Threesology Research Journal
Synchronicity and Threes

Study of the Threes Phenomena

3-part illustration of correlations

While many of us experience Synchronicity, the use of the word represents an affected vocabulary most of us do not indulge in. Routinely we may otherwise we might use words such as coincidence or correlation or simply turn to someone and say "Did you see that?!". In other words we are acknowledging some connectedness that at most times we overlook. Connections occur all the time though we might instead use another affected term such as "Causality" or the phrasal term "chance event" (plausible probability) as if we are somehow involved in an existence much like a series of chances. (All the World's a gaming hall and life its many players at different gaming tables.) Here are some short definitions of Causality for those who prefer not to get too deep into the philosophical discussions:

  • Oxford Languages:
    1. The relationship between cause and effect.
    2. The principle that everything has a cause.
  • Merriam- Webster Dictionary:
    1. A causal quality or agency
    2. The relation between a cause and its effect or between regularly correlated events or phenomena
    • An illustration of a visual coincidence
  • Cambridge Dictionary:
    • The principle that there is a cause for everything that happens

(The Cambridge version offers readily available [on the same page] supplemental information.)

What I want to point out in this short essay is that there is an inclination to casually view life's Causalities as dualistic synchronicities; between one person, place, thing and another person, place, thing. It is only upon the event of an analysis that the typical (colloquial) dualistic behavior then changes into a more formal Trichotomy. The following image provides a link to some examples of synchronicity where the more familiar usage of duality is expressed, but does not relate to the viewer that there may be multiple more such events in everyday life that go unrecorded for a variety of reasons, one of which may be that a person questions their sanity because such observations they may be sensitive to, are not customarily discussed within the confines of their respective social sphere, and other simply shrug off as a not-worthy-of-their-time coincidence, or another is psychically insensitive to such occurrences:

10 examples of Coincidences
10 Mind Blowing Coincidences

Interestingly, the internet provided the following without my need to query it:

Question posed by the internet itself when I simply queried with the word "Causality": "What are the three criteria for causality?"

AI Overview: The three criteria for establishing causation are covariance, temporal precedence, and internal validity. Covariance means that the cause and effect must be related; when one changes, the other must also change. Temporal precedence means that the cause must come before the effect in time. Internal validity means that the relationship between cause and effect is not due to a third, extraneous variable. Here's a more detailed explanation:

  1. Covariance (or Empirical Association):
    • This means that when one variable changes, the other variable also changes. It's essentially a correlation between the two variables. For example, if a new teaching method is introduced and student test scores improve, there should be a demonstrable correlation between the implementation of the new method and the improved scores.
  2. Temporal Precedence:
    • The cause must occur before the effect. In the teaching example, the new teaching method must be introduced before the test scores are measured to establish that the method caused the improvement, rather than the other way around.
  3. Internal Validity (or Non-spuriousness):
This means that the relationship between the cause and effect cannot be explained by a third, extraneous variable. For example, if a study found that students who eat breakfast perform better on tests, it's important to rule out other factors (like socioeconomic status or study habits) that might also be influencing both breakfast habits and test performance. If those factors are not accounted for, the relationship between breakfast and test scores may be spurious (meaning it's not a true causal relationship).


Illustrated inferances of Causality


While the former information was not intentionally queried for, here is what I got when I asked pointed questions in the form of statements:

Internet Query: "Three types of synchronicity"

AI response: Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung described three types of synchronicity, which he defined as meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect. In Jungian psychology, these events link a person's inner psychological state with an external event. The three forms are:

  1. A mental image coincides with a simultaneous external event

    This is the most direct form of synchronicity, where a thought, dream, or inner state of mind corresponds with an external event happening at the same moment.

    Classic example: The golden scarab

    • Internal event: A patient tells Jung about a dream she had of a golden scarab beetle. Her overly-rational mindset had blocked the progress of her therapy.
    • External event: At that exact moment, Jung hears a tapping on his window. When he opens it, a scarab beetle flies in.
    • Acausal connection: The simultaneous, meaningful occurrence helps the patient break her rational resistance.
  2. A psychic state coincides with an external event at a distance

    In this type of synchronicity, an inner perception of an event corresponds with an external event that is happening at a distance, outside of the observer's awareness. The connection is only confirmed later.

    Classic example: The Stockholm fire

    • Internal event: While at a dinner party 400 kilometers away, Emanuel Swedenborg has a vision of a fire breaking out in Stockholm.
    • External event: The great fire occurs, destroying hundreds of houses.
    • Acausal connection: Several days later, messengers confirm Swedenborg's account, with the timing of his vision precisely matching the events of the fire. The vision did not cause the fire, nor did the fire cause the vision.
  3. A psychic state coincides with a future external event

    This form of synchronicity involves an inner experience, such as a dream or premonition, that later coincides with a future external event.

    Example: The plum pudding

    1. Internal event: Many years after two strange encounters involving a plum pudding and a man named M. de Fortgibu, French poet Émile Deschamps jokingly remarks during a dinner that the only thing missing is M. de Fortgibu.
    2. External event: Just as Deschamps is speaking, the elderly and disoriented M. de Fortgibu walks in, having arrived at the wrong address.
    3. Acausal connection: This third, final event connects the series of chance meetings into a meaningful, acausal pattern.

Here is how I view the following... as a simple 3-part arithmetical formula:

Internal psychological event + An external, unrelated event = Occurring simultaneously:

Carl Jung did not formally categorize synchronicity into distinct types, but rather described it as a single, overarching principle of meaningful coincidence that involves 1) an internal psychological event and 2) an external, unrelated event 3) occurring simultaneously. Instead, his writing focused on different manifestations of this single principle, such as when: a spontaneous thought is followed by a matching external event, a dream or vision coincides with a real-world happening, or an event aligns with archetypal or collective patterns of human experience.

What Synchronicity Is:

Acausal Connecting Principle:

Synchronicity describes a connection between the inner world of thoughts and feelings and outer, world events that is not based on cause-and-effect but on meaningful coincidence.

  1. Meaningful Coincidence:
    • It's a way of describing how seemingly unrelated events can be linked by a shared meaning, creating a sense of wonder or a "wow moment" for the individual experiencing it.
  2. Connection to Archetypes:

    Jung believed synchronicity had explanatory power for his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious, suggesting a deeper connection between the individual psyche and the universal human experience.

  3. Examples of How Synchronicity Manifests (Not Formal Types):
    • Thought-to-Event: Thinking of a specific person, and then they call or appear shortly after.
    • Dream/Vision-to-Event: Having a dream about a specific image or situation, and then later encountering that image or situation in the real world.
    • Archetypal Patterns: An event that seems to mirror a universal human experience or a significant pattern within the collective unconscious, providing a sense of profound meaning.

While Carl Jung didn't explicitly classify three types of synchronicity, common manifestations include internal thoughts coinciding with external events (e.g., thinking of a song and then hearing it), shared external events with personal meaning (e.g., seeing recurring symbols related to a current challenge), and premonitions that manifest later (e.g., having a dream that foreshadows a later event). These meaningful coincidences involve an internal psychic state and one or more external events that are acausal (not caused by each other) but appear meaningfully related.

  1. Inner-Outer Correspondences

    This type of synchronicity occurs when a thought, feeling, dream, or vision in your internal world aligns with a simultaneous external event.

    • Example: You're thinking of a friend you haven't spoken to in a long time, and they call you right at that moment.
    • Example: You have a recurring dream about a specific symbol, and you then encounter that symbol in your daily life.
  2. Meaningful External Patterns

    Here, one or more external events seem to be connected in a meaningful way to your internal state or life circumstances.

    • Example: While going through a difficult period, you keep seeing recurring numbers, like 11:11, or encountering people who offer advice that perfectly addresses your needs.
    • Example: A series of external events or conversations seem to subtly guide you toward a specific goal, like a new job or home.
  3. Premonitory Synchronicities

    These are a form of predictive synchronicity where something you experience or dream about later comes to pass.

    • Example: You have a vivid dream about a significant event, and then later, you find yourself experiencing that event or a similar one in reality.
    • Example: Repeated, seemingly random signs or symbols appear to hint at something about to happen in your life.
  4. Key Elements of Synchronicity

    According to Jung, for a coincidence to be considered synchronicity, it typically needs three elements:

    1. Internal and External Events:
      • There is a correlation between an inner psychic state (like a thought or feeling) and an external event.
    2. Acausality:
      • The connection between the events is not due to a cause-and-effect relationship; one doesn't directly cause the other.
    3. Meaningful Parallelism:
      • The coincidence holds a deep, subjective meaning for the person experiencing it, making it feel more than a random chance.


Page initially created: Sunday, August 31st 2025... 4:34 AM
Initial posting: Sunday, August 31st 2025... 7:30 AM