Communicating with the Unknown: the Science (& Magic!) of Synchronicity

What it is, how to spot them and the wild stories behind some of mine

May 22, 2026

Mentally I’m Here is a curious publication of consciousness, the intersection of science and spirituality, storytelling and the magic of living. Everything here is free and meant to be shared. If you’d like to sit with me in this space, you’re always welcome.

All photos in this post are taken by Maverick Malone

Last week we talked about how I manifested my partner with a poem—one very literal expression of “communicating with the universe” so today is an expansion of that topic. And after I wrote this, I had to schedule the post to go live the next day, 5/22 at 2:22pm because obviously girl loves to keep it on theme.

What I love about having a magical mindset is that I notice all the little ways it manifests. And one of those ways is when I think about things, I begin to see them reflected in my physical reality. For example, the other day the phrase “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” popped into my head randomly. A few hours later, I came across a reel on Instagram with this same sentiment, splashed as captions over a clip of a man with two shopping carts piled with gallons of milk.

Or I will be at the dentist for a toothache and see a poem a friend wrote titled “Teeth” first in my feed or be thinking of someone and a song reminding me of them comes on the radio. Or—my most frequently experienced synchronicities—I’ll think, “Ya know what? I haven’t seen any angel numbers on license plates in a while,” and then over the next three days, boom, I spot a ton of them. Or I press play on a random playlist I just found, put it on shuffle, then stuff like this happens:

I’ve also experienced this with my own daughter. One night I was reading a bedtime story to her about Lady and the Tramp and their puppies at Christmas. Three of the puppies looked exactly like Lady and one looked like Tramp.

“Why wouldn’t they look like a mix of the two parents?” I thought. Almost immediately, she pointed this out.

“Mommy,” she said. “Why does that one look like the dad and the others look like the mom?”

This isn’t the first time she’s seemingly tapped into my thoughts—which isn’t really what’s happening, but it’s the best way to explain it.

There have been numerous times, ever since she could talk, where she would echo something I was thinking about or somehow choose a Disney movie or Netflix show that came bearing some profound message for me, resonant of where I was mentally at the time.

I’ve also experienced this with Jake. We’ll often be thinking the same thing, and once we even got flashes of the same past life vision at the same time. These occurrences are less about “reading thoughts” and more about vibrating on the same frequency and being very attuned to others, ourselves, and our surroundings.

All of this encompasses the magic of synchronicity.

Cool cool. But what is synchronicity?

When we’re tuned in, reality has a curious way of reflecting our thoughts back to us in the form of synchronicity. But before you can enter Synchronicity City, you have to be willing to believe in it and make it mean something beautiful. It all starts with noticing.

But what is it, really? According to Carl Jung, who coined the term, a synchronicity is an “acausal connecting principle” — the simultaneous occurrence of two or more unrelated events, linked by meaning rather than cause.

Meaning. That part is important. We’ll circle back.

It’s things like thinking of someone and immediately receiving a text from them. Or thinking about pizza and then your partner suggests it for dinner. Or thinking/talking about something and seeing that reflected in your external reality.

Or seeing a number pop up in different places and various ways, assigning it the meaning of your own identity, and then, you know, it just casually happens to be the number on the courtroom you’re entering to legally change your entire name, first, middle and last.

Stuff like that.

To me, synchronicities are winks from the universe, your spirit team, your soul, and all those mystical, magical, mostly unexplainable forces. But it’s also science—a lot of it! That’s what makes them so cool and special; they’re the intersection point of our physical reality & human bodies and whatever exists beyond that (what I often refer to as the Great Perhaps, the Beautiful Strange, and the Wild Fantastic).

The Science of Synchronicity

I’ve been keeping a log of my own personal signs and synchronicities since my journey kicked off in 2020. Once I started recording them, I felt like they increased tenfold, which makes sense if we think about it from a scientific standpoint: where focus goes, energy flows.

From a science POV, synchronicity is like a dance between several parts of the brain—the gatekeeper of the Reticular Activating System (RAS), the software of pattern recognition, and the HBIC of Storytelling—the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC).

The RAS only allows information into your awareness that it deems important, relevant, or urgent and is responsible for determining relevance based on what you have been focusing on or thinking about. Once that info gets past the pearly gates, pattern recognition takes over. If two independent events happen close together, the pattern recognition parts of the brain link them together and perceive them as related events rather than isolated ones. Once a pattern has been flagged, the PFC gets all excited and starts spinning stories about what it means.

Remember that big important meaning I mentioned? Yeah, that’s 100% on us. We’ve always been the author here, and ohhhhh how often we forget that.

What story gets recorded is heavily dependent on how we perceive the event, which is why perspective is an invaluable resource. Great for imagination, whimsy and wonder when the input is interpreted positively. Absolutely awful for anxiety and stress when it’s perceived negatively. But even if the meaning is initially negative, you can always reverse that spell.

When the brain recognizes and assigns meaning to certain things (like specific number sequences) and makes positive stories, it results in dopamine, creating a feedback loop that primes the RAS to look for even more connections in the future.

However, seeing 222 repeatedly on license plates and finding feathers in random places when you need a shot of hope isn’t all neuroscience.

The Spirituality of Synchronicity

From a spiritual lens, synchronicity is a language between realms: the physical 3D and us as individuals bound in human bodies interacting with the universe and its many multidimensional beings and energies.

From this angle, it’s less brain mechanics and more Law of Resonance (“like attracts like”). When we hold a specific intention, emotion, or truth, we emit a specific energetic frequency. Physical reality acts like a giant mirror and reflects our internal state back to us through external events. So synchronicities become confirmations from the universe (or whatever being we’ve assigned meaning to relevant to the event—angels, spirit guides, deceased loved ones, etc.) that we are in alignment, or harmony, with our paths.

They can also act as breadcrumbs, especially if we’re so far of that path like I was in the beginning. I needed a lot of spiritual hand-holding to start awakening the dreams, desires, and suppressed truth that was dormant within me. I didn’t believe in myself back then and had such a limiting and small vision for my life that spirituality was my metaphorical door-cracked-open.

By stepping into that world of wonder—tarot, astrology, reincarnation, etc.— and exploring new ideas and beliefs, it slowly opened that door wider over time, allowing me to question and contemplate what I believed to be true about myself and the way the world worked. Through learning, curiosity, and self-reflection/exploration, I became my own author, consciously choosing what meaning to make and was able to construct a much more expansive perspective and belief system. Paired with attunement to guidance—noticing those signs/synchronicities and hearing my inner wisdom—they ultimately led me toward expansion.

When we face major turning points in life, a sudden cluster of synchronicities basically acts as cosmic flashlight, showing us the way toward our own personal “more”— fulfillment, purpose, passion, love, alignment, and so much…well, more!

Magic Becomes the Bridge

What makes synchronicity so fascinating is that the science and the metaphysics don’t have to be in conflict with each other. It doesn’t have to be this view or that view, one absolute or the other.

Magic happens in the bridge between, when we integrate the two polarities and form something unique that exist more harmoniously. From that point, it becomes a beautifully collaborative system where can experience both: the spirituality keeps us tethered to the wonder, the awe, and the possibility of something far greater than ourselves and earthly existence, while the science keeps us grounded in the human experience by acting as the receiver, perfectly tuned to pick up the universal broadcast.

I’ve had so many magical experiences at this point that it’s almost impossible to keep track, which is why I keep a running list of universal winks in the notes of my phone. And while many of those stories are positive and wonderful, several are also the exact opposite—another reason why the brain is so heavily involved and how much perception factors into it all. But those negative experiences can also be just as valuable as the positive ones when we use them to grow.

There’s no shortage of stories around here, whether it’s a more subtle nudge like 143 on a license plate after thinking of my relationship or something with a bit more “kapow!” like thinking I should request the band to play Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and then literally hearing that as the next song, without me actually asking, the magic is everpresent—we just have to learn to speak the language (& I regularly document that language on my Instagram—check my “Magic I” & “Magic II” story highlights for tons more).

When the science and spiritual intersect—and when we choose to believe in it—magic happens. When we whisper out into the cosmic ether and are patient, eventually that universe will always whisper back.

It’s part science, part spiritual, but heavily human. It’s magical because we are the ones assigning meaning to the ordinary and transforming it into the extraordinary. It’s magical because we make it so by choice. It’s magical—because we choose to believe.

📍Updates from the Maviverse

A IRL Synchronicity Sidequest Story that just happened: I’m currently on a short solo trip as I write this and had a really beautiful synchronicity this morning. Sadly, no photographic “proof”, but I was sitting outside reading and heard a buzzing noise. When I looked up, a hummingbird flitted right through my space, hovered for a brief moment a few feet away, then rocketed off into the trees. Not long after, I was sitting on the dock and saw the hummingbird again, darting across the pond. What was significant this time was the synchroncity I clocked soon after as I returned to my own book and read the line “flit hummingbird-style between realms.”

This was only the second time I’d seen a hummingbird in the flesh; the first time was early in my journey (before everything happened) when I was on my back deck and one hovered so close to me for what felt like an eternity. In my personal universe, hummingbirds are signs of hope and new beginnings, when I’m exiting one phase of life and moving into something new (also why I designed my 2nd book’s cover that way). So seeing a hummingbird not only once but twice today, feels especially potent.