Okay, so here is the jist of it:

I have noticed on more than a few occasions as of late that once my attentions have been focussed on a certain word/idea/phrase (whatever really) it has a tendency to appear all over the place.

For example, ive been slacking on the vocab/reading lately; I decide to brush up on at all. A few words a day, more books...the usual.

So I look at lament a few weeks ago- within this week I discover the use of lament a disproportionate amount of times. (Keep in mind this situation has occurred over and over, enough times to post a thread about it!)

Now, im not arrogant enough to think I have some godly control over others use of language or that im manipulating the very earth around us. Ashamedly, I did entertain the thought

So I am left assuming that perhaps after concentrating on the matter or being freshly exposed to it, maybe I'm just picking up on it more?

This seems to me to be a rather weak conclusion though, it doesn’t quite settle with me. Rationally speaking, I don’t think this can keep occurring again and again. But it’s the only logical conclusion I have drawn.

So, food for thought:
Has anyone else noticed this?
Any other possible conclusions you could draw for this phenomenon?

I think your conclusion is correct; you are just noticing it more than you did before. Are you finding it in literature or in the outside world?

Some food for thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Yeah. It's a variation of confirmation bias.

Yeah, I too struggle with holding the entire universe with my consciousness alone, very tiresome.

There are maybe close to infinite forces at hand to reality

We Attract


******
Sometimes at work when i "secretly" am listening to my headphones, Someone can walk by and start whistling, and i swear they are whistling the tune i am singing in my head.


????

Heh, fancy that! Yeah, I guess that’s what I was trying to allude to; again, need to catch up on the reading.

It’s strange when it happens on an individual level. Interesting stuff..



Haha, noone said god had it easy!

I used to have a fascination with the roland tb303 synth and the amount of times i would randomnly look at a clock it would be 3:03 or 15:03 . It used to make me laugh at how much it happened

@electric hippy, this last one was actually in both cases!

The new book I started as well as online a couple times. Tipped me over the edge.

Maybe the more I noticed it, the more conscious I was of it…leaving me more likely to pick it up again?




You know, just to throw an odd theoretical spanner in the works...

I remember hearing about this study going on around the world about a random number generators and the supposed correlation between concentration on a particular number and the random number generator actually hitting it….if anyone knows what im talking about, please through it out there. I’d love to catch up with it.

Anyway, spookily enough; during the attacks of 11th september, the random number generators globaly had a significant increase in similar activity. leading to a conclusion that perhaps evryones shared attention brought minipulated an otherwise overtly random selection.

(P.S im sorry if the founder of this theory reads by overview and feels i raped the subtle nuances of the idea.)

But it sprung to mind following this incidence. maybe my being aware of it somehow manipulated my own actions, increasing the likelihood of it happening?

As the great Pauly shore once stated, Wheez the juice.

I often see the number 11 everywhere. Sometimes more often sometimes very little. Don't know why, that number never had any meaning to me before and other than seeing it on clocks more often than other numbers, or seeing it other places as well, it doesn't seem to have any significance to me.

Everytime I have bought a different car, I see the same type of vehicle everywhere, where as I didn't notice it before. Basically the same thing your experiencing.

I've noticed that after someone I know buys a car of a certain type (regardless of which kind unless it's extremely exotic) I start noticing their car all over the place. I think confirmation bias plays into it, but I also think it's something akin to the phenomenon in this Radiolab episode on how certain colors aren't noticeable until they are pointed out to you.

Anrchy, I read a long time ago that the number 1 occurs most frequently in sets of data. Looked it up just now and apparently it's true and is called Benford's Law. I guess it makes sense when you consider that most numbers are closer to 1 than they are to...infinity, I guess. I don't know if it really makes sense to me, but I haven't read the full wikipedia page yet. It probably doesn't relate to your seeing 11 on the clock more. Technically, there are a few numbers that are more likely than others. For example, numbers 1-12 are more likely than 13-60 since 1-12 can happen for both hours and minutes. I guess that still doesn't explain why 11 instead of 1-10 or 12.

Nils, after I got my first car, I remember thinking that it seemed like my type of car was the most popular car in the world. Cheers to Radiolab, and excellent radio show.
Anyways...

I have an example that is more so an example of ideas spreading. Demitrispeaks states the following in this post:

I looked up the word "ineffable" and now it's a word I use all the time, and I see it pretty often on the forum. I've thought about it hard and, though I've been reading on this forum for years, I can't remember EVER reading the word "ineffable" before reading that post by Demintrispeaks. So, either I've just started noticing the word more because I've just recently learned it, or other people have also just recently learned it and that's why it seems to be spreading across the forum like wildfire.

The universe is full of bizarre synchronisities my friend. And yes I'm aware of the mind control kind of thing that we all possess. Or like sometimes ill be singing a song in my head and exactly the part I'm at someone im with will sing the part as if there were no pause or hiccup in the tune. And vice versa. Things like that. I'm also aware of each of our innate telepathic/empathic/godlike abilities. There is a hidden power in all of us. Everyone's perspective is different so that adds more to the flavor of our cosmic unity

It's a common phenomena to learn a new word only to have it start popping up all over the place. It happens to me so much that when I started noticing synchronicities in my life, I would compare them to the experience of learning a new vocab word.

Synchronicity?

Some have also termed it 'Synchromisticism'...