'TELEPORTING' SOFT TOY
Rex
Somerset, UK

During the summer of 1996, my wife and I decided to have a family day out visiting South Wales, about 70 miles away by road. My youngest daughter, then aged 10, had her favourite soft toy with her as usual - a rather shabby looking black and white dog she called 'Puzzle'. We all noticed she had it with her (she took it everywhere) and her older sister ribbed her about it as usual.

We stopped at a pub in Wales for lunch and sat in the garden overlooking the Severn estuary, then went on to Chepstow and parked in the castle car park while we went around the castle. After an hour or so we returned to the car and set off for home. A few minutes later there was distressed wail of "WHERE'S PUZZLE!!" from the back of the car. So - back to the car park, searching under cars, earnest enquiries at the castle ticket office and nearby Tourist Information centre - nothing. Then back to the pub, more earnest enquiries, a search of the garden - nothing again. And so, back homeward with disconsolate (actually almost grief-stricken) daughter in back, and an atmosphere like glass all the way home, interrupted by occasional sobs.

On arriving back home, I went upstairs to change and there, in the middle of the floor of the main bedroom was 'Puzzle'. It had definitely been with us on the outgoing journey, but now here it was at home.

Although I realise that various mundane explanations of the apparent facts are possible, I was not able to accept these then or now. The whole episode had a rather strange 'feel' to it, especially afterwards, when the whole family knew that something genuinely odd had happened, but no-one wanted to question or analyse it for some reason. There have been some similar incidents since this one and I accept these pragmatically as they are nearly always beneficial, 'fixing' what has moments before seemed like major problems (although my socks still disappear in the wash with monotonous regularity - I now have a collection of about 15 singleton socks with no traceable partners!). Incidentally, my daughter has now outgrown all her other soft toys but still keeps this one under her pillow at her University 'digs'!


WORD SYNCHRONICITIES
Patricia
New York, New York

I am a professional writer so I am typing/writing for most of the day. I typically have the radio or a TV on as background as I write. Quite often I am typing the exact same phrase or word that is being spoken on the TV or radio -- so I hear the words I am typing simultaneous to their being spoken on TV.

Here's an example: If I am typing the sentence, "She told me she would come back in two weeks" just as I am typing the "two weeks", the radio/tv voice will say two weeks. It always makes me look up from the keyboard, and I think there it is again. It's not like the radio/tv is filling in a blank; I have always already committed to typing those words when I hear them.

Friends claim this happens to them as well, but their explanation is that we only use 5,000 different words or so on average so the chances are likely that the tv/radio would use the same words I am typing. But I think it's more than that. I'd say this happens to me about once a week. Sometimes it's even proper names -- names of cities, brand names, etc.

I am wondering if anyone else has an explanation -- not whether it's happening, but if there's a meaning to it. I think I'll start writing down when it happens -- and with which words/phrases. Maybe there's a message here for me.


LEANING CANDLE STRAIGHTENED
Patricia
New York, New York

I have an (unlit) white candle in a hurricane lamp (brass candleholder with a glass covering) on a windowsill and the candle was not standing straight up and was leaning over against its glass cover. I noticed it every day and would think to myself "You should go fix that," but it was always across the room and one of those stupid, little tasks that's easy to ignore. This morning when I walked into my living room, I noticed the candle was straight up as if someone had fixed it...and I live alone so that seems unlikely! Now if I can just train the reality shifters to vacuum and do laundry! It's funny to me how it's not scary -- I just sort of said "Thanks."


LONGER POST OFFICE HOURS
Patricia
New York, New York

This reality shift happened a few years ago, but I always chuckle about it. It has an explanation -- I needed to mail a letter and it was supposed to go out that day and I didn't get to the mail box in time for the pick up, and then didn't get to the post office and it was past closing and I thought that I might as well take the letter to the post office so it could go out first thing the next day. The post office usually closes at 6:00 and I got there at 6:45 and it was open. I couldn't believe my eyes.

As it turned out, it was April 15 -- income tax day -- so the post office was open for an extra hour to gather people's tax returns. My take is that we are so powerful that when needed, we can even make the United States Post Office do what we want!


RUNNING HARE
John
Mytholmroyd, UK

It's been a couple of years since I sent anything in - not that the occasional 'reappearances' and coincidences and so on don't occur, but as for something more out of the ordinary... well, this experience last month amused me.

On Friday Feb 10 I was coming back late at night from Halifax along the Heights Road, near the edge of the moors, when I saw sitting right in the middle of the road in front of me a hare. I slowed down, expecting it to run, but it just behaved like a shocked rabbit, which was a disappointment - I expect more of hares! It just walked across in front of the car, then turned round and sat down again in mid-road. I stopped right by it, and it finally scampered away into the bank. Just exactly as I stopped and it ran off, at that moment the Sandy Denny song I was playing on the tape machine reached the line 'And you run for cover, run for cover like a frightened hare'.

For me, personally, the hare is a messenger from the other side - they turn up when I'm on the right track or when they want to show me something. This was a bit out of the usual mode, though, and when I enquired later about what that hare wanted to say, the main message I got was that I should remember to be prepared for the unexpected irruption of the magical into everyday life, and importantly be ready to recognise and respond to it immediately. I had been rather caught up by mundane and grotesque concerns from ordinary life issues to the disgrace of Iraq and the rise of consumerism in all areas of life, and I think I needed a startling reminder like that.

This is the kind of thing that makes you think more deeply about your everyday life than one normally does - and from the reflection maybe one learns something, from the experience, from the hare, about how to pay attention and respond truly?

Thanks for a life-affirming newsletter!