Should symbolism be taken much more seriously, or am I nuts?

I saw coincidences all the time. I noticed though, that I seemed to find coincidences that I was looking for.

Thanks for your posts everyone, it's a relief to know so many of you understand where I'm coming from. I too studied Carl Jung's thoughts on symbolism. For example, Jung concluded that we see 'Christ' as a symbol of 'self' .
The vietnam veteran Oliver Stone used the crucifixion image in his film 'Platoon' for good reason. Many vets identify with the crucifixtion image (its a recurring image in art therapy) because they can access their pain by allowing Christ to symbolize their feelings of having been sacrificed, betrayed and abandoned (by God and humanity).

More symbolic, is the brief appearance by Stone himself in the film - before he is blown to pieces by a suicide bomber.
As if he felt that somehow instead of surviving nam, he in fact, died there.
The symbolism is obvious.

Noddy24 wrote:
"As for the chipped tooth sequence, mystic or not the coincidence is very satisfactory."
Yes. Justice being served by fluke.
Yet almost too perfect a sequence to be haphazard.

The truth is... I'm not sure that I believe in such a thing as accidental coincidence. Perhaps everything happens for a reason. I once heard a detective say, "In my game coincidence does not exist."

As for seeing patterns and symbols everywhere, in many things... maybe our unconscience notes these things, but some people are not as connected to their unconscience as others and there for do not see the patterns and symbols?



I knew someone would think I'm nuts!


Also, there are many patterns and symbols that appear in nature.
Maybe humans, because of the intervention of religion, can not fully accept that we are part of that natural pattern.
I don't know....

Chai Tea, flushd and BrianT have all spoken of the being made to feel that they are wasting their (and other peoples) time, pointing out or thinking about patterns, symbols and strange coincidences (if that's what we have to call them).
I think that there is a lot of fear out there and that a couple of hundred years ago, I would probably be put to death (or dropped off in bedlam) for questioning perceived reality. But if you see things in that certain way, how can you deny it? Being thought of as a weirdo or nutcase by others (particularly by adults when you are a child) is enough to drive those thoughts from many minds. But if as an adult, you still think in that way - and can admit it - you have my respect. It isn't easy to swim against the flow.

Whatever's going on, I'm glad I have you people to share this stuff with.

It doesn't make you nuts really.

I think symbols should be taken with a grain of salt.

Sometimes they may signify something true, other times they may be very misleading.

Common sense will help judge it.

I think symbolism should be taken seriously. Many times it's your subconscious talking to you.

One important thing about symbolism is that meanings vary from person to person, and place to place. One thing may have different meanings to different people from different parts of the world.

Yeah I agree with that, but sometimes what we think is our subconscious is really what we want to happen.

Then we start looking for symbols that we think will bring good things.

I don't know how much trouble symbols can cause, but you can't follow them all whole-heartedly.

Strange isn't it?

Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

I think seeing symbols and symbolism is a sign
of intelligence and experience.

CarbonSystem observed:



I believe that I'm capable of going into a mystical state where I can perceive information that is not accessible to my mundane mind.

I also know that I'm a woman with a powerful imagination and a powerful will, who feels most comfortable when in control.

Is this a skill you just have rather than acquired? If it is something you learned, how do you do it?

Thanks.
Brian

Brian--

Very simple. I read the Tarot deck which usually tells me exactly what my common sense tells me.

More esoterically, I always examine my hunches

I think that the concscious mind is the weakest mind. People seem so much smarter and open when they're sleeping, (dreams and things of that nature)

I don't think that interpreting the sub-conscious can really "tell" you anything. I mean, there are more than one layer to this sub-conscious that people speak of. For one there's the habituation of movement and coordination, and then there are spontaneous feelings that can be caused by a lot of things (memory relapse, habituation, mixed feelings, etc.).

http://www.viewzone.com/synchronicity.html

This is worth a look.

Nice link

I can't believe how many people have read this post.
Must say something for being nuts!

Sometimes some things happen and they are quite spookily accurate, it happens so often it doesnt surprise me anymore.
eg,Since July I had an image in my head of a black room, 1 spotlight shining rainbow colours on a woman.
4 months later, Madonna(who I am a big fan of)releases an album and I have since seen pictures of her from a photo shoot of her in a black room with rainbow colours projected onto her!!

My pal got married a few months back, I had a feeling someone important wouldnt be there to the point where i pictured my friend saying in his speech 'we are sorry X couldnt be here today'.Turns out his best man was hospitalised and couldnt make it!

Dont know if thats symbolism really.

But when I was waiting in a waiting room just before I was about to take my driving test the song on the radio while i was waiting was KAte Bush's Babooshka(im a fan of hers as well), I took it as a sign, all went well and i passed my test.

I definately believe in karma, if I do something good for someone else something good will happen to me.If i do something bad, bad things will happen.

This is something which has freaked me out too.

I was born on 13th of August, Madonna reckons 13 is the luckiest number of all and the 13th letter of the alphabet is M!!!!Also Madonna was born in August.
Meaningless to others, a source of comfort to me.

That's very interesting, MG.

I know of someone who was operated on in a life/death situation.(It's true, weird but true). He was expected to die but didn't. When he woke up, he joked with everyone about being in bed number thirteen. The weird thing was, he woke up on the 13th of the month and exactly 13 days after the trauma that had put him there in the first place! FMF!!!??!!

He too thinks that number 13 is very lucky.

I've always liked number 13. It's the black sheep of numbers.

Okay, I've been thinking about symbolism and maybe we could do some research amoungst ourselves. What if I put up an image and folk say what it symbolises for them? It might be interesting to look at the diverse readings. What d'you think?

Am I just bored outta my brain?