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by Gillian Holloway, Ph.D. (Dream Discoveries Newsletter, Spring 1995)
Synchronicity is a normal part of life, and an unavoidable part of dreamwork. Once you begin examining the contents of your dreams you will notice repetitions of imagery in your waking life, almost as if the world around you is commenting about your dream in secret code all day long. This can make people uncomfortable because it seems like some vaguely familiar sign of mental illness.
In constrast to this fear, I believe one reason why dreamwork is so stabilizing and healthful is that it highlights the connections between seemingly unrelated elements in our lives through the appearance of synchronous events.
I was reading an interesting chapter on mythology the other morning concerning the ancient origin of the word chaos. My first dream client of the day arrived later, and her first dream depicted her mending a broken friendship with a man named Chaos. We were both struck by the intriguing connection, and were able to utilize some of the information to better understand her dream.
As is always the case with these incidents, one is at a loss to attribute cause and effect. However one underlying theme remains constant: everything in life is somehow interconnected. The more willing one is to accept the connectedness, the more useful these surprise events become. Everyone notices these events, some once a year and some many times a day. Those who have become comfortable with these experiences tend to trust the fabric of life more; knowing that information and signals will be presented to them in a fashion that is most useful. This type of person becomes like a skilled surgeon who doesn't even look up from the patient when asking for a scalpel or a sponge. What is needed arrives, often even before the need for it has been articulated.
I believe these events are perfectly natural, our surprise and bewilderment at such a common experience stems from the way the human psyche has historically been underestimated, and from our tendency to believe the well-meaning educated guesses of science more readily than we trust our own experience.