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Inspired by Neo's post about Laura Buxton's balloon coincidence, I thought I would start a topic where people can post their favorite amazing coincidences - either personal ones or ones in the news. Here was the original reporting of the story: http://archive.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/2001/6/28/215077.html
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Dunno if these are all true, but they're certainly interesting! http://www.oddee.com/item_82923.aspx(If that 'bullet in the tree' one is true..wow.)
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About a year ago, I came home to an empty flat in Melbourne. I decided I would enjoy the quiet time over some reading. Before I sat down, I went to kitchen and fished out a glass. Now. For some reason--unbeknown to me--I decided I wanted a tall glass of ice water. And this is odd for two reasons. One - it wasn't a warm day. And two - I didn't generally drink ice water.... ever. We kept a Brita filtered water jug in the fridge at all times and I naturally drank that. Furthermore, the only ice that I was able to rummage up was the store bought kind in a plastic bag. It had been sitting in our fridge for well over a month, lingering from my roommates 21st.
This is not in itself a strange act but it was peculiar. I can honestly say that I had never done it for several months leading up to the incident, nor for several months after that. Nonetheless, I took my ice water, sat down and opened up my book. I was reading Bryan Greene's, The Fabric of the Cosmos, starting on some chapter I can't remember. Within in the first couple pages, Mr. Greene uses an analogy of melting ice to help explain entropy. If I remember correctly, he returns to the analogy on more than one occasion. Needless to say, I found the melting ice in my glass, less than a foot away, quite convenient--serving as a helpful visual aid.
Several weeks after this, I was heading to bed around 3am, and I decided I should send a text message to my old friend in Sydney. This was a bit odd, because I wouldn't normally message her at such an hour, but I thought what the hell, just send it. My attention was focused precisely on this girl and the things I wanted to say to her. I spent a minute or two punching in the lengthy message and just as I was about to hit send, my phone rang. And no, we weren't frequently speaking.
Really, for me though, the strangest thing is that I often get the feeling that I pick up fragmented bits of information from the immediate future (that are never of any general importance). Just some strange sensory perception of a coming moment, flashing like a bolt of lighting, fractions of a second before it comes to fruition.
Have you ever been sitting with someone you are familiar with, and you are both trying to come up with the answer to something and just before your friend spits the thing out, it flashes in your head. And honestly, when this happens to me, I don't believe I have come up with it. I had no cognitive thoughts leading to that answer. It honestly seems to me, like the other person has the "ah-ha" moment and it instantly flashes in my mind, which is mere instances before it's jubilantly spit it out. Either that, or it's so near in the future, that my mind is able to get a whiff of it. Because often times, my unabated flash of insight is a loose manifestation of the answer I'm about to hear. Like if someone is about to say "leaf" as a solution, I might get a flash of trees or a forest. And then BAM, the answer is already upon me.
Sometimes I really think our minds are entangled. But you would be hard pressed to notice it if you weren't aware of the possibility.
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These do seem to be more than just coincidences, I understand what you are saying. I don't know how they are best explained but I think it happens to us all at some point; probably some of us more than others. I liked the part where you said you don't believe you came up with the answer-I have felt that way at times too. What I have yet to understand-and it has happened to me on more than a few occasions over the years- is something will be about to happen or is happening elsewhere that I have no prior knowledge of and the revelation just pops right out of my mouth without my conscious mind even making any kind of determination about whether I should say whatever it is, or taking a moment to think about whatever it is and why I came up with that information at all...it happens so spontaneously that I don't even know what I am about to say! what I mean to say is it is even a revelation to me! I don't know if I am making myself clear here or not but it makes me feel like I am merely a vehicle to pass on this information as soon as possible or something...I don't know. It still baffles me to this day. On a different note however, when you sent your friend the email and then came the phone call ...I do believe it is possible to make someone you are close to aware of your thinking about them. I used to do this with someone I used to date. Though we were in different cities and I had not heard from him in a while I would merely concentrate on his face in the greatest detail and soon thereafter he would call me "out of the blue." I choose to think it wasn't merely conincidence...who is to say? Interesting anyway.
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I wanted to say as for amazing coincidences....I lived in Illinois for a few years and even though it was not unusual for me to dream about something in the future (very specific details and specific to the person)it was most unusual for me to dream about something and it occur in the immediate future. Anyway, one night I dreamed that I would be driving and my young dgt. would be with me and I dreamed of a specific intersection where the event would occur. In the dream I would be approaching a four way stop and a car would be approaching from the right. In the dream I would stop and then hurry through the intersection and the car approaching from my right would be going too fast to stop and hit me broadside. I knew where the intersection was that I dreamed about. The next morning I had completely forgotten about the dream but luckily it was still with me as I drove my dgt. to school. I approached the four way stop and I very nearly started to hurry through the intersection when the dream 'hit me' and I stopped dead still and didn't go on through the intersection after a quick stop. The car I dreamed about approached from the right and appeared to be going to stop at the stop sign but merely slowed and then sped through the intersection. If I had not stopped because of the dream that I suddenly remembered I would probably have been hit broadside! It was eery that I had dreamed about something that would occur immediately and of course the details were exact. On a deeper level it tells me that the future is essentially written in a way but I was given an opportunity to change what was supposed to happen. Then, I can only wonder who or what gave me that opportunity. I could drive myself nuts thinking about why and what does it all really mean... 
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thanks so much for sharing your coincidence (and precognition) experiences. you both raised some interesting ideas. for the scientific experimental viewpoint, check out some thought-provoking experiments by Dean Radin here. this seems to show that we do indeed get some hints of the future slightly before it happens. then there's John Cramer, the physicist who believes that time can flow backwards in some cases and has developed experiments to prove it: Going for a blast into the real past. of course, a less scientific, but not necessarily invalid, point of view, shared by many who believe in the holographic paradigm (see physicist david bohm), the akashic record (see edgar cayce), zero point (ervin laszlo) - call it what you will - is that all information is at all places at all times. that is, information about the past and future is present (no pun intended) at every point in space. and the same for all places. the trick is to tap into it intentionally instead of unintentionally as many seem to be prone to doing. i wonder if that "tapping" is just a matter of figuring out how to get to the data that describes the universe at all times in the memory constructs of the "great program." ok, for my coincidence, i recall one time, at the age of 17, the following event. for no particular reason, i was struck with the idea to get up, walk across the room, pick up the phone, and say "hello, bill." my friend, bill, was on the other end of the line. the phone had not rung. and it was impossible for it to even have connected (possibly making a slight sound) before i got the urge to get up, based on how long it would have taken to walk across the room, and the fact that bill himself heard me answer the instant the call was connected. i had never attempted such a thing before or since and took the liberty of calculating the odds of such a thing occurring by chance at over 4 billion to 1. interested in time travel? - take our time travel polls!
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Funny you mentioned the Dean Radin book. I read it about a year ago, and I would also highly recommend it. He covers a lot of really cool stuff that I would have never even thought to consider.
This actually relates to something I mentioned earlier: recognizing the phenomenon. Once I read that book, I became consciously aware of the possible existence of telepathy and other "mind entanglements," as were described in the book. And it was only after that point that I began to see these strange coincidences, because they are undoubtedly subtle.
I remember when I was working as a taxi driver, I used to notice them a lot. There would usually be 20 or 25 of us working at a time. We were all connected via a cb radio and all vary aware of each other. And I perceived it to be quite common for several people to have the same thoughts simultaneously or have peculiar hunches about another driver that turn out to be inexplicably true. Like, for instance, we used to have to radio to base when we arrived at our destination, to get more information, and I can't tell you how many times I would be pulling in the driveway, reaching for my mic to radio base, and have them pop on to the airwaves---asking me if I had arrived yet. Obviously, there is a a degree of chance, of odds, but you see this stuff happen enough, and you start to wonder.
And Jim, thanks for the other stuff; I find it very interesting. It's all pretty new to me, so I'll dig a little deeper.
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I haven't that I can recall had a telephone experience like you had but I have on more than a few occassions known who was calling before the phone rang and oddly there were times when it was someone I had not spoken to in several years! It's as if I would think about that person just a few minutes before the call and then they'd call. One day years ago I was at my grandmother's house and the phone rang and my grandmother reached down to answer and I told her my uncle was dead! I have no idea where that information came from but it was in fact my aunt calling my grandmother to tell her my uncle had fallen out of his chair dead. I have not had another experience like that. I wonder if relatives that live together that have any psychic tendencies can somehow increase the likelihood of picking up on this kind of information. I tend to think they might. One time I had the same dream my grandmother did on the same night. The dream was so far out that I knew it had not originated with me but I didn't say anything. My grandmother started talking about a dream she had and I knew it was the same dream and she was the dreamer and somehow I just tapped into her dream. I did that one other time with a teacher and I can't begin to tell you how strange it is when you learn you dreamed the same dream on the same night.
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I wanted to say that one time I was getting ready to take a bath and for some reason it came to me that I hope the light didn't
blow out in the bathroom while I am in the tub. I don't recall every even thinking about the light in the bathroom before I took
a bath or a shower but for some reason this night I did. Strangely, even though it didn't happen while I was in the tub the light
bulb did in fact blow out after I had dressed and before I could blow dry my hair. I later wondered what the odds are of me
thinking about the light blowing out and it actually doing so on the same night. It doesn't seem like such a big deal but actually
it does seem very weird to me when I think about it. Have any of your ever had that happen?
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Earlier this week I woke up in the middle of the night, heard a couple of familiar voices and the pitter patter of little feet running all around the house. Then I thought, "What are they doing here at this hour?" Then I woke up and realized it had all been a dream. The next day I was reading an article about the "Theory of Knowledge", in the article it was explaining the idea that you can't know anything for certain. An example the author gave was that you dream and you think the dream is real, or you dream that you wake up and it's part of the dream. It just struck me as odd.
Of course you could say I just came across the article because I had the dream and was already thinking about the subject.
Not much, but it still seems a bit strange to me.
Then there was the time I told a friend of mine from work about someone I know who had a crazy encounter with then President Richard Nixon. I got home from work, I wanted a smoke, my lighter went out. I randomly grabbed a book of matches, producing one that had Nixon on the cover.
"But Tracy, it was a box of matches with all the Presidents on them, there aint nothin weird about that."
Yeah I know, it seemed kind of odd to me at the time anyways.
Or the time I was on a road trip and thought I got lost, until I saw a billboard on the side of the road that said something to the effect of, "Jesus says go this way."
Nothing incredible, odd to me just the same. Little things like that seem to happen so often that I like to tell people, "Coincidence is far to common to be coincidental."
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LadyBe, you must just be a natural intuitive. Whenever I take tests with things like random number generators or zenno cards or things like that the test seems to indicate that my intuitive abilities are well below average. 
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When I was in Europe I was going to work one summer morning, riding my motorbike. I was passing a large thick field of clover and when I glanced at the field I noticed a 4-leaf clover. Now I was traveling about 35 MPH and it took about 35 to 40 feet to stop. I backed the bike up to the place where I had noticed the 4-leaf; it had been about 20 feet out in the field. I walked out in the field, reached down and picked the leaf. I would have guessed there may have been a thousand leafs in one square foot and how I could have seen this one 4-leaf clover when standing right in front of it, let alone traveling at 35 MPH and being 20 foot out, is beyond me. I felt as if I had been blind folded I would have still seen it.
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I went into town yesterday to get a few things. On the way home I hear them talking on the radio about a "bad Oprah guest", apparently the guy is just about swindling people out of their money. I get home and think I'll see what's on TV, I turn it on, it's Oprah. Later that night I'm on youtube watching vids about holographic reality. It leads to me watching a video about holographic reality and positive thinking. At one point they guy in the video starts talking about all the stuff we see on TV, like Oprah.
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Again this isn't a Earth shattering sort of thing, but what I would call a minor coincidence. I'm reading the news today and I see an article claiming that they've discovered the missing link, that Darwins theory of evolution is confirmed. In recent days I've been thinking about debates I've had with preachers on the subject, thinking about faith and fact. And thinking about how some 'religious' people look at knowledge as a threat to their faith. If knowledge is a threat to someone's faith then their faith is weak. In my own personal experience the fact I would be reading that today seems to confirm my thinking about coincidence.  Edit: Now that I've actually read the article it doesn't seem nearly as impressive as the headline suggests.  Still an odd coincidence though.
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Keep these coming, everybody. They are great examples!
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Well okay, I don't see what the fuss is all about, these things happen almost constantly. Anyways, a couple of weeks ago I stop at a friends house. I pull in the driveway. One of his boys runs up to me, "Look what I got, this guy is huge!" It was a frog, and he was a big fella. Later I go home. I walk in the house and I decide to see what's on tv. I turn on the tv. It's a movie I remember seeing when I was a kid on the late night horror movie show. A really crappy b grade (even crappy for b grade) film, Frogs. To bore you a little I'll explain the crappy plot, it's all about this nature photagrapher/enviromentalist who's taking pictures around this island, around the Florida Everglades I think. The family of a rich industrialist who likes polluting are having a weekend family gathering/party. One of the family almost hits the guy in a speedboat, so they invite him to spend the weekend with them. Nature, led by the Frogs, decides to attack humanity. When I turned on the tv it was the scene near the end of the movie where the photographer, one of the girls from the island, and her little boy escape the island. They don't see anyone around, until a car comes along to give them a ride. They hop in the back (it's a station wagon). They kid in the front seat turns around and tells them, "Look at this guy!" He's got a big ol' giant Frog.  It always seems like, in my case, something will happen in real life and then there's a coincidence in media, like tv, or radio, or the internet. Or vice versa, I'll see something in the media and then there's a coincidence in real life. I'd never noticed that until just recently.
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Ok folks, had to wade through our forum-verse to find this thread again, but after yesterday's experience I felt the desire to post. First off, I've read loads of stuff about people having coincidences, and while some are very impressive, I find myself doubting others eg. 'they imagined it', 'wishful thinking', false memory' , 'outright spoofdom' etc, while thinking - 'nothing like that has happened to me.' I generally post about Singularity-related issues, acting as a sort of foil for Jim's views at times. So I suppose I'm a tad off-centre regarding some of the topics on here. But yesterday I was it a bookstore in my home town, a 'Barker & Jones' which has effectively put other (all 2) smaller bookshops in the town out of business. At the end of the store there is an area where they sell off books that are on discount. While walking over to this area yesterday, I noticed a lady perusing through the discount pile. I sort of saw her from behind/sideways, but was fairly sure(ha!) in my mind that she was Joan Keogh, the owner of one of the now defunct bookshops. I know her from the tennis club, so I wandered over and said words to the effect of 'checking out what the opposition is selling, Joan?' The lady looked up at me, and I slowly realised that I'd been mistaken - she bore a striking resemblance to Joan, but wasn't her. I explained to her that I thought she was Joan Keogh, a member of the tennis club who I knew. She told me that that was her name. I thought that this was an unusual coincidence - I mistake her for someone who shares the same first name. In fact, her full name is Joan Keogh also!!  So, (cue twilight-zone music), what are the odds of this happening? I mistake someone for a lady I know, only to find that she has the exact same name. 'Joan' & 'Keogh' are not particularly common names in Ireland - not terribly rare, but nowhere near the top of common names. If I can equate it to America the name 'Bill O'Reilly' springs to mind. I said the name, not the person, I ain't a fan  , but I'm guessing that the name is about as common in the states as my fellow tennis-player's name is here. So, what do you guys think?
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Hey Neo,
Fantastic story! Reminds me of my telephone incident.
In any case, I did a quick calculation for you. The odds of someone being named Joan Keogh are about 1 in 16.6 million (assuming she was named "Joan" not "John"). Unless you've gone up to a few million strangers in your life and mistaken them for someone else, I would say that you had an extremely unusual coincidence - one of those that defy the odds.
Skeptics would say "how often do you experience mundane non-coincidences in you life?" and since those numbers are huge, the occasional rare coincidence is not statistically significant. However, what they miss is the fact that you probably approach a stranger in that way very infrequently, which makes your coincidence all the more significant.
What do YOU think is the reason?
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I think if you pay attention and look for coincidence you find it happens alot.
That don't make it seem no less crazy when it happens tho.
Neo, that a really crazy example. Happens all the time, but crazy still.
If you hadn't walked up to her and said anything you'd have never known.
Crazy.
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I second that, good story.
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