Taking Note

Hang with me until I get to the part about coincidences.  First I have to work backwards.

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I keep all sorts of notebooks.  Some might say I keep too many notebooks, that if I'd focused exclusively on my novel, I might've completed Pilgrims Dream years ago.  Maybe so.  I don't care: my notebooks make me happy.

Obviously I have a notebook expressly for the novel.  I also have a small notebook I take with me everywhere in order to catch the occasional inspired thought, to remember the name of a recommended pub, whatever; quotes go in there too.  I keep a journal, and in addition to that I keep a dream journal.  (Writing your dreams immediately upon waking helps you to remember them, and analyzing those entries in a particular way helps you to have lucid dreams.)  I have a notebook that I use with my students, which I also use in the Czech lessons I'm taking.  I have a small notebook into which I copy my Czech notes so I can carry it always in my bag and review while I'm riding the tram or sitting in some reception area.  I have a notebook for hand-copying what I consider to be great works of literature so that even the smallest amount of that brilliance might rub off on me through some process of sympathetic magic.  There are other notebooks I neglect, and unfortunately you could probably throw Lightning, Mirror into that category, if there can be such a thing as a digital notebook, which I'm not really sure about.

Not too long ago I came up with an idea for another notebook.  I didn't have any extras handy, so I decided to start it at the back of the small black everywhere notebook and work my way toward the middle.  The idea for this fledgling notebook is to record coincidences.

Keep it simple.  The date, and the details of the coincidence.  It doesn't have to be life-altering.  I'm not trying to figure out what anything means, so it doesn't have to be meaningful, whatever that means.  All it requires is a moment of, Huh, that's weird, and it goes onto the list.  For example, I was walking to a lesson, and during the whole walk I had Satisfaction by the Stones in my head.  Round and round.  When I got to the pub where I meet my student, I sat down and realized Satisfaction was coming through the speakers.  Nothing big.  But it caught my attention, and that's enough.  Write it down.

Basically I thought it'd be a fun list to keep.  It'll be the sort of thing I'll enjoy looking back on after awhile.  I don't expect to find scientific proof for Jung's theory of synchronicity or anything.  Some people collect stamps, and I've decided to collect coincidences.

But today I noticed a strange development.

As I wrote a new entry, I got the idea to go back and underline in red the specific object of the coincidence.  In the above example, I underlined Satisfaction.  Then I thought to underline the names of the people involved.  That went in green.  Another idea: underline the places where they happened.  Do that in blue.

(This is why I had to work backwards at the start.)

A larger perspective came over me, and I realized I was beginning to analyze these coincidences in the same way that I used to analyze my dreams, back when I was more diligent about it.

This creeped me out.

It would seem that I've transmuted the dream journal into a waking-life journal.  O, how do I express this?!  A journal is a journal: what happened, what am I thinking about, etc.  It's a way to unload and maybe untangle some knots.  But to keep a dream journal about real life is something else.

This technique of analysis, when used upon dreams, alerts you to the patterns of impossibility within your dreams so that in some future dream, you will consciously recognize the old, familiar impossibility as a consistent component of your dreams, your dreams, so suddenly you realize, Hey! I'm dreaming!

Now I'm doing that with real life.  Will there come a moment when a similar recognition flashes upon me, and I shout, Hey! I'm living!

I don't know.  I'll see where paying attention takes me.