It would naturally be expected that the nature and subject-matter of
the more frequent types of coincidences and presentiments would throw
some light upon their origin, and would in some measure reinforce the
general position above taken. We should expect that such coincidences
would relate to persons and affairs that are frequently in our
thoughts, and that similarities of thought and presentiments based
upon them should occur among persons intimately acquainted with one
another's thought-habits, at least in regard to that line of thought
to which the coincidence relates; these expectations are fairly
well borne out by the facts. It is a commonplace observation that
presentiments and unusual psychic experiences most frequently relate
to those who are dear to us, or in whom we have a momentarily strong
interest; that they deal with events which we have anxiously dreaded
or desired, or with matters over which we have puzzled or worried;
and again, that they occur under conditions of emotional strain,
excitement, or anxiety. In brief, they deal with what is frequently
in our minds or what more or less unconsciously furnishes the general
emotional and intellectual background which gives character to our
mood and to our associations of ideas. I need hardly add that it is
the more successful and striking coincidences that we remember and
record, and the others that are quickly forgotten. Moreover, so large
a share of mental operations of the type in question takes place in
the region of the subconscious, that our recollection of what has
occupied our thoughts is by no means a final authority. Occasionally
we detect these subconscious similarities of mental operations,
when after a silence the same question or thought shapes itself on
the lips of two speakers at the same time; and here again, are not
many of those who give utterance to the same thoughts, or finish one
another's sentences, intimate companions in the walks of life? Is it
strange that in the daily intercourse with a congenial spirit, they
should have absorbed enough of one another's mental processes to
anticipate, now and then, a step in their association of ideas?
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