I was just about to call you. Surely the most common white lie of them all. But not always, and it may be the truth far more often than we imagine. This is my conclusion after three years of eerily simultaneous connections with a close friend. I’m now able to confirm, for myself at least, what I and many other people believe: that a communication without any visible connection between two people at a great distance is not only possible but may be common.
There are two kinds of proof. The first is by the scientific method. This requires a ‘control,’ a matching set of circumstances to the test environment minus the agent which is being tested. The standard double-blind randomised controlled trial of drugs is the most well-known example, and when the results are conclusive the world at large accepts the proposition as proved.
The other kind of proof is statistical. When something happens far more frequently than chance would predict, we can say for sure something is going on, but that’s all. What? Sometimes, often, there’s no way of knowing.
I have had a particularly close friendship with someone for three years. We are often apart and keep up with each other with texts and phone calls. The simultaneity of our connection occurs way, way more often than chance would predict. It has become commonplace for me to pick up my phone to call or text my friend and at or around that moment the phone rings or a text arrives. What does commonplace mean? At least one contact in four, perhaps more but certainly not less is simultaneously or near-simultaneously initiated at both ends. There are no causes. We just connect when we feel like it.
I say a quarter to be on the safe side – I actually think it’s more like a third. Why don’t I know? Because I’m reluctant to count, or ask her to count, in case it goes away. I have tried to get her to connect, focusing my mind, imagining her picking up the phone to call or text. No result. Whatever this is it is not connected in any way to the conscious mind and I fear the intrusion of consciousness may destroy this wonder. A wonder which has nothing to do with distance. It happened, repeatedly, when we were on opposite sides of the earth.
Spooky, eh? One day we may know what this is, how it works. But I hope not. I’ll plump for the mysterious but true any day.
That’s all. Scoff away.
Play With Strangers 