Synchronicity and the fox dream
Synchronicity and the Tao: Mysticism, Metaphor, Morphic Fields, and the Quest for Meaning
Journal article by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Re-vision, Vol. 16, 1993
I think that the best way to under-stand what Jung meant by synchronicity is by examples from his own life. In a letter to J. B. Rhine, the father of
parapsychology, Jung described an incident that was a synchronicity. He
said (I am paraphrasing him), “I was walking in the woods with a woman
who was telling me her most significant dream. In the dream, she was in
her old family home that had a large spiral staircase. In the dream, she was
at the foot of the stairs watching a ghostly fox move slowly down the
stairs towards her.” Jung said, “At that moment a real fox stepped out of
the woods and, for a time, walked ahead of us.” When a real fox entered
the scene, the dream image materialized. Coincidences like this are eerie. Dream
and waking life overlap; it is an un-canny moment of synchronicity.