Personal Donnie Darko synchronicities? (Numerology and dream interpretation expertise requested.)

As stated in the thread's title, this is going to sound weird. Hence its inclusion in Skunk Works. Before I post this, I want to clarify that I know how this is going to sound, and that I have seen a psychologist and psychiatrist for an unrelated issue (social anxiety to be precise,) and they assure me after hearing what I am telling you that I am not delusional or suffering from mental illness. They do, however, insist that the following are merely coincidences. I am entirely open to the possibility that they are. They're just so strange though, and they leave me with such an uneasy feeling, that I finally felt that out of sheer curiosity I would post about this and ask everyone's opinion.

Some of you may be familiar with the film Donnie Darko. Many have claimed that some unusual synchronicities surround this film, particularly pertaining to 9/11. I don't know whether that's the case or not, but what I'm describing began long before I ever saw the film. The film, however, left me with a horribly disconcerted feeling, and included a lot of strange coincidences that really shook me up.

Beginning in 1999 some time, I began having strange, vivid dreams. I've always been a very vivid dreamer, and my dreams have always had sort of a unusual edge to them (premonitions, easily becoming lucid, awareness that I'm dreaming with or without true lucidity, etc.)

These dreams initially involved an airplane crashing into the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street in San Francisco. They left me with a profound sense of loss, failure, and grief. When I awoke, I felt as though someone I knew about or cared for deeply had been on the plane that crashed. I can't really explain why or how, but this dream always stayed with me, and haunted me. I felt as though it were somehow important.

On August 25th, 2000 I flew to another state (I'm being vague as I don't wish to identify this person) to meet someone I initiated a romantic relationship with. We met in an airport in this other state, and pursued a relationship for some years thereafter. During our relationship, this person had a dream in which they heard a knocking (three knocks) on the door to an attic above them, to which they knocked back three times. At that point, a young boy emerged from the attic and wrote on the wall, "It's 10:30 AM. Do it now. Don't procrastinate." This person is someone who rarely if ever recalls their dreams. They immediately called me upon waking, and told me about the dream, saying they felt it was important and that they needed to tell me. I still had not seen the Donnie Darko film at this time, nor had they.

Another dream I had was about some horrible event that had transpired, plunging the city (and in the dream, it felt, the entire world or at least a large portion of this country) into darkness and electrical failure. Some terrifying, threatening force was moving through the city. Everyone was hiding in their homes, huddled together, terrified. Somehow, when we tuned a radio to 88.8, we could hear an incredibly disturbing noise which would let us know when these sinister forces (whatever they were) were approaching. This dream, too, has stuck with me and haunted me. It was of a numerical specificity that my dreams usually lack. I still had not seen the film at that time. I also did not recognize the room I was in in the dream, nor the closet I and my family were hiding in in it.

Some time after this, a close friend and I were talking on the phone, when suddenly we both began to hear lines repeatedly being delivered from an old Dracula film. I had not seen or heard the film before; I discovered later through an internet search that the lines had originated from it. The lines were repeated numerous times, over the course of about an hour, and overlapped, echoed, and got in each other's ways. The lines were, "At the stroke of midnight, all the evil things in the world will arrivey," or something to that effect, among others from the film. There were also repeating sounds of fog horns, bells, seagulls, and an infant crying severely. My friend and I heard this for some time, wondering what could possibly be causing it. It also happened again one or two more times, the following two nights, at the same time - between 1 and 2 AM pacific time if memory serves. I don't know if this is connected in any way (assuming ANY of this means ANYTHING, of course,) but it too always stayed with me and was greatly disturbing.

Around 2006 or so, I finally saw the film (Donnie Darko) on DVD. The film, as I said, shook me to my core. I still can't put my finger on why. However, I began to notice what may or may not be synchronicities connected to the aforementioned experiences and the film. Describing these may be SPOILERS for those who have not seen this film, so please be forewarned. Read only if you want the plot spoiled for you.

The frequency 88.8 on the radio in my dream: The film takes place in 1988. Frank tells Donnie Darko that the world will end in 28 days, 6 minutes, 42 days, and 12 seconds. The sum of these numbers is 88. In the film, the flight Donnie's parents are taking is flight 2806, gate 42, leaving at 12:00 AM. Again, 28 + 6 + 42 + 12 = 88, and 12 AM is also "the stroke of midnight." ("At the stroke of midnight, all the evil things in the will arrive.")

The power outage in the 88.8 dream:Some time after I saw the film finally, my family and I moved to our current place of residence from elsewhere here in the city. When we arrived, I realized that the rear bedroom was PRECISELY IDENTICAL to the room from the dream about the radio tuned to 88.8, as was the closet; it was the closet we had been hiding in in the dream. This really shook me up, particularly when a blackout occurred on our block that day! That really brought it home. To see it with no electricity, at night, made it almost as if the dream was becoming reality. It was really freaky, and kind of cemented the sense of dread I had about all of this, which persists and haunts me to this day. (I'm not totally preoccupied with it or anything, but I AM very curious about it all.)

"It's 10:30 AM. Do it now. Don't procrastinate" in their dream: When the person I flew out of state to meet and I met in the airport for the first time, it was August 25th, 2000. According to the "behind the scenes" features on the Donnie Darko DVD, the scene in which Donnie's mother calls him from the airport, just before they board the aforementioned flight, was filmed August 25th, 2000 at 10:30 AM.

The plane crashing into the Ferry Building in my dream: The entire plot of Donnie Darko centers around a time paradox or tangent universe created when a plane's engine crashes into Donnie and his family's home. It was supposed to kill him, but instead he was outside talking to Frank, who was warning him about the impending destruction of the world. In actuality, in the film, the very universe itself - a paradoxical tangent universe created in contrast to the "original" universe in which Donnie was meant to die - was going to collapse. In order to manipulate him into a position in which he would die as he was intended to originally, he is tragically led into a scenario by the omniscient "Frank," which in the tangent universe, as a mortal, inadvertently kills Donnie's girlfriend, Gretchen. When I saw the scene in the film where Gretchen died, I experienced PRECISELY the same sense of grief and loss than I did in the plane crash dream. The movie was released 45 days after 9/11, which due to its involvement of plane crashes, made it more or less a box office flop. The cast and crew described how strange they felt that the attacks included plane crashes. They described feeling as though it were some sort of strange coincidence, which is odd considering the film was made well before the attacks, and they had no real reason to associate the two.

The very nature of the film's plot: The movie is about a person who has unusual dreams and experiences, which guide him toward an inevitable course of action, even though he never quite figured out exactly what it is that must happen in order to right things. That's exactly how my own dreams and some other experiences I have not shared herein have made me feel for years... as though someone or something is desperately trying to tell me something, and for whatever reason, I just can't quite figure it all out or put all the pieces together.

Anyway, I am 100% open minded to the possibility that this might mean something, or that it might all be random coincidence and could thus mean absolutely nothing. Again, to reiterate, I'm not schizophrenic. I'm currently under psychiatric and psychological care for unrelated social anxiety, and they have repeatedly assured me of this through psychoanalysis and numerous tests. I just wanted to clarify that once again. I don't particularly like sharing something that private, but I consider that the price of posting something so admittedly outlandish. I'm an open-minded skeptic myself, so I understand why someone might ask about that, hence the clarification.

Does anyone, on ANY level (I'm totally open) have any advice, explanation, interpretation, or insights into any of this, in any way, shape, or form, no matter how "out there" they might sound? Or am I just barking up a nonexistent tree? Lol.

Thanks to anyone who replies. I really appreciate you taking the time to read all of this. Sorry for the length.

As a Death Survivor I can tell you we are not our bodies but what uses them. Our Conscious awareness is not limited to the space and time we presently occupy. Yes you can be picking up on th energies of thought around you.

The future is not set in cement, it is created by what we do and think and believe today.
As the Great Phsycologist master said "It will be done unto you as you believe." We create the future. So if we believe on a mass scale of impending doom, then we send out a frequency of energy to create and bring back what we are "praying" for.

I have found that many so called "mental" patients are simply finer tuned to the frequencies around us.

Our subconscious mind records everything we see and our dreams use pictures as symbols to send us updates.
You might say it is our hidden files on our motherboard. And dreams are the only way we access them. Our sub conscious is the "woman" and the Conscious is the "man" One is the active and the other the passive. We give to our subconscious through our words, beliefs and everything we see, hear,smell, taste, touch. And our subconscious gives back without attachment.

So you are picking up the mass conscious belief system and seeing it play out in the manifest world.

Which means we can also use that same "mind" power to stop those things. When you get those feelings and dreams you can use the power in you,

"all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" "keep my sayings" "everything I have done you can do also and greater things."

To say NO this is not real or true and has no power to harm or affect the world.

Jesus came to show us what we really are. He did not come to start a priest class or a church to lord over us, He came to show us that the power of God is in us, as us, for us and through us. He came to show us are true identity.

So don't fear your dreams, in fact training yourself for 5-10 minutes a day in meditation, will help you get in touch with the nature of them and to give you greater power over yourself and how to block the unreal and be more alert to the true and real.

I hope this is of some help.

reply to post by AceWombat04


Well thats cool, but Donnie Darko is an interpretation of what you want it to mean (Could be a kid thats just crazy, could be a Tangent Uninverse, could be anything really). Even the director never stated what the film was about, he stated what the film meant to him, but left it for individual interpretation. None the less, nearly everybody can relate to Donnie Darko. Especially in dreams and many people will come and try to connect invisibile dots with visible dots. To be honest, I think you are just trying to make sense of a metaphysical dream and relate it to the real world. Lets not forget that Dreams could be taking place in an alternate reality or hell, they could just be images and scenarios that you subconciously create. Perhaps in this you are trying to find patterns to better understand your dreams. However, I must state that the only person who can decpher dreams is yourself, the reciever.

And like I stated Donnie Darko can apply and does apply to every individual which is why its one of my favorite films ever made.

I think it is a bit wierd. Epecially that your dreams corespond to the movie. Maybe it is a bit of pointless synchronicity. However it could be pointing to future events in your own life. The reason I say it might point to future events in your own life is because of personal experience.

As a teenager I had a recurring dream for months. It was about a young girl being trapped in a closet and scratching at the door untill her fingers would bleed. I could feel she was being held prisoner by a very evil force. The terror and agony were overwhelming. I would wake up sweating or crying every time I had the dream. Well, nearly two years after the dreams ended they semi-manifested in life.

My parents were looking at buying a house. It was a little old and weather beaten. The guy that owned it previously had prety much abandoned the place. (Depending on who you talk with he either went to jail or just disapeared.) According to the realtor they had recieved a signed and notarized letter of intent to sell. So it was for sale.

Anyway, sorry to digress. When we were being shown the house I noticed one of the bedrooms had a small door that appeared to lead to the attic. When I opened the door I was so overcome I nearly lost my lunch. The inside of the closet was the one from my dream. The wall paper was the same, the carpet was the same, and there were scratch marks around the door frame. I back pedalled out of the room so fast I nearly fell down the stairs. I refused to live in that house. My parents never bought the place.

I personally seen it as a type of dream manifestation. There was no way I could live there. The idea of the evil that might have taken place there just broke my heart.

edited for spelling

[edit on 13-9-2009 by MikeNice81]

What you have both said is actually quite beneficial to me. (The two initial posters - my apologies if someone else posts and I miss it as I type this response.)

I concur that these are perfectly reasonable interpretations/conclusions regarding my dreams and experiences. In fact, I too lean more toward them being either purely personal manifestations of unconscious anxiety, or reflections of some unconcious dread or fixation on "doom" as the first poster indicated. I also agree that a positive outlook, belief that nothing is written in stone, and defiance of any inevitable fate, is important in affecting one's reality and its progression.

Thank-you both for your posts.

I still feel uneasy about it all though, and would like to get as broad a range of opinions and outlooks as possible regarding this before adopting any one interpretation. I'm remaining open-minded, but I think you guys are most likely on the right track.

EDIT: To the third poster who shared their experience; thanks. That's terrifying! See, that's kind of why I am so curious about this. I'm sorry you had such an unsettling experience.

[edit on 9/13/2009 by AceWombat04]

reply to post by AceWombat04


I thank you for sharing and having the courage to do so Of course coincidence and "coincidence" are very interesting. The movie could be a coincidence because you watched it just seemingly matched or moved you or it could be a "coincidence" (by this " " I mean a purpose), maybe it is a purpose for your path in life. I honestly do not know. Are their any more details you could share?

Well, there isn't much more to it, really, apart from intangible aspects that are a lot harder to express in words. I wouldn't assign any weight to it at all whatsoever if not for those. There is just this overwhelming sense - in spite of, as suggested, and I've always tried to practice, meditation, faith that nothing is set in stone, and an undying belief that I alone shape my reality - that somehow I've always known or felt on some fundamental level that I am going to live to see something really bad happen, and that it will not only constitute a profound loss to me somehow, but a major failure that will effect others on some level.

I can't really put it into words effectively, I don't think. I'm trying to think of anything else that might be relevant.

I've had some other strange experiences in my life:

*Shared dreams, and such.
*Meeting people I already knew somehow, and shared a special bond with (in one instance, to such a degree that they could tell me what I dreamed even without having the same dream themselves.)
*Once I and several others all had the same dream on the same night about a place none of us had ever been before. We never figured what that was all about, if anything, either. Once we found the location and visited it, and my friend and I just felt really strange there. It was in the middle of a really bad neighborhood, near the industrial part of town, run down buildings everywhere, near a freeway, gangland graffiti everywhere you looked, including threats to stay out or die (lol,) but there was this perfectly pristine (and abandoned) playground, baseball diamond (freshly cut grass, high powered lights, rafters, the works) and clearly well maintained. That's where the dream occurred. There was a woman (in real life when we visited) in a small, padlocked, chain-link fenced-in area, walking her dog, silently, back and forth in small circles. The pad lock was on the OUTSIDE of the cage. It always struck us as incredibly odd. The whole place just creeped us out. In retrospect we wanted to ask her what she was doing padlocked in this cage, but we can't ever figure out why we didn't. We just, didn't.

I don't feel that there's more than a tangential connection between those experiences and this, though. I could always be wrong, of course. I'm trying to just list everything weird to see if anyone can suggest anything.

reply to post by AceWombat04


Well, in a couple years hopefully, my book about Memories will be finished. I cover a lot of this in the book and if your interested I will u2u some previews. Its just the beginning, but the basics are understandable.

Dreaming is very strange indeed. I think our dreams are a very unbiased "observation" of our thoughts. They can be very useful if conducted correctly. Let me show you how. . .

I used to be very afraid of ghosts. Our house was built on a piece of property cut out of my grandparent's lot. My grandparent's house had something paranormal there. They said it was the ghost of someone who had originally built the house, took very ill, and quickened their own inevitable demise via a bullet to the brain. I had many weird things happen to me there. Some of them pretty startling.

I used to dream that, (by various methods), this entity would make it's way over to our house to terrorize me there. These dreams were very very real to me because my mind had used my reality as a story line to underline the terror.

One night while in the midst of one of these self inflicted torture sessions I remember deciding I'm not gonna run anymore. I'm not gonna be scared of this thing anymore. I remember the entity had just punched a bunch of holes in the ceiling above me and was in a closet on the other side of the room. I went over to the closet, ripped the door open, and let out the most intimidating battle cry I could possible muster. I woke up clenching the sides of my bed and still hollering. BUT-

Even though the paranormal activity still persisted at my grandparent's I didn't have those dreams anymore. My fear was gone. As a matter of fact, I found I wasn't that startled by any paranormal activity at my grandparent's anymore either. . . I looked at the "dark" differently. I realized most things go bump in the night because you just can't see what the hell they really are!

Not only had I figured out a way to extinguish the terror I had produced in my dreams, but it had also spilled over into my reality to help me there.

I know the OP was about D. Darko & 911, etc., but I just wanted to share this self therapy experience I had about dreaming. I hope it helps someone else that may read this. Sorry if it was off topic.

2PacSade-

[edit on 13-9-2009 by 2PacSade]

Originally posted by TheMythLives
reply to post by AceWombat04

 

Well, in a couple years hopefully, my book about Memories will be finished. I cover a lot of this in the book and if your interested I will u2u some previews. Its just the beginning, but the basics are understandable.

I'd love to read it, actually. I'm very interested in memory and how it works. Feel free to u2u me if you want to.

[edit on 9/13/2009 by AceWombat04]

reply to post by 2PacSade


On the contrary, I feel your post was very topical. I'm fully open to the possibility that this is all a means of working out something psychological in nature, or my subconscious trying to tell me something about an aspect of my psyche I haven't dealt with yet.

Good strategy, actually.

Would it be weird to post this over at that synchronicity forum? I just thought I might get a wider group of perspectives that way. What do you guys think?