Dreams may be the via regia to the unconscious: Freud said so, and Jung, too, insisted that the analysis of dreams would allow both analyst and analysand to observe what went on with the unconscious psyche (cf. e.g. GW VII §§209-210). Writing forth the metaphor, we might say that, if dreams are the via regia, then synchronicities are a small, winding mountain path which may or may not lead...
Jung’s two essays on synchronicities and on spirit in the fairy tale have a striking claim in common: that there is a “hidden meaning [Sinn] behind the chaotic events in life”. It will be interesting to compare how the two essays introduce the core finding: there is an interesting commonality, and one important difference.
In the synchronicities essay Jung refers us to his earlier article on "Der Geist der Psychologie." He states that there he has “presented synchronicity as a psychically conditioned relativity of space and time”. What does that even mean?
In the literature on synchronicities, that phenomenon is usually defined as a coincidence of two or more events which invokes a “sense of meaningfulness”, and where the events in question — crucially for the point I want to focus on — are not causally linked. In one respect, that last clause is a sensible requirement. For if there were a causal link between those events, that would suffice as...
In Jung’s examples of synchronicities, at least three ingredients seem necessary - all of them rather subjective in nature: first, there is a perceived connection between two events; secondly, a subjectively felt need for an explanation of that connection; and thirdly, an inability to construe the connection as a causal relationship.
Leif Frenzel is a writer and independent researcher. He has a background in philosophy, literature, music, and information technology.