I always look at the clock at 6:51, is there a reason behind it ?

Most likely due to selective attention.

Once you thought you had noticed a pattern: 6:51. Now every time you look at the clock 6:51 it makes you aware of it.

You probably look at the clock far more often, however you don’t consciously notice that you do so.

It’s definately a pattern. Sometimes I think of it as a dreadful omen thats following me. Lol.

Reset your clock to run three minutes late. See whether you become fixaed on 6:54.

(Definitely)

People will do anything to fulfill their expectation of a perceived pattern. You’ve decided that 6:51 is important to you, so you are turning to the clock consciously and subconsciously when that time rolls around.

There is some external force – maybe a train always comes down the track near you at 6:48 and it takes you a few minutes to go out of a deep sleep.

You should regard it as a talent. The fact that you can perform the trick at exactly 12 hour intervals is extraordinary. What happens with daylight savings time?

My number that usually comes up is my birthday or the address of my childhood home. It has absolutely nothing to do with fulfilling perceived patterns.
It is indeed a talent as @stanleybmanly said.

I almost always wake up 2 to 3 minutes before my alarm goes off. It doesn’t matter what time it is set to. The weird thing is, if I didn’t set it, I wouldn’t wake up.

I have been noticing this for many years but with me it is 10:10 in the morning. I have heard rational explanations for it but it still feels odd.

edit; fixated

For me, it’s been 9:11 for the last few years, which is funny.

Skeptics and science-minded folk like to dismiss the phenomenon as a pattern-making flaw of the mind, by I prefer to regard it as something like a footprint of that which comes before the mind. Instead of things happen but we only see what we want to see, I favor only what we want to see actually happens. Even then the thing is not really happening, but for the scope of this question, it’s okay to leave that latter idea to itself.

Part of it is almost certainly selective attention, as you’ve already been told. The rest is probably habituation. You’ve gotten yourself into a pattern, so it is completely unsurprising that your internal clock has been conditioned to keep it going. There’s nothing magical or portentous going on. You’re just stuck in a psychological rut.

@kevbo Habituation isn’t a flaw of the mind. It’s a very useful thing that just sometimes goes wrong or becomes confusing. In any case, your hypothesis cannot possibly be true. If it were true, nothing completely unexpected could happen. Yet completely unexpected things do happen. Therefore, your hypothesis is false.

Your clock has stopped?

I looked this up and most people fixate on the times that have matching numbers, 3 like numbers, and dates. Such as, 10:10, 11:11, 8:08, 3:33, 4:44, 9:11, 12:07, etc. Those numbers are easier to remember than say, 6:57 or 2:48.

@SavoirFaire, by “see” I also mean “notice.” Perhaps that answers the objection.

I don’t have full command of the argument, but one might say that the only things that really happen anyway are those that are unexpected, because that’s what gets our attention. So, I would take your counterpoint a little further even.

I appreciate the characterization that pattern making is also a useful attribute. I haven’t heard that much from those who bring it up, so I assumed (incorrectly that the former was the standard argument.

Last, the OP has asked for an interpretation of this phenomena, and the suggestion I’m offering among the many for the benefit of the OP’s consideration is based in different ground rules. It’s okay with me if you and I disagree.

It is fate.

@kevbo Of course it’s fine to disagree. It’s also fine to discuss. I don’t think that anything patently false could possibly be of use to the OP, and could only contribute to their confusion. As such, I am discussing.

In any case, that you are using “see” to cover noticing as well doesn’t help at all. Your thesis is that “only what we want to see actually happens.” But a precondition for wanting something is having some idea of it. Yet history gives us examples of times when we have discovered things that fell entirely without of our conceptual frameworks (things that we could have had no idea of previously). If your thesis were true, such events would be impossible. Yet not only are they possible, they are actual. Therefore, your thesis is false.

Yup. False.

My number is 12:27.

Wanna trade?

Well I really wanna believe that’s it’s just selective attention. And I guess it is that way. But somewhere I still feel queer and weird.
Moreover I don’t really have anything going on at 6:51. I have never set an alarm for this time and I specifically don’t have anything at 6:51.
I am throwing my clock out of my room now. Period.

And @flip86 I also sometimes wake up 2–3 minutes before my alarm. That usually happens when you’re stressed or you have a deadline to catch up to. So I wake up before my alarm rings. It’s like my mind keeps telling me that you have to GET up before the alarm rings. Lol. And in the end I feel like a victorious conquerer.

Do you set your alarm for 7:00 am?

No not really well sometimes but that’s not the point. I see 6:51 in the evening also when I m wide awake.

And my clock is not stuck. Really. Its working the whole day and just when I think of looking at the clock I see this time 95% of the time.

Selective attention is merely a made up theory to discourage people from believing the truth about themselves.
That we are far more powerful than the slavers want us to believe.

I have read about angel numbers by Joanne Sacred Scribes. All these numbers that we encounter are referred to as ‘angel numbers ’ and these number sequences communicate with us. I think this theory can hold a valid sincere explanation to this.

@Dan_Lyons The slavers are—and always have been—those who would wrap our minds in superstition. There is no evidence for any fanciful theory that tries to pass off coincidences like this as being of supernatural origin. There is plenty of evidence, on the other hand, for the power of selective attention and habituation. A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. A fool chalks everything up to magic and never learns the power of understanding reality as it actually is.

@SavoirFaire There is no evidence for selective attention other than theories posed by people who haven’t the mental acuity to delve deep enough into their own minds to see for themselves what is real and what is made up by people who would have you believe that you aren’t able to do such things and it is merely coincidence,
This is not magic, and only a fool would think heightened mental abilities are magic.

As Shakespeare once stated, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I do the same with 4:20.. You are seeing the pattern you want to see. I do it so I can get high.

@Dan_Lyons I am using the word “magic” because OP has made reference to supernatural explanations and you have done nothing to discourage those beliefs. If you’d like to present an actual alternative theory, do so. Right now you’re just throwing out quotes as if they’re arguments (hint: they’re not). And if you read my answers, I’ve not said anything about not being able to create such patterns with one’s own mind. In fact, I very specifically said that it is possible (that’s what habituation is). My point has only been that it’s not a portent or any other supernatural phenomenon.

As for selective attention, many of the papers on it are unfortunately still behind paywalls. Here is a relatively brief overview of some of the work (though limited to British contributors). More importantly, however, the particular sort of selective attention that people are talking about here is confirmation bias. Rather than link all of the relevant studies on that—and there are many—I’ll just direct you here. These phenomena are very clearly real, even if they aren’t the only real things.

LOL…My theory is just quotes! hahahahahaha

@Dan_Lyons For future reference, it is typically advisable to read what someone wrote before criticizing it (something you are clearly not doing). I did not say that your theory is just quotes. I said that you are throwing out quotes instead of arguments. For all I know, you have a coherent and convincing argument for whatever it is you’ve been vaguely gesturing at on this thread. But while you may in fact have such a thing, you have not presented it here—and I can only comment on what you’ve actually presented.

Okay, whatever.