- #1
DiracPool
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- 516
This happened to me a few years ago, probably starting in 2008. I'd be sitting at me computer or watching TV and suddenly something would shift my attention to a clock somewhere, either on the TV, on my computer, on my phone, or maybe even on some sort of clock related monitor in some public venue. I would look at it, and the clock would read 9:11. Either AM or PM.
Here is the qualification. This always seemed to happen when I was going through some crisis in my life. Mostly when my path was "off course" and I was drinking too much, not taking care of business, etc. Now, as proud neuropsychologist, I initially just put this down to coincidence. However, something about when I see the time 9:11, there's something unscientific in me that wants to interpret it as some "extra-scientific" source telling me that I'm getting off track and that I need to mobilize in the right direction. Well, let me qualify it more, it's not seeing the time as 9:11 per se, it's more specifically thinking that I just casually looked at the clock at that time of my own free will and there was a message for me.
My alternative, scientific explanation for this, however, is that somehow this bug caught ahold of me psychologically and I became hypersensitized to the topological arrangement of these digits to the point that the peripheral sensors in my retina could pick up on these unconsciously and create a cascade of effects that would cause me turn my head and foveate on those digits and think that something else other than my predisposition to react to them caused that.
If you have an opinion on this, I'd be very interested that, if your opinion it's the latter case, do you feel my head turning behavior arises at the optic tectum level (subconsciously) or perhaps a higher level?
The principle reason I'm asking is that this just happened to me again 15 minutes ago, when I looked down int the corner of my laptop screen to find that it was, indeed, 9:11 PM. And I was thinking to myself, what reason on Earth compelled me to check the time at just that instant. I can' think that there was one.
Here is the qualification. This always seemed to happen when I was going through some crisis in my life. Mostly when my path was "off course" and I was drinking too much, not taking care of business, etc. Now, as proud neuropsychologist, I initially just put this down to coincidence. However, something about when I see the time 9:11, there's something unscientific in me that wants to interpret it as some "extra-scientific" source telling me that I'm getting off track and that I need to mobilize in the right direction. Well, let me qualify it more, it's not seeing the time as 9:11 per se, it's more specifically thinking that I just casually looked at the clock at that time of my own free will and there was a message for me.
My alternative, scientific explanation for this, however, is that somehow this bug caught ahold of me psychologically and I became hypersensitized to the topological arrangement of these digits to the point that the peripheral sensors in my retina could pick up on these unconsciously and create a cascade of effects that would cause me turn my head and foveate on those digits and think that something else other than my predisposition to react to them caused that.
If you have an opinion on this, I'd be very interested that, if your opinion it's the latter case, do you feel my head turning behavior arises at the optic tectum level (subconsciously) or perhaps a higher level?
The principle reason I'm asking is that this just happened to me again 15 minutes ago, when I looked down int the corner of my laptop screen to find that it was, indeed, 9:11 PM. And I was thinking to myself, what reason on Earth compelled me to check the time at just that instant. I can' think that there was one.
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