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Video/Audio Synchronicity vs. Jungian Synchronicity
The term synchronicity has an older source than its current use as a byword for dissimilar video and audio match ups. It was originally coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) to describe a conjunction of two unrelated events, usually occurring at the same time, that appear to create a transcendent meaning beyond the events themselves. Because Jungian synchronicities have no basis in our normal perception of things, they seem magical or supernatural in origin, like personal messages sent to us by some unknown and unseen agent.
Along with many other so-called pseudoscientific ideas, Jungian synchronicity gained popularity in the 1960s, especially promoted through the book The Roots of Coincidence by acclaimed British novelist Arthur Koestler. More recently, a number of learned scholars have written on the subject, including F. David Peat’s Synchronicity: the Bridge Between Matter and Mind and The Philosopher’s Stone, and Allan Combs and Mark Holland's Synchronicity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster. These books connect synchronicity to such diverse fields as new physics, chaos math, and classical mythology. A good page with links to Jungian synchronicity sites is here.
The use of the term synchronicity to describe matches between dissimilar film and audio components is an interesting new spin on the word. While some of the most popular and profound video/audio synchronicities can perhaps be fitted under the broader rubric of Jungian synchronicity, most are probably purely of chance origin, their internal matchings illustrating, for example, the well known concept of color ball clustering in gum machines. In addition, there is a slight chance (very slight, in my opinion) that some synchronicities, including the two most glorified examples of "Dark Side of the Rainbow" and "Jovian Echoes," may have been created on purpose by the involved musical groups. Hypothetically, this would make the two components (or "events") of a film/album synchronicity intentionally related, and the resulting effect not synchronistic in the Jungian sense, but causal, or defined by ordinary cause and effect.
Furthermore, we have the problem of well defined internal synchronicities within many video/audio synchronicities. There are quite a few of these in "Dark Side of the Rainbow," a powerful example being the loud start of cacophonic bells in Dark Side of the Moon exactly as the character of Miss Gulch is introduced in The Wizard of Oz. These types of internal synchronicities appear closer in spirit to Jung’s usual employment of two simultaneous, pointillistic events for his synchronicities. In contrast, the two components of any video/audio synchronicity are a long sequence of events combining to make a certain movie or album -- like points along a line.
Yet despite the difficulties, it must be admitted that "synchronicity" still seems a quite appropriate label for these sometimes very odd video/audio match ups. Alluding to this same problem in his Synchronicity Arkive, webmaster Mike Johnston summarizes by saying, "the term seems to describe the emotional state evoked better than anything else." And it must be admitted this magical feeling, the evocation of wonder and awe, is, after all, the heart of the matter, the fun of it all.
Why Pink Floyd?
The two most popular synchronicities, "Dark Side of the Rainbow" and "Jovian Echoes," both use the music of Pink Floyd for their audio components. The majority of other established synchronicities, such as ones featured in this web site and in The Synchronicity Arkive, also employ Pink Floyd albums. One explanation has it that the band's uniquely slow, fluid style lends itself more easily to soundtrack alternatives than other types of music. Others say Floyd fans, who tend to be a progressive and experimental lot, naturally gravitate toward these types of oddities and thus are predisposed to find them...a type of reading between the lines, if you will.
While certainly seeing merit to these theories, my own feeling is that, at the heart of it, something else may be afoot here. To begin with, it seems interesting to me that that the audio components of what are generally considered the two best synchronicities, "Dark Side of Oz" and "2001-Echoes," are also commonly called the two best Pink Floyd opuses as a whole, created at the very peak of the group's musical career. Both the song "Echoes," making up side two of the Meddle album, and Dark Side of the Moon as a whole, the next studio album after Meddle, are most commonly identified with this peak. While this proximity may, on the surface, seem to lend credence to some type of Floydian intent theory -- having, at its core, the group's purposeful creation of these synchronicities during the general period of 1971-73 -- the presence of two other powerful synchronicities also featured on this site that use the very same two audio components ("Contact Echoes" and "Dark Side of the Yellow Submarine") seems to greatly diminish this possibility in and of itself. In short, one really good synch, outside all other evidence, may point to conscious creation; two really good synchs overlapping the same piece of music, just by itself, makes this scenario much less likely. Add to this the ample evidence of other non-Oz inspirations for the music of Dark Side of the Moon, for example, and the case for intent seems pretty well closed in my opinion.
If we rule out intent for the most popular film/album synchronicities, what is left in terms of present explanatory options are two: chance...and Jungian synchronicity. These are the options also outlined in Mike Johnston's Synchronicity Arkive, the original and still the most popular portal to the film/album synchronicity field in general. Admittedly, even given all the odd match ups found in this field (all the perfect scene shifts in "Dark Side of the Rainbow," for example), one cannot really dispel pure chance as the sole reason for any of these types of phenomena presently. At the bottom of it, there are simply too many stretches in any film/album coupling, even in the lofty "Dark Side of the Rainbow," where the video and audio components *don't* match up that well.
One possible way out of this dilemma in trying to detect some kind of Jungian synchronicity in odd film/album juxtapositions is to attempt to distill a type of *meaning* from some of the more profound examples. As Jung said about traditional synchronicities, although the oddity of the juxtapositions is the most immediately noticeable thing about them, their long terms value hinges upon implied meanings or interpretations, since this is what ties them into his core concept of the individuation process (the psychic growth of the individual over an entire lifetime). In this way, one can perhaps follow up the emotional impact created by film/album oddities with a more mental approach, delving into the possible whys and wherefores of the surreal juxtapositions. Why do these matches stick out above others? What is their relationship to others in the same overall film/album synchronicity? Perhaps in this way the posed question "Why Pink Floyd?", in relation to film/album synchronicities as a whole, can lead us into something beyond direct intent and pure chance, or better, *between* these two extremes.
I personally believe the entire "Dark Side of the Rainbow" complex, including what is its generally unknown but potentially significant aspect in "The Rainbow Sphere," may represent a fairly powerful nexus of Jungian style synchronicities, synchronicities very different from the traditional sort. This is because they are, by their very nature, serial in effect, that is, they incorporate many "little" synchronicities within one overarching synchronistic phenomena. One can perhaps even see the other ultimate synchronicities of this site arranged around this central "Rainbow complex" like accompaniments at a royal court, much like L. Frank Baum’s central country of Oz is surrounded on all sides by supporting fairylands. When the extent of the "Dark Side of the Rainbow" phenomenon becomes better known, there is a good possibility, in my opinion, that this basic type of arrangement will be illuminated and verified, however odd the idea seems now.
Round and Round and Round
While I feel it is impossible within present limitations of the film/album synchronicity field to delve too deeply into any possible overall meaning for any synchronicity or group of synchronicities, I would here like to at least attempt a limited exercise in this direction, if only to set some type of predecent. Let's take as our test subject the phrase "round and round and round" from the Dark Side of the Moon line "And in the end it's only round and round and round," found in the song "Us and Them." This line is probably a purposeful allusion on the part of Pink Floyd to the famous Beatles’ lyric from Abbey Road, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make," in essence, the last verse of the Fab Four's career and a summation of their idealistic philosophy. This phrase can also be seen as a microcosm of Dark Side of the Moon itself, with its framework waxing and waning heartbeats that do indeed go round and round when end is recycled back to beginning.
"Round and round and round" is oddly highlighted in the two synchronicities associated with Dark Side of the Moon featured in this site. In "Dark Side of the Rainbow," we have the first and last "rounds" of this phrase falling exactly on two turns of Dorothy's ruby slippers, when they first appear on her feet in The Wizard of Oz. In "Dark Side of the Yellow Submarine" the phrase is again powerfully highlighted by the turning of a bright red object, this time an abstract rotating cube during the "Northern Song" sequence of the Yellow Submarine movie.
Furthering the idea of synchronicity-as-meaning, let's now ask: could there be a possible *meaning* why the phrase "round and round and round" is so powerfully highlighted in "Dark Side of the Rainbow" and "Dark Side of the Yellow Submarine?" Interestingly, a type of answer to this question can be sketched out, entered through a closer examination of Dorothy's ruby slippers connected with the phrase in "Dark Side of the Rainbow." When the slippers first appear on Dorothy's feet in Munchkinland, she has literally just been put into the shoes of a wicked witch (East not West ... but the West wants them!). The expression "putting oneself in another’s shoes" means you see from another's perspective, understand their motives and actions. This can be seen as a type of empathy which deflates focused negativity, removing one from an emotionally engaging situation. We can theorize Dorothy is magically placed in these shoes to learn this lesson, and she is ultimately allowed to return home only through an understanding of their symbolic power.
As Paul Nathanson points out in his book Over the Rainbow : The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America, Dorothy has, in the movie, already trivialized what seems to be sound advice from farmhand Hunk (the Scarecrow) about how to handle her problems with the witch's Kansas double, Miss Gulch ("When you come home, don't go by Miss Gulch's place. Then Toto won't get in her garden, and you won't get in no trouble..."). She also shows aggressive rage towards Gulch, for example, calling her a wicked witch and shoving her basket at a point where tact is perhaps most needed. The problem appears to be by hating hate, Dorothy descends to the same level as the thing hated; in essence Dorothy and Gulch have emotionally attached themselves to each other, becoming one and the same in this way. The missing ingredient for both is empathy, the ability to step back from an engaging situation and connect with higher thoughts and feelings. Only then can Dorothy see the correct action to take. (Hunk's advise perhaps?)
As the Star Wars trilogy taught us through its Darth Vader character-- a villain, like the Oz witch, covered from head to foot in black--even the worst of evils has its psychological causes. Moreover, it can befall any of us, given the proper circumstances. Dorothy must realize that all elements of Oz, whether good or bad, are unconscious aspects of herself, possibilities of herself, just as Star Wars' Luke Skywalker has to face the real possibility of becoming just like Darth Vader in Yoda's Cave (strong with the dark side of the force). For Dorothy, Oz is a similar dream-like stage exposing the moral contradictions hidden in her real life Kansas existence.
It turns out in our rudimentary synchronicity experiment here that the empathy symbolized by Oz's ruby slippers, and their accenting in "Dark Side of the Rainbow" and, vicarously, "Dark Side of the Yellow Submarine," can be associated with the idea that everyone and everything in God's green creation shares a common spiritual bond, and that the highest "up" is ultimately connected to the lowest "down." If this is true, then, as Pink Floyd sang over 25 years ago, in the end everything is only round and round and round!
Note (9/15/02): In the near future, I plan to write in much more detail about what I call the Rainbow Complex, which includes both Dark Side of the Rainbow and The Rainbow Sphere synchronicities. I have extensive notes to share, if I can figure out the proper framework in which to contain these energies. Please stay tuned!
In the meantime, please visit both my Booker T. Archive (and the more extensive Book of Booker to soon follow) for a fictional coding of many of the Rainbow Complex ideas I'll share in factual form later. Also make sure you look over my personal synchronicities site before you leave (I've found a *lot* in the past several years!) Both are accessible from the "Some People Do Go Both Ways" page to follow...
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