A flabbergasting tale. Leads me to wonder: how many writers - if any - have experienced this very phenomenon? It also has me thinking about the interconnectedness of all things; Carl Jung's collective unconscious, and the like. Fascinating!

I used to hate when I came up with a great idea and I see it in a movie or television show later. I feel like there is a chip in my head or I'm just slightly behind the times. In a rom-com I'm working on, I wanted a character to propose via flash mob. Well a real life dude has trumped that and someone told me it's in a fairly recent movie. Like I said, I 'used to hate it.' When I see stuff like this, it tells me two things, my ideas are on the right track and I just have to be more creative.

Eerie! Sometimes I think I see my characters in real life. I see someone and think, "Oh my gosh! He looks EXACTLY like my protagonist!" I kind of want to ask for his autograph then...=)

Great story. This is sometimes I have in mind when I get certain ideas (particular idea). There seems to be something real with some stories if not for real then metaphorically or partly and not intentionally so. At least that is what I believe and this article strengthens that belief.

I'm not alone. This is an amazing story about the paranormal. I had a similar thing happen to me a few weeks ago. Working on a novel about souls stuck between here and the afterlife because they have some unfinished business. During my research I read obituaries of people who died in the hospital (where my story takes place). One man really caught my attention. He had done a lot of things in his lifetime, but what caught my attention was the fact that he had written music until a twist if fate caused him to stop altogether and destroy all of his music. Why? He died in 1966 so I didn't expect to find the answer - so I made one up. His unfinished business was a piece of music (in three parts, two of which were hidden in his old Hornung & Möller piano). Our protagonist (not dead) had to go find it 45 years later. I finally worked up the nerve to seek out a living relative, an old woman who was a bit shocked to hear from me (of course). We had this chat on the phone and decided to meet later, when she was feeling better. Just before she hung up she said "oh..and I still got his old H&M piano in my living room." I was shocked. I wanted to go there right away and look for the missing pieces of music inside it. I'm starting to believe that this guy found me - not vice versa. He picked me to write his story. I'm also thrilled you posted this because I witnessed a bullfight in Sevilla in May 2010. I got so enthralled that back then I wrote down this high concept for a thriller in three acts (just like a bullfight); tercio de varas, tercio de banderillas, tercio de muerte. I had almost forgotten about it! - now it has just topped my logline submissions list. “Anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it.” Hemingway on bullfighting.

Thanks 4 all Ur Insights...!...as to this, I'm actually working on something now that's kind of this in reverse, where something paranormal is normal,(or is it?) what seems real to the Protaganist is not what it seems, even to himself....however, he's pulled further and further, even tho @ times he doesn't believe it himself(until the next occurence which proves it IS in fact happening)....sorry to be so mysterious, but it's actually happening to me, and I'm trying to get it on the page and it ain't easy..LOL....Best! and thanks again for all your Words of Wisdom...!

Happened to me too, albeit on a smaller scale. I was knocking around ideas for a supernatural script where the protagonist discovers something via symbols he sees everywhere. These symbols are particular to 1920s and 1930s America so imagine my shock when, while watching BBC soap Eastenders (about residents in a street in south east London, for those not familiar), they used these symbols as part of one of their story lines. Now of course, there was a different intent behind their usage (it wasn't supernatural for a start) but the fact that these very specific and archaic symbols were used as part of a slice of life soap at the same time I was researching them for my script dropped my jaw. There is something completely wonderful and at the same time stomach-clenching about the fact that there seems to be a collective pool of ideas that we all tap into. Wonderful because we're all on the same plane. Stomach-clenching because someone might use your idea before you do.

"I wanted to go there right away and look for the missing pieces of music inside it." Please tell me you're going. That would be a wonderful coincidence if the music WAS inside that piano.