Synchronicity is a term that is on everyone's mind lately. It's also a term that I'm not sure is always completely understood. The symbolic link between The X-Files and Rockefeller Center that we looked at yesterday is not synchronistic per se.
Jung's definition of synchronicity deals more with the collision of the interior and exterior worlds. Someone dreams of an owl and one is sitting in the tree branch above his garage when he returns the next evening. A person finds an old Christmas card from her aunt in a dresser drawer, and the phone rings and she is told the older woman just passed away. These are classical examples of synchronicity.
I think all of us experience these events fairly often. In my mind, they are like receipts the Universal Spirit/Mind gives you when meaningful events transpire. My frustration with syncronicities is not only are they common and difficult to interpet, they're also usually impossible to prove. You can't usually prove you were thinking about that song just before it came on the radio. My obsession is with proof - with connecting the dots between established facts in a way that reveals the greater patterns that we usually overlook.
Which, like pretty much everything else in life, brings me back to The X-Files. I was hooked on the show from day one. I was very interested in UFO's and the paranormal at the time, and was thrilled that a serious-looking show was going to deal with these topics. That first season may not be my favorite overall, but it certainly is the most meaningful to me. I felt like I had been waiting my entire life for a show like that. I fell madly in love with Scully (not necesarily Gillian Anderson, mind you) and couldn't wait for the second season to begin. In fact, it seems I was dreaming about it before it started.
This was in a old journal from 1994/5. Unfortunately I didn't date it, since I wrote it in the dark in the middle of the night. But there's a clue in there that pinpoints when it was written. The chicken-scratch scrawl you see there says:
X FILESHere’s what I remember: It was one of those dreams where you watch the action and then take part in it- you know, standard dream-logic. I was Mulder in the dream. I was very badly hurt and had put Scully in danger; Satan was after her.
AGAINST SATAN
PUTS SCULLY IN DANGER
MULDER CRAWLS HOME
PULLS OUT PRAYER IN BOOK
FIRE APPEARS ON PICTURE FRAME+ HE IS REVIVED
EMMA SAMMS IN TABLOID IS OLD BAG
WAYNE'S WORLD STAGE SHOW WITH LOTS OF BOOKS
I was crawling through a front door in a house and the Sun was rising outside. In my jacket pocket I had a small book that had prayers in it. A small flame appeared on the bottom edge of a picture frame on a mantlepiece. I knew the flame was the Holy Spirit and that Scully had sent it. I rubbed my finger along the flame and I was restored.
This dream lingered with me for some time after. In hindsight, I realized that the image was inspired by this enigmatic illustration, from the cover of Gnosis magazine.
The bit about Emma Samms fascinates me. The reference to "Wayne's World" and "books" seems to be a subconscious reference to an episode of Dave's World that Emma Samms appeared on.
The episode in question aired four days before the season premiere of The X-Files. Why I dreamed about it I have no idea, since I never watched the show and it turns out my wife didn't either.
But in my mind, it dates the X-Files dream around the time of September 1994. I do remember telling the people I worked with about the dream, who even in 1994 were all too familiar with my X-Files obsession.
I didn't think much about the dream until several years later. When TNT used to run mini-marathons of The X-Files every night, I used the opportunity to catch up on the last season of the show. I really didn't want a ninth season of the show since I thought the whole thing was wrapped up so beautifully at the end of the eighth.
The opening two-parter of season nine was a disaster, so I basically stopped watching until the end. But I was glad I did finally watch those episodes, since once you got past the wretched opener the ninth season was pretty frickin' excellent (for the most part)
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Semi-gratuitous cryptographical jpg
The next mytharc two-parter was something else entirely- a return to the deeply subversive ancient astronaut storyline of "The Sixth Extinction" series. I mentioned "Provenance" and "Providence" yesterday, but didn't mention the scenes which- quite synchronistically- correspond to the dream I had eight years prior.
In "Provenance" an FBI agent named Robert Comer crashes his motorcycle while sneaking over the US/Canada border. He is carrying a piece of a spaceship along with rubbings of religious texts taken from the surface of it.
Comer is "straight as a ruler" (bonus Masonic metaphor) agent sent to investigate a UFO cult (led by a Gulf War vet named Josepho) goes over to the "dark side" and begins believing in the ET threat himself.
Semi-gratuitous cryptographical jpgThe next mytharc two-parter was something else entirely- a return to the deeply subversive ancient astronaut storyline of "The Sixth Extinction" series. I mentioned "Provenance" and "Providence" yesterday, but didn't mention the scenes which- quite synchronistically- correspond to the dream I had eight years prior.
In "Provenance" an FBI agent named Robert Comer crashes his motorcycle while sneaking over the US/Canada border. He is carrying a piece of a spaceship along with rubbings of religious texts taken from the surface of it.
Comer is "straight as a ruler" (bonus Masonic metaphor) agent sent to investigate a UFO cult (led by a Gulf War vet named Josepho) goes over to the "dark side" and begins believing in the ET threat himself.
This point should be rather strongly punctuated- Comer is now Mulder, a promising young FBI agent whose career is derailed by his belief in aliens. Like Mulder in "The Sixth Extinction" three-parter, he is also directly affected by exposure to an extraterrestrial artifact.
Now let's get to the notes from my 1994 dream and compare them to the later episodes:
"AGAINST SATAN"
In the 2002 episodes, Comer is opposing an Antichrist-like cult, who believe that the super-soldiers (bonus comic book term) take over the planet in preparation for the second coming of the alien messiah. Reyes later names Josepho as a "false prophet" or an agent of Satan, who seeks to help the Colonists wipe humanity off the face of the planet.
"PUTS SCULLY IN DANGER"
All of the Scully's in this case- Momma Scully, baby Scully and Scully Scully. Comer ends up in Scully's apartment and beats up on the women and tries to kill the baby.
"MULDER CRAWLS HOME"
In a scene that is an instant replay of my dream some seven years earlier, Comer- the FBI agent who is intentionally identified/confused with Mulder- is seen crawling on his belly after his crash. The Sun is out, just as in my dream.
"PULLS OUT PRAYER IN BOOK"
Just as I-as-Mulder pulled out a small prayer book from my jacket pocket, Comer takes out a piece of the spaceship (upon which religious texts are inscribed) and uses it to heal himself.
"FIRE APPEARS ON PICTURE FRAME+ HE IS REVIVED"
This shot gave me the willies, particularly in context of the story and the dream. I didn't write this down in the notes, but in the dream the flame was the Holy Spirit and it had been sent by Scully and was on a picture frame on a mantlepiece.
In the story, Scully is talking to Agent Reyes who is standing in Doggett's hospital room as he lay in a coma- note lamp (flame) next to picture frame and the mantlepiece.
Later, Doggett (Mulder's replacement in the X-Files) is revived while Scully- her body charged with the healing radiation of the spaceship fragment - sits by his bedside. Just as Mulder did in "Sixth Extinction," Doggett temporarily gains psychic powers through his second-hand exposure to the radiation.
Now it gets really weird.
Agent Comer is played by the estimable Neal McDonough, who was born the same year as myself in the next town over from my place of birth.
In fact, Neal was born 19 weeks and 5 days before me, and those two numbers (in the form of 19.5) seem to have some mystical significance I can't quite understand.
Weirder still, McDonough's next TV role after The X-Files was as Detective David McNorris in the series Boomtown. His co-star in that was none other than Donnie Wahlberg, formerly of New Kids on the Block.
The Wahlbergs live a block away from the house I grew up in Braintree.
My mother used to tell me that during the height of New Kids mania, armies of pre-pubescent girls used to march down our street on Saturday mornings on the way to the Wahlbergs' house, in hopes of catching a glimpse at the group's "bad boy," Donnie. Marky was not yet famous then.
You may not be interested in the Mysteries, but the Mysteries are interested in you.
Now let's get to the notes from my 1994 dream and compare them to the later episodes:
"AGAINST SATAN"
In the 2002 episodes, Comer is opposing an Antichrist-like cult, who believe that the super-soldiers (bonus comic book term) take over the planet in preparation for the second coming of the alien messiah. Reyes later names Josepho as a "false prophet" or an agent of Satan, who seeks to help the Colonists wipe humanity off the face of the planet.
"PUTS SCULLY IN DANGER"
All of the Scully's in this case- Momma Scully, baby Scully and Scully Scully. Comer ends up in Scully's apartment and beats up on the women and tries to kill the baby.
"MULDER CRAWLS HOME"
In a scene that is an instant replay of my dream some seven years earlier, Comer- the FBI agent who is intentionally identified/confused with Mulder- is seen crawling on his belly after his crash. The Sun is out, just as in my dream."PULLS OUT PRAYER IN BOOK"
Just as I-as-Mulder pulled out a small prayer book from my jacket pocket, Comer takes out a piece of the spaceship (upon which religious texts are inscribed) and uses it to heal himself.
"FIRE APPEARS ON PICTURE FRAME+ HE IS REVIVED"
This shot gave me the willies, particularly in context of the story and the dream. I didn't write this down in the notes, but in the dream the flame was the Holy Spirit and it had been sent by Scully and was on a picture frame on a mantlepiece.In the story, Scully is talking to Agent Reyes who is standing in Doggett's hospital room as he lay in a coma- note lamp (flame) next to picture frame and the mantlepiece.
Later, Doggett (Mulder's replacement in the X-Files) is revived while Scully- her body charged with the healing radiation of the spaceship fragment - sits by his bedside. Just as Mulder did in "Sixth Extinction," Doggett temporarily gains psychic powers through his second-hand exposure to the radiation.
Now it gets really weird.
Agent Comer is played by the estimable Neal McDonough, who was born the same year as myself in the next town over from my place of birth.
In fact, Neal was born 19 weeks and 5 days before me, and those two numbers (in the form of 19.5) seem to have some mystical significance I can't quite understand.
Weirder still, McDonough's next TV role after The X-Files was as Detective David McNorris in the series Boomtown. His co-star in that was none other than Donnie Wahlberg, formerly of New Kids on the Block.
The Wahlbergs live a block away from the house I grew up in Braintree.
My mother used to tell me that during the height of New Kids mania, armies of pre-pubescent girls used to march down our street on Saturday mornings on the way to the Wahlbergs' house, in hopes of catching a glimpse at the group's "bad boy," Donnie. Marky was not yet famous then.
You may not be interested in the Mysteries, but the Mysteries are interested in you.
