Warning – odd post ahead. Coincidence? Chance? Reverse Deja vu?

Posted on 07. Apr, 2007 by Brandon in General, Rantings and Ramblings

To Novita’s great frustration, I’m a perfected skeptic. Living in a country that is embedded with a foundation of belief in the supernatural, that’s a hard perspective to view things from. Whenever the cheezy tv programs show “ghosts” (otherwise known as lousy video tricks), I simply laugh in amazement that anyone would be drawn to their crap.

Admittedly, I’m very open minded. I will listen to anyone’s perspective, and enjoy reading up on a plethora of subjects despite not necessarily following their ideas. I have yet to find valid reasons to support a belief in many of the ‘oddities’ that people believe in (ghosts, psychics, 6th sense, etc).

…

With that said, I’d like to share something with you. Perhaps you can offer this skeptic some piece of mind.

Last night I had a dream. In this dream, a friend and I were viewing a photo of a man. I cannot recall if it was on a screen, newsprint, or magazine. At any rate, my friend and I were trying to recall the name of the man in the photo. Both of us knew him, somehow, from somewhere, but neither of us could remember his name. At one point in the dream, a flash of remembrance kicked in and I said to my friend, “His name is Matthews.” But somehow I wasn’t convinced of that myself. Searching again, I finally realized my mistake, “Matthews” was his last name, not his first. After this, it finally clicked; this was a photo of Jacob Matthews – a guy I went to high school with. The dream ended at that point, or at least nothing more I can recall.

I have not seen or spoken with this guy in 12 years. I was friends with him, but not close. Our mutual friends are far and few – I don’t keep in contact with them either. Dreams are odd like that, long last memories can surface at any time. This was one only a few times in the past 12 years that I can remember dreaming about anyone from my high school.

…

This morning, after breakfast I checked my email. My inbox had a “‘Making it in Taiwan’ would like to be added as one of your friends!” from MySpace.com. I’m not a huge myspace user, so it’s not that often that people add me anymore.

I checked out his profile; there was no name on his profile, so I checked how and why I’d know this guy who was adding me as a friend. I found the name of my high school and realized that’s the connection. Since it’s been 12 years, many people look a bit different, so naturally I couldn’t place his face to a name. He only had one photo and it wasn’t drawing any names. I didn’t know of any of my old friends living in Taiwan, and nothing else in his profile caught my eye as being familiar.

Then it clicked. This was Jacob Matthews.

“Ladies and gentleman, we’ve just lost cabin pressure.”

…

I have no words to explain how odd this felt. I emailed him right away just to make sure that it was him. Yep.

Like I said, it’s been 12 years and I wasn’t even that close to the guy in school.

I truly have no explanation, this seems to go beyond the “watching tv while reading a book and the same word is heard that’s being read” type of thing. Go ahead, run the numbers on this one:

For those of you statistically minded, put together my variables, I’m sure I’m missing some:

12 years = 4,380 days / nights / potential dreams
200+ = people in my graduating class
10 or less = times I’ve dreamed about anyone from h.s. in the past decade
4 = hours from dreaming about this to the actual time I opened my email

My head is spinning. If any of you can offer this critic some explanation, I’m right here waiting. In the meantime, I’m gonna go watch Fight Club one more time and see if Tyler has some thoughts.

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  • terregatley
    Here is a story with amazing variables. My son's great grandfather and his girlfriend's great grandfather started the first medical rescue squad together back in 1930 in Kenosha Wisconsin. The kids met at High school in Portland Oregon. We discovered the connection a few months after they started dating. 80 years, hundreds of miles, crazy odds. It makes me wonder if we're magnetically drawn to people that have the same genetics as our ancestors friends.
  • haha karlos was that a joke? you actually dreamed about the same exact guy, jacob matthews, as the poster?

    anyway i use to live in pondokindah from 1997-1999 in a house which i saw a ghost. my father also saw it, the same exact ghost, a girl about 5 feet tall with long hair. but the weird thing is he saw it at his work which was a place called megamall. she was in his office sitting on the window ledge. i on the other hand saw her go past my corridor around midnight, i went to follow her but no one was there
  • karlos
    its called sycronicity ur thinking of somthing and it happens it happens to me alll the time and almost the exact thing happend 2 me last week i was putting it to the test and i thought about an old friend from highschool called jacob mathews that night i dreamt about him and the next day i saw him in town with another old high school chum i hadnt seen in years but had dreamt about the night before and the only reason i thought about all this was because me and my sister had dejavu at the exact same time she decribed it to me and it was also exactly the same like nothing either of us had ever exerienced before so go online and research syncronicity and u will be shocked to learn of the truth
  • Heni
    I have an experience on this.
    2 years ago, I was in bed with my husband and my daughter ( she always get into our bed in themiddle of the nite ). About 2pm, suddenly I woke up as I felt someone watching us. I looked at the door and saw my Dad. He just stood there watching 3 of us cuddling each other, then He turned around and I heard his steps on the stairs. I got up and followed him down stair. No body was there, I put the lights on, made myself a cup of coffee then went to the living room, put the fire on and sat there for an hour or so. I got so confuse.
    the phone rang.....it was my sister. She told me that my Dad passed away at 7am (Jakarta time). its 2pm UK time, the time I saw him in my bedroom.

    Anybody can explain this?
  • I am a skeptic through and through, until I hear about actual research that starts to make the supernatural seem like science. Studies have found that people (hooked up to monitors and brain scan things and whatnot) react physiologically to events (such as sounds and images) before they happen. Also, if you've read any of the research in theoretical physics, about M theory, electron "spooky action at a distance," and parallel universes, it's difficult to maintain the attitude that everything is clear-cut, black and white, fully explained. The closer you look, the less certainty you find, it seems.
  • As a muslim, as it was stated in the Holy Al Qur'an, I believe in things belonging to the invisible (divine or supernatural) sphere. So yes, sometimes dream might have some meanings, you just don't know or don't understand it until something real happen afterward. Some prophets received the messages through their dreams.
  • Guest
    I've heard similar stories check out this story from England.

    Take care!

    ~Pris~ USA



    Dreamed up phone number gets man a bride

    London: A British man has met and married a 22-year-old woman after, by his own account, dreaming of her phone number and then sending her a text message.

    David Brown, 24, says he woke up one morning after a night out with friends with a telephone number constantly running through his head. He decided to contact it, sending a message saying, "Did I meet you last night?"

    Random recipient Michelle Kitson was confused and wary at first but decided to reply and the two began exchanging messages. Eventually they met and fell in love.

    "It was really weird but I was absolutely hooked," Kitson told the Daily Mail newspaper. "My mum and dad kept saying 'But he could be an axe murderer', but I knew there was something special about it."

    After a long courtship, the oddly matched couple - he's six foot seven inches tall and she's five foot four - have just returned from their honeymoon in the Indian resort of Goa.

    A love-struck Brown said: "I've no idea how I ended up with her number in my head - it's only a few digits different from mine."
  • Haha, I just noticed that this posted on Friday your time (it's still Thursday here in the US), and it is Friday the 13th. :)
  • Well, here's another way of looking at it. Think of all the times you dream of someone and they don't contact you shortly afterwards. I would guess that the probability of that is extremely high, but not 100%. If it's not 100%, then it is a possible (though unlikely) event that the person you dreamed of will make contact. That is, a very unlikely (but not impossible) event should occur, but of course, only extremely rarely (if ever). As it did.

    What would be weird is if it occurred frequently!

    So says the scientist in me... sorry, I couldn't help myself from commenting on this.

    That said, I love your story and would be equally freaked out about it, even as I rationalized through it.
  • Dah!

    Wow, what a coincidence. I built that quarterpipe with my dad, I don't remember when we/he sold it though. I hope it held together. Yes, I do remember the scorpions, my dad bouyght them in China, they were edible but he didn't tell us that. So he planted a few next to the baby and pretended to capture them...then eat them!

    There are many stories from that time. Maybe YOU are the ghost!
  • Vito
    1) I have story of very highly refered and feared tukang santet (sorcerer) that able to meditate and leave spiritually from the body and travels in real world as ghost.
    He said that he always terrorizing people's dream, sending sickness to their homes, even kill them while they sleep in their room. I forgot the name, but he was famous because later on he encounter a priest he hated cuz the priest being annoyance to him. Soon in the night this tukang santet spirits comes out from the body and travel to the preacher's bed room, and try to kill him. However, later he confessed to me at church that he cannot touch the preacher, and feel as though his hand just bounces off before able to touch the priest, like the priest was covered with liquid shell. He was so astounded and amazed of the priest Power. The tukang santet spririt went home to his body and later on asks the priest of his power and finds God as the reason. This guy repent and now make confessions all across nation's churches. His name passes my mind.

    2) There is also a real life story of my grandfather death.
    My grandfather condition is very weak and unable to hear or speak or feel his surrounding. That day my father and mother's siblings visits him for prayer. The pastor that promises to come never came. Suddenly, a man come to the hospital asking for a failing health man about to die. My father asked him and he said he felt inside while driving past the hospital to come there and look for a ill person to pray for.
    My mother and her 3 other siblings relieved to have the pastor, so my dad allow him to lead the prayer. Everyone in the room closed their eyes, all except my uncle Nono, which keep his eyes fixed on the heart monitor. The pastor speaks closely to grandpa's ear and asks him to follow his words. My uncle notices the heart rate jumps slowly. It raises to the rate where doctor said grandpa be able to listen. Uncle Nono also notices grandpa's mouth utter words without voice. He was so happy grandpa will made it. But after the prayer, when everybody left the room to thank the pastor. Uncle Nono still in granpa's room, watching intently to the heart monitor and notices that it start to drop, and within 10 minutes my grandfather dies. My uncle never forgets that moments, he never a believer, he repent and now a devout catholic...

    there are many happenings like this i heard in my life.

    hope this inform you some more about spiritual things
  • Brandon
    Brian - I completely know what you mean - isn't there some link? However, there's not. Nothing in the news relates us, I haven't heard from anyone in my hometown in months, we didn't have many mutual friends and those that were have long since faded into the fog of time.

    I haven't received a reply after the initial affirmation of his identity.
  • I am wondering if there was a trigger out there that made you both think of each other at the same time, something in the news, something from your hometown, hearing from a third person that you both know, something that linked you both back to a shared experience. That would be my guess, Did he mention what prompted him to contact you?
  • DAH
    Morgan,

    No, i never went to a party there. Only time i ever actually went inside was i think before you lived there. I went there one other time to pick up a quarter pipe (skateboard ramp from the front porch), that must have been during the time you lived there?? As for the pool, it was just a unique shape for the area and for some reason I always remembered that?? Our families must know each other, because I remember hearing similer stories to the ones you mentioned from the people who lived there in the 90's. Do you know any good stories about chocolate covered scorpions? hahaha that was a good one if I remember correctly!

    -DAH
  • sleepyhouse
    I am a lot like you in that I believe in science so I do buy in to a lot of the paranormal stuff. I must admit that what you experienced, "deja-vu" dreams happens to me quite frequently. I have no scientific explanation other than it must be some sort of sub-concious break in the the dimension of time within your mind, but even that sounds a bit on the paranormal side.
  • I'm pretty sure "bunkem" is an Australian expression. It must have migrated across the Tasman...
  • I picked that (bunkem) up from New Zealand actually. Maybe it's mutated after all this time down south.
  • Aha, well there are no apparently TWO haunted houses in Pondok Indah.

    The place I am talking about is on Metro Pondok Indah, between the traffic circle and the mall. Its a large two story place, completely burnt out - only the shell remains. Its very conspicuous on that strip of Pondok Vegas - tucked in between marble monoliths.

    Apparently there has been nothing but bad luck associated with the place: the original owner lost all his money and there have been three successive attempts to buy it - with finance turned down on all three occasions. I am told that it has been "black-listed" by some local cleric and a sharman or two - which may be the reason interested purchasers have been unable to obtain finance (its plausible, at least).

    The (bule) guy who used to run our office here in PI looked into buying it and bailed on idea.
  • Dah,

    Yes, that is the house. How did you know what shape it was? Did you come to a party or something?
  • dah
    morgan,

    Was your old house a one story with a pool that was shaped like a peanut?
  • I hope this reply lands in the right section, the house was located on Jl Duta Permai VII off of Sekolah Duta (II I think). Sekolah Duta has the awful horse and rider statue a few blocks up.

    Sorry to dissapoint but there was no murder. I believe it was your standard tropical borne illness. Or perhaps that was a story my parents told me to keep us from being scared as kids. I will have to ask them.

    There were very creepy angel statues all around the gates of the property, the gray house as been torn down (or fell, it was pretty much termite eaten in the 90's) and replaced by 2 houses I have been told.

    I never heard of any movie, I would love to see it though, is it on DVD? I will have someone pick it up if I can find out more about it, that would be a kick if it was filmed in my house after my family left in '98. Really, someone please find out if that movie is on DVD. I am in the US and cannot.

    That was the only house rumored to be haunted in PI as far as I know. Everyone knew about it and I never heard of another place. Maybe they filmed a movie in another house since the old one was already gone.

    I am going back to Bali for a couple weeks in May, maybe if I am able to extend the trip I will make it to Jak-Sel and check it out.

    Mark Hughes (6th grade JIS teacher) will have a bunch of great tales as well. Sorry, but it comes better from the source.
  • People are either believers or skeptics. I am a believer of intuition and the spiritual connections between humans through my own personal experiences: too many strong, "odd" "coincidences" have left me quietly, confidently resolved. I have no desire to try to quantify this kind of personal magic to the bunkem-ers. That's not to say that I believe all the bullshit hocus-pocus you find floating around in the various religions and cults and pulpy womens magazines of the world: parlor-games for pure entertainment, or to fleece genuine but desperate people looking for answers. A belief in intuition and spirituality does not by any means signify dimwitted-ness or naivety, as so many skeptics are fond of suggesting. It's a healthy curiosity, actually. We need more of that! I just feel sad that some people won't acknowledge the possibility that some things just can't be explained by modern "science". Although, Brandon, it seems you are doing just that. An open-minded exception to the skeptics rule.

    Just my final 2 cents worth.
  • That happens to you after a while here. more to come, don't worry. it's in the mail.
  • Brandon
    Morgan, did you live in the house that the movie was made about? That's some crazy stuff, hopefully it didn't follow you back to the States. Maybe 5 years is the 'mark' where things start happening for bule in Indonesia. Feel free to pass along more tales, I'm curious.

    John - That's a perspective I generally do take, but this was extraordinarily odd.

    Martine - Interesting. I'm sure there are people who are more 'in touch' as opposed to most of us who probably ignore or are not attuned to such events.

    Jonathan - It'd be interesting to run the numbers and come up with a statistical probability. My guess is that it'd be near the realm of getting hit by lightening while in bed. ;) Is bunkem a derivative of 'bunk'? That's a first for me. Then again, maybe I've been here too long and am losing my English.

    Masindi - I'm very, very straight. Your theory is bunkem. - Master.

    Brett - Let's see if Morgan will get back to us on that one. I'm also intrigued.
  • I drive past that haunted house on Metro Pondok Indah every day and have always wanted to know a little more about it. Does Morgan know anything more about the murder? Is there any truth in the movie "Rumah Pondok Indah". The general gist was that an artist had killed his lover and entombed her in a statue.
  • Master,

    that means you used to be in love with Mr Matthews (but you never consciously realized it).

    a dream is... a fruit of thought.
  • My social psychology lecturer in my head says to me: Coincidence. Our perceptios of randomness, Tversky and Kahneman remind us, are bunkem.
  • It's not at all weird. Beautiful, yes. Weird, no. I think everyone has the ability to "pick up" on stuff going on around them, whether it's in dreams or seeing ghosts (which, incidentally I believe in).

    I'll commonly think of someone (no-one in particular) and then randomly take out my phone to see if anyone has called - and some time later - maybe minutes or hours - that person I had just been thinking of will call or message me. It used to freak me out, now I just like it. Other kinds of stuff happen often, too, but I don't wanna write an essay here....

    I really try to listen to what my intuition is telling me in those situations, and if I have a strong dream that I remember it's almost always trying to tell me something specific. I don't have a lot of them, but they are always interesting.
  • Wacky stuff happens in Indonesia. I remember reading a serious story in the Jakarta Post in 1991 about an increase in Vampire attacks in Tenggareng. I am a skeptic of all things paranormal. But I lived in a haunted house in Pondok Indah through the 90's. Anyone in the area back then will know exactly which one it was, though it has been torn down now.

    After 8 years of unexplained & strange things happening, we had a guy come over with his brothers from Sumatra to do a furniture deal. One brother starts sweating and turns red and looks like he is about to be sick, we asked him if he is alright. He says that someone died in *points* that room (true, landlords sister died in the room above the garage) and his other brother asks if we want to talk to her...the ghost.

    Hell yes.

    We go to the room and the guy becomes possessed by the spirit and speaks some dialect that his brother translates. She says she wants the room cleared of all the storage and tells us her thoughts on detailed events in our lives over the last near decade.

    She says she will stop making noises and messing with our possessions if we clear out the room, she wants space. We cleared the room and never had the piano play again at night or experienced the glass perfume or cologne bottles on our bedside tables move into formations while we listened in bed to the tapping as the moved (yes, this actually happened).

    Honestly, I don't beleive in ghosts, but this stuff happened. Also if you ask Dave Alexander at JIS he has a good story as well about some photography he took in a burnt out hotel.

    I have heaps of stories of really far-out stuff going on over there experienced by Bule's. If you are there long enough you kinda become an in-Indo-only-believer.
  • well is probably a coincidence, just because it's a very low probability doesn't mean it's not possible.

    people try to take too much meaning out of coincidence, maybe cos one /needs/ to make sense of events, natural i suppose.
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