Spooky Action at a Distance - Soul-Mates and Kindred Spirits

Photo by Martin Jones

Quantum entanglement is a thing - a physical phenomenon - occurring when a pair of particles (or a group of them) have a correlation such that the state of one cannot be described independently of the other, even when separated by a large distance. Their relationship must be addressed in terms of the collection as a whole. If you take a measure of one, you will find same in the other (and possibly annihilate both, but that's a different tangent.) What affects one affects the whole system.  This is the baby-food version - I'm still learning.

Einstein called it "Spooky Action at a Distance." He had doubts, and those doubts spawned debate which continues today. Recently, though, scientists at the University of Glasgow have captured evidence of Bell Entanglement on camera.

I'm gonna stretch this skeleton a bit and apply it to human connection.

We've all heard twin stories - people formed from a split egg who claim special communication. There's Heartbreak Syndrome, a real condition which seems linked to people who die soon after the death of a spouse. We talk a lot about Soul Mates; some of us think we've found one, and some of us don't believe in such things.

I think we have many - it's just a matter of whether we locate them in this lifetime. When I tried to find support for my newly-formed Physics of Soul-Mates theory, I came up pretty dry.  Most pop psychology focuses on chemistry and romantic love, of course.

They aren't all going to be romances. They might not even be long-term friends, or friends at all; this is my theory, based on a few different experiences. Here's one:

I once had a dream so vivid that I was awakened by the feel of a woman touching me on my shoulder.  She wasn't integral to the the dream-plot, more of a cameo appearance or even a commercial break.  In the dream she looked me in my face, said something, and tapped me hard on my shoulder, almost like a push. When I woke, I didn't know what words she said, but I could still feel the impression of her fingertips on my skin.

The next day I was working at the hotel front desk, and this same woman walked in the door. We made eye contact  and I felt a brief shock - a buzzing of all my senses - for the smallest measurable sliver of time.

"WELL.  That was weird," she said. And then she checked in to the hotel, and we had no further conversation nor contact ever again. Other than my holding the keys to her room we had nothing in common, and I was content to leave it at that. You can't just ask somebody, "Hey, did I meet you in my dream yesterday?"

I have a friend who seems to receive messages from the other side through me. The most notable was a dream in which her grandfather (I knew things about him but never met him) came to me, asked me if I knew her, and judged while I explained that I did know her, and how.  Then he gave me a message for her:

"Tell her I said Stop it. Just cut it out."  And he marched away. I sent her an email to explain the message. And she knew what it meant.

There were enough clues in the plot of the dream for me to know that my brain was representing her grandfather for whatever reason, yet the subplot of the dream was what convinced my friend that the message was for her.  I had other dreams she could interpret.

I have more stories that are not as vivid nor as insular as these. Most of them unfold over a long period of time, and maybe it's just the fact of the same people orbiting back into my periphery that manifests the entanglement. We may seem to spin in opposite directions, like electron pairs. But there is no mistaking the connection. And I believe I have soul-mates spinning, somewhere, that I will never meet. The picture at the top of this post is a ghost of one of those.

So, is quantum entanglement feasible as a goal - can we create the connection - or does it happen with or without our machinations? Is there some innate bond between persons that effects entanglement? Or is the phenomenon simply our subconscious interpreting a complex recipe of chemicals? What would Carl Jung say, or Freud?

How will we know?

My standard spiritual answer applies here:  It doesn't matter. The science is pretty fun, though.

Believing in your own feelings is important to go forward.  I'm okay with never meeting all my soul-mates, as long as I believe they exist, and that we're entangled. Roll out, Legion - let's go do some orbit-stuff.

Further reading:

SPECIAL NOTE about the photo: - He was a Kindred Spirit for sure.  Under the names Monjo and Shaghuftah, we communicated online for decades; we shared a love of literature, guitars and old churches. He passed away December 31, 2016, before I had a chance to meet him in person. He gave me explicit permission to use his photos whenever I liked - this ghost-selfie is one. God Bless and keep you, Martin Jones, but you can come visit me any time you like.

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