I awoke again the other morning just as the clock turned to 11:11. It's happened more times than I can count in the past decade. Sometimes I drift back to sleep only to reawaken at 3:33 or 5:55. Several nights I've also rolled over with 12:34 staring back. I recall awakening in the 11th month last fall at 11:11.
I can't explain the intriguing mystery.
Yet I understand from conversations with lots of people that many of us share the phenomenon of consecutive or repetitive numbers that pop up on digital clocks.
Those who see only in black and white say it's all simply coincidences that occur during a day's 24-hour cycle, even when these events occur regularly, sometimes as many as 3 times over a day and night.
Well, perhaps it is just random happenstance. Yet considering there are 1,440 minutes that arrive and depart each day, the odds seem long for these space-time numbers we create to line up in a way that makes sense of the patterns that stand out only during our waking consciousness.
I express it in that way only because these same numerical configurations invariably occur at least 12 times a day, whether you or I are aware of them or not. It's only my awareness of those special moments that creates the mystical sense surrounding them.
When I see the numbers we use to measure time line up, it can feel like a message of sorts, especially when it happens continuously over weeks, even months. Then my awareness of these alignments inevitably fades until the next spate appears.
For me, the phenomenon qualifies as being "mystical," especially when based on the definition by New York philosophy professor Douglas W. Shrader. In 2008, he presented the paper, "Seven Characteristics of Mystical Experiences" for an international humanities conference.
Shrader said mystical experiences have a poetic characteristic which reveals "otherwise hidden or inaccessible knowledge" which lasts for relatively brief periods of time.
Shrader writes that there also exists a sense of timelessness ... that a mystical experience transcends time.
Another trait, he adds, is the feeling that within mystical experiences, there's the "feeling that one has somehow encountered 'the true self' (a sense that mystical experiences reveal the nature of our true, cosmic self," which lies "beyond life and death, beyond difference and duality, and beyond ego and selfishness."
Not being a distinguished professor of philosophy, I only know it sure feels strange when this happens time and again.
Internet publications contend what other deeper thinkers over the ages also conclude: Time is merely an illusion that helps us makes sense of our consciousness, and that changes we perceive come from within ourselves.
Yeah, I know, gets as deep as a hog lagoon when you try to wallow around in this stuff. Suffice it to say, we ultimately measure every aspect of our brief and limited awareness based fundamentally on planetary positions within our solar system and not because there exists such a thing as "time" reflected by a digital clock.
So, when I bite off a big ol' chunk of this reality and chew a while, I realize these passing moments that my clock says line up in identical order could possibly be some validating message from within, or from a place beyond my understanding, perhaps confirming I'm on a proper path at the time and to stay on it.
The Internet has plenty of accounts from others with the same observations and questions, some of whom wonder if they are "going crazy" when they notice such patterns, then explain that they happen too frequently to simply be scores of coincidences.
One lady who notices them seemed relieved, saying "I'm glad I'm not the only one!" Another called them "angel numbers" and said they are a matter of individual perspective and interpretation.
A third said we notice the organized patterns because they stand out from the larger field of numbers that are not so clearly organized.
One explanation of their origin came from a person (obviously well-educated in science) who said that while our logical brain finds such patterns as simply part of a greater whole, the spiritually creative portion keeps insisting there is more to them than meets the eye.
"Perhaps this occurs from the depths of our subconscious, or signals from our higher selves," the reader suggested. Those trying to be helpful in resolving the question have various theories that seem to always hearken to both possibilities.
Having grown accustomed as a journalist to following paper trails across 45 years, I'm most intrigued by the theory that these consecutive or repetitive patterns absorbed into our conscious state represent the initial step toward other mystical patterns in life that we can either discern and pursue more deeply or simply allow to fade away.
One wag, however, summarized it in the most practical way: "Hey, this never happens to me if I decide to never look at a digital clock."
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 10/01/2016