests at the same time as the event.
3. The content of the synchronous experience, what the event is, has a invariably symbolic character.

Now that we have seen how it works, we will see different examples of synchronicity according to Jung:

Chance of the golden beetle

To Jung's intuition that each of our lives is dotted with events that have a deep connection with our unconscious, an "illuminating" episode followed: a patient was telling him a dream, in which a golden beetle was present. Right during the session, Jung heard something crashing against the window pane, drawing his attention. And what a surprise when, going to check it, he saw that it was nothing less than a ketone, a beetle-like insect of a beautiful golden green!

A coincidence of Jungian synchronicity

Another example of synchronicity according to Jung can be seen in whether a person who is working on an article about Carl Gustav Jung's synchronicity theory and comes into contact with people who are working on it theme. Therefore, a friendship or a pleasant acquaintance is established. Is a nice coincidence, but not very significant in itself.

If that same person who writes an article about synchronicity and coincidences will think that no one in his around you know this topic and that, therefore, it is difficult to find a person who works on the theory of synchronicity. So this becomes a coincidence that has a meaning.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Theory of synchronicity by Carl Gustav Jung, we recommend that you enter our category of Basic psychology.

• Corona, S. (2020). La Syncronicità di Jung. This is not a Significant Match. Recovered from: https://www.samuelecorona.com/sincronicita-coincidenze-significative-jung/
• Perria, P. (2018). Synchronicity: Jung e lo studio sulle coincidenze. Recovered from: https://www.ohga.it/sincronicita-jung-e-lo-studio-sulle-coincidenze/