SYNCHRONICITY: The philosophical concept by Carl Jung, the album by The Police, and its importance to the narrative of Stranger Things
(thanks so much to @pjofan1912 and @/cxstiel on twitter for their help researching this theory!!)
Synchronicity is the 1983 album by The Police that plays at the end of S2 at the Snowball, with “Every Breath You Take”. The record is shown spinning in S4, displaying red, yellow and blue stripes. These colors appear across the series (even in S1E01, pictured below)
Collage by @pjofan1912
There’s believed to be ~40 variations of the album cover. Within these variants there are clocks, skulls, butterflies, eyes, and other imagery that we associate with lovewinsgate. The subtle differences are only noticable if you pay close attention, similarly to Stranger Things.
This was intended to give people an unsettling feeling of déjà vu, and reward them for being observant. There’s even a photo of Carl Jung’s book being held upside down on certain variations.
They posted a ST version of the album cover when doing promo for S3! (found by @bylerbyerss on twt)
The lyrics of both Synchronicity I & II are relevant to the framework of ST5. The first mentions “A sleep trance, a dream dance”, when we think our main characters are under Vecna’s trance. The second describes both normal suburban life & the emergence of a monster in a lake. And the band admits they have a difficult time remembering which of the songs is which.
The album was inspired by Arthur Koestler’s “The Roots Of Coincidence”, which touches on Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity, and Paul Kammerer’s seriality. It also covers paranormal & telekinetic phenomena, and their relationship to science.
Reading this book felt like a glimpse at the very DNA of Stranger Things. There’s numerous concepts that feel reminiscent of The Montauk Project, a known inspiration for the show—I believe The Roots of Coincidence is also a huge inspiration. I screenshotted some relevant passages below.
I personally believe it is proof of intentionality throughout the entire series, up to the very “end”. Proof that the “coincidences” really are carefully crafted to catch our eye and get our attention.
The RYB stripes are everywhere; color changing objects are an echo of album cover variants; band members forgetting the difference between I & II is reminiscent of the Duffers forgetfulness; and the album’s biggest inspiration is full of the psychokinetic concepts Stranger Things loves.
The appearance of coincidence is the point. Because there are too many coincidences piling up to truly be chance at this point—and we’re the ones making the connections. Synchronicity is the heart of Stranger Things, Byler, and ultimately, lovewinsgate. ❤️💛💙
the tortured poet’s department syncs perfectly with the stranger things finale
i realize how crazy and far fetched this sounds, but i beg you to hear me out. this sync has made it impossible for me to ignore the stranger things-taylor tether, so i’d like to walk you all through how i got here.
i understand it’s hard to believe in the involvement of outside artists, and i also understand that a lot of people don’t like taylor as a person or a musician. if any of that if the case for you and i’d appreciate if you please don’t interact with this theory! we’re all just here to have a good time 🫶🏻
that said! the first thing i want to present to you are the lyrics that play over the opening credits, when the screen says ‘STRANGER THINGS 5’, because that’s what i can’t get out of my head as i’m investigating this sync.
You're in self-sabotage mode, throwing spikes down on the road
But I've seen this episode and still loved the show
Who else decodes you?
self sabotage, like making a fake ending? spikes on the road like when they’re caught by the military at the end of the episode? she mentions an episode of a show as the title card is on the screen? and finally, we are literally decoding the entire show right now! there are actually sister lyrics that bookend these with the closing credits, but you’ll have to read more to see those:)
the last thing i’ll give you before i make you dig under the cut is my favorite sync of the episode. i implore you to watch it, and if it compels you, to look below for more of my thought processes, clips & a link to the full sync for you to check out yourself!
my curiosity about the taylor thether began when i first watched the music video for opalite. there is stranger things/lwg imagery all over the video. here’s the rudimentary collage i made for a friend when the video first dropped:
here’s a post by @nanas-basement with more polished visual parallels! there’s also a series of tiktoks by @overwhelmedbutok (one, two, three) that do the same. there are easter eggs and st related imagery in numerous other videos of hers as well that i may cover later.
there’s also several posts on twitter by stranger writers mentioning taylor (one, two, three, four) so her work hasn’t been unmentioned by them, either.
now, the tortured poets department—her eleventh album—is not the album opalite is on. however, a fun fact about the album is that it was announced as a normal length album, and that first half leaked on april 18th, the day before it was actually set to release. it also coincidentally seems to be the day TF85 is scheduled to release in theaters. then, two hours after the official album release, an entire second album’s worth of music dropped with no notice.
a double album. fans had been speculating and theorizing about taylor doing this for a while now, but the concept had always been called crazy or debunked, even by other fans. having everything leak a day early solidified the surprise—how could you possibly keep a secret that big under wraps?
starting to sound familiar?
while researching for this post, i found a variety article with incredibly coded language. i screenshotted an example of this below.
stuff like time, puzzles, moving pieces around a table, clues and solvable mysteries. since variety has had a hand in the stranger things side of things, i don’t think it’s implausible they could be part of it with taylor as well.
that article mentioned the foreword for the album, which i recommend you read in full, but the most relevant lines to me were these:
pendulum, like a clock. chaos… like dustin’s speech about chaos classes in dnd? the caged beast could be tharizdun which is one of my favorite lwg theories, who is referred to as “the chained god”! and curious things is just stranger things reworded.
the reason i was compelled to check out the sync in the first place was because when i was casually listening to it for fun, i started to notice stranger things buzzwords or phrases appearing in just about every song. it was meant to be a fun novelty just for me, to see if there were any uncanny happy accidents that fell over the right lyrics. here’s another messy collage of some of the lyrics that stood out to me.
they don’t all fall on the moments they’re referencing. the typewriter, for example, is mentioned at the beginning of the album rather than the end. however, many of them are. and of course the entire album syncs regardless.
on the topic of things mentioned in the lyrics, i’d like to draw your attention to the lyrics that bookend the ones i mentioned play during the opening credits. these play over the closing credits with the illustrations.
like… this screams lovewinsgate. honestly, most of these are self explanatory, but LOOKING BACKWARDS MIGHT BE THE ONLY WAY TO MOVE FORWARD? ahem, apologies for the caps. but that’s just a crazy coincidence to me.
and that’s not even starting on the snowball tether. if you look backwards to the snowball in stranger things, where they are slow dancing, and sparks mean romantic electricity… the score for that scene is “every breath you take”, from the police’s album, synchronicity.
i might make a whole separate post for that, because the 3 colors from the cover of that are constantly appearing throughout the seasons—but for right now all you need to know is that that’s what’s playing at the snow ball, it’s incredibly foundational to the show’s story, and taylor mentions it here. (also worth noting that mike’s tear right before the epilogue does in fact sync shockingly well to ttpd. “how did it end?” ends right as it cuts to black) edit: i did make a whole separate post for that!
i’m not sure exactly how to close my thoughts here, because they’re still developing and i will likely post an update to this in the coming weeks. but i wanted to get the information out as soon as i could, so this is what i’ve got for you guys at the moment.
i guess i’ll say that this sync has been my favorite thing to discover so far in my lovewinsgate journey, and it has truly allowed me to have a new appreciation for both the album and the finale. i actually find the finale enjoyable when it’s synced to TTPD!
so this is my attempt at sharing that enjoyment with you all. here’s some clips of my favorite syncs for you to check out:
Opening credits
El in tank & Byler tower
Hopper Vecna vision
Kali’s death
Mindflayer death & Holly rescue
M11 void scene & El’s death
Bench talk & graduation
El’s escape
Binder shelving & credits
and here’s the full sync, which i highly recommend watching yourself 🫶🏻
