A sudden thought, it is not clear where it came from, or information, just a word or someone’s name - something that in no way previously interested, arises in the head. A person thinks: “And why did it suddenly occur to me?” But very soon he again encounters the same information or phenomenon, then again and again. Is this a coincidence or a sign? Relatively recently, psychologists have defined: the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
Subconscious or random?
If what you see in a dream suddenly becomes reality - it is a "dream in the hand", and, in principle, does not cause much surprise. Oddly enough, it is sometimes easier to believe in the other world than in what happens in reality. Of course, the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon finds its opponents among the ardent realists. Their explanation is quite simple: a random thought, caught on consciousness (and thoughts and ideas are in the air, as you know), surprises a person with its inappropriateness or even lack of meaning. After that, he unwittingly fixes his attention on everything related to this information, because two or three coincidences is already a certain sequence. And the subconscious, intuition or Baader-Meinhof has nothing to do with it. But is everything so elementary?
How the brain releases information
All the discrepancies around this phenomenon are based on the fact that the human brain tends to perceive ready-made attitudes more easily with respect to any trends or patterns. Any deviations alarm him and draw attention to them. There is a certain feeling of deja vu: after all, most recently I thought about it, heard, introduced it. And random coincidences gain significance, even excessive importance. In a word, consciousness itself “promotes” randomly obtained information. And at the same time, hundreds and thousands of pieces of information that did not become patterns pass without a trace of our consciousness without receiving a pattern.
origin of name
Baader-Meinhof is not the last name of a professor of psychology who discovered this phenomenon. Moreover, these are two surnames of two characters who have no relation to psychological science. Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof are leaders of the German Red Army Faction terrorist group. Such an organization really existed in Germany in the 70s of the last century. The heroes of this story are descendants of the Nazis, who strangely considered their terrorist activities a holy war against fascism. And the United States considered the grouping to be the embodiment of fascism in the post-war world - with the outbreak of endless wars in Vietnam and the Middle East, with attempts to dictate their terms to the whole world. On the basis of real events, the action-packed action film "Baader-Meinhof Complex" was shot.
About the film and the psychological phenomenon
A co-production film from Germany, France and the Czech Republic appeared on the big screen in 2008. It was based on the novel by the journalist from the weekly “Spiegel” Stefan Aust. The author, it turns out, was in personal acquaintance with some figures of the "Red Army Faction." The director and one of the scriptwriters was Uli Edel.
Starring Moritz Bleibtroy and
Martina Gedek. Events take place in the decade from 1967 to 1976. The organization declared terror against the ruling elite of Germany, which is considered the conductor of the policy of the main enemy of mankind - America. Numerous innocent victims, blood in the streets of peaceful cities. The police are powerless in the face of rampant violence. Bank robbery, dozens of murders, assassinations of senior officials - all this merged into a single tangle of nightmare.
The film “Baader-Meinhof Complex” was nominated for the Golden Globe, Oscar, BAFTA, Deutcher Filmpreise awards. True, the matter did not go beyond the nominations.
Truth and fiction
The release of the film became a kind of catharsis, purification. As the performer of the role of the main ideologist of the terror movement Moritz Bleibtroy admitted, it was a rare opportunity to openly talk about the tragic events of his story, which he was bashfully silent about. The producer of the film, Bernd Eichinger, had his own explanation: the realization of such an “animal” plot became possible in a country that survived the horrors of Nazism, which had deep roots in the consciousness of the nation. It doesn't matter what it's called - Baader-Meinhof syndrome or post-war syndrome.
In German society, the film caused a mixed reaction. Many contemporaries of those bloody events, including relatives and descendants of the victims of terror, have seen a distortion of facts and even an insult to the memory of the dead.
And what does the phenomenon have to do with it?
What is the connection between the film and the very concept of “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon”? There is no definite answer to this question. One version is as follows. In 1986 (the year the phenomenon was officially recognized), an American from Minnesota read an article about the German terrorist organization Red Army. And very soon, he again came across other information about the same organization. An inquisitive citizen took this not as a coincidence, but as a regularity, almost a mysterious sign of fate, a warning about something.
A discussion began in the press, readers began to discuss with interest: is there a random chain of events, or just right to talk about a new psychological theory. And since the story of Baader-Meinhof served as the starting point for the discussion, the phenomenon received this double name.
What you seek, you will find
And yet, by what principle does a person pay attention to certain random events and phrases, and miss a ton of other, sometimes more important and interesting information? In a word, what psychological basis does the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon have? Many tend to give this phenomenon a mystical meaning. In this case, is it not necessary to recall another German - Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed: "If you peer into the abyss for a long time, the abyss will begin to peer into you"? ..
That is, a person lets a certain fragment out of a dense stream of information enter the brain. If at least two coincidences arise, a hunch comes about a nonrandom regularity and even signs from above. It turns out, however, coincidence, and nothing supernatural happens? What do the best minds of mankind say about this?
Jung's Theory
There is another theory, or an attempt to understand the essence of the issue under consideration. It is based on the concept of a Swiss psychiatrist, considered one of the creators of the so-called "deep psychology", the philosopher Karl-Gustav Jung (1875-1961). The shortest explanation of his concept could sound like this: any ideas tend to be in the air. According to Jung, not just in the air, but along the surface layers of collective consciousness. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that ideas can be perceived and reproduced simultaneously by different people. This can be explained, for example, a scientific discovery made almost simultaneously by several people, or a metaphor in literature and art, embodied repeatedly (except in cases of direct plagiarism). Jung’s concept even asserts that between these people and the discoveries made by them there is far from an accidental strong dependence. And there is even a measure of this dependence!
It would be surprising if such a paradoxical theory explaining the Baader-Meinhof effect did not have refutants. The most prominent figure on the side of Jung’s opponents - the sociologist Bryand Thousand - calls his predecessor's research “mystical fog”. You can agree or argue with any point of view. Today, one thing is clear: no exact definition of this phenomenon exists either in scientific understanding or in the philistine. But it is precisely because of his undeciphering that he makes people come back to him again and again. And if someone today first learned this strange phrase - “the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon”, you can be sure that soon he will suddenly hear about him again, and his mind will present him with a new riddle. This is a good life.