Doppelgänger

For other uses, see Doppelgänger (disambiguation).

Doppelgänger

In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger (German for look-alike, literally a "double goer") (pronounced [ˈdɔpəlˌɡɛŋɐ] ( listen)) is a paranormal double of a living person.

It also describes the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection.

Doppelgängers often are perceived as a sinister form of bilocation and are regarded by some to be harbingers of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is said to be an omen of death.

Recent scientific experimentation has duplicated several doppelgänger effects when electrical stimulation was applied to the left temporoparietal junction of the brain of a patient.

In the contemporary vernacular of some English speakers, the word may be found used simplistically to identify any look-alike of a person, without regard to the supernaturality and the more fundamental doubling originally intended in the meaning of the word.

Spelling

The word doppelgänger is a loanword from German Doppelgänger, consisting of the two substantives Doppel (double) and Gänger (walker) or (goer). The singular and plural form are the same. It was first used by Jean Paul in the novel Siebenkäs (1796), and his newly coined word is explained by a footnote.

As is true for all other common nouns in German, the word is written with an initial capital letter. In English, the word is conventionally uncapitalized (doppelgänger). It is also common to drop the diacritic umlaut, writing "doppelganger."

Mythological interpretations

Although this German word is of relatively recent origin and that it first appeared in English use in 1851, the concept of alter egos and double spirits appears in the folklore, myths, religious concepts, and traditions of many cultures throughout human history.

In Ancient Egyptian mythology, a ka was a tangible "spirit double" having the same memories and feelings as the person to whom the counterpart belongs. In one Egyptian myth entitled, The Greek Princess, an Egyptian view of the Trojan War, a ka of Helen was used to mislead Paris of Troy, helping to stop the war.

In Norse mythology, a vardøger is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance. In Finnish mythology, this is called having an etiäinen, i.e., "a firstcomer".

In some myths, the doppelgänger is a version of the Ankou, Celtic a personification of death.

Scientific and philosophical investigations

Left temporoparietal junction

In September 2006, it was reported in the scientific journal, Nature, that an effect was reproduced repeatedly that was very similar to the doppelgänger phenomenon. The effect was produced via the electromagnetic stimulation of one patient's brain.

Focal electrical stimulation was applied to the patient's left temporoparietal junction while she lay flat on a bed. The patient immediately felt the presence of another person in her "extrapersonal space." Other than epilepsy, for which the patient was being treated, she was psychologically fit.

The "other person" was described by the patient as young, of indeterminate sex, silent, motionless, and with a body posture identical to her own. The other person was located exactly behind her, almost touching and therefore within the bed on which the patient was lying.

A second electrical stimulation was applied with slightly more intensity, while the patient was sitting up with her arms folded. This time the patient felt the presence of a "man" who had his arms wrapped around her. She described the sensation as highly unpleasant and electrical stimulation was stopped.

Finally, with the patient seated, electrical stimulation was applied while the patient was asked to perform a language test with a set of flash cards. On this occasion the patient reported the presence of a sitting person, displaced behind her, and to the right. She said the person was attempting to interfere with the test: "He wants to take the card; he doesn’t want me to read." Again, the effect was disturbing and electrical stimulation was ceased.

Similar effects were found for different positions and postures when electrical stimulation at the left temporoparietal junction exceeded ten mA.

The paper suggested that the left temporoparietal junction of the brain evokes the sensation of self-image—body location, position, posture, etc. When the left temporoparietal junction is disturbed, the sensation of self-attribution is broken and may be replaced by the sensation of a foreign presence or a copy of oneself, displaced nearby. This copy mirrors the real person's body posture, location, and position.

The paper also suggests that the phenomenon created is seen in certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, particularly when accompanied by paranoia, delusions of persecution, and of alien control. Nevertheless, the effects reported are very similar to the doppelgänger phenomenon. Accordingly, some reports of doppelgängers may well be due to failure of the left temporoparietal junction.

Notable documented doppelgänger experiences

John Donne

Izaak Walton claimed that John Donne, the English metaphysical poet, saw his wife's doppelgänger in 1612 in Paris, on the same night as the stillbirth of their daughter.

Two days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was left alone, in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an hour; and, as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone; but, in such ecstasy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold him in so much that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare befallen him in the short time of his absence? to which, Mr. Donne was not able to make a present answer: but, after a long and perplext pause, did at last say, I have seen a dreadful Vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this, I have seen since I saw you. To which, Sir Robert replied; Sure Sir, you have slept since I saw you; and, this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake. To which Mr. Donnes reply was: I cannot be surer that I now live, then that I have not slept since I saw you: and am, as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopped, looked me in the face, and vanished.

This account first appears in the edition of Life of Dr. John Donne published in 1675, and is attributed to "a Person of Honour... told with such circumstances, and such asseveration, that... I verily believe he that told it me, did himself believe it to be true. "At the time Donne was indeed extremely worried about his pregnant wife, and was going through severe illness himself. However, R. C. Bald points out that Walton's account

"is riddled with inaccuracies. He says that Donne crossed from London to Paris with the Drurys in twelve days, and that the vision occurred two days later; the servant sent to London to make inquiries found Mrs. Donne still confined to her bed in Drury House. Actually, of course, Donne did not arrive in Paris until more than three months after he left England, and his wife was not in London but in the Isle of Wight. The still-born child was buried on 24 January.... Yet as late as 14 April Donne in Paris was still ignorant of his wife's ordeal." In January, Donne was still at Amiens. His letters do not support the story as given.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

On July 8, 1822, the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in the Bay of Spezia near Lerici in Italy. On August 15, while staying at Pisa, Percy's wife Mary Shelley, an author and editor, wrote a letter to Maria Gisborne in which she relayed Percy's claims to her that he had met his own doppelgänger. A week after Mary's nearly fatal miscarriage, in the early hours of June 23 Percy had had a nightmare about the house collapsing in a flood, and

... talking it over the next morning he told me that he had had many visions lately — he had seen the figure of himself which met him as he walked on the terrace and said to him — "How long do you mean to be content" — No very terrific words & certainly not prophetic of what has occurred. But Shelley had often seen these figures when ill; but the strangest thing is that Mrs Williams saw him. Now Jane, though a woman of sensibility, has not much imagination & is not in the slightest degree nervous — neither in dreams or otherwise. She was standing one day, the day before I was taken ill, [June 15] at a window that looked on the Terrace with Trelawny — it was day — she saw as she thought Shelley pass by the window, as he often was then, without a coat or jacket — he passed again — now as he passed both times the same way — and as from the side towards which he went each time there was no way to get back except past the window again (except over a wall twenty feet from the ground) she was struck at seeing him pass twice thus & looked out & seeing him no more she cried — "Good God can Shelley have leapt from the wall?.... Where can he be gone?" Shelley, said Trelawny — "No Shelley has past — What do you mean?" Trelawny says that she trembled exceedingly when she heard this & it proved indeed that Shelley had never been on the terrace & was far off at the time she saw him.

Percy Shelley's drama Prometheus Unbound (1820) contains the following passage in Act I: "Ere Babylon was dust, / The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, / Met his own image walking in the garden. / That apparition, sole of men, he saw. / For know there are two worlds of life and death: / One that which thou beholdest; but the other / Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit / The shadows of all forms that think and live / Till death unite them and they part no more...."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Near the end of Book XI of his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit ("Poetry and Truth") (1811-1833), Goethe wrote, almost in passing:

Amid all this pressure and confusion I could not forego seeing Frederica once more. Those were painful days, the memory of which has not remained with me. When I reached her my hand from my horse, the tears stood in her eyes; and I felt very uneasy. I now rode along the foot-path toward Drusenheim, and here one of the most singular forebodings took possession of me. I saw, not with the eyes of the body, but with those of the mind, my own figure coming toward me, on horseback, and on the same road, attired in a dress which I had never worn, — it was pike-gray [hecht-grau], with somewhat of gold. As soon as I shook myself out of this dream, the figure had entirely disappeared. It is strange, however, that, eight years afterward, I found myself on the very road, to pay one more visit to Frederica, in the dress of which I had dreamed, and which I wore, not from choice, but by accident. However, it may be with matters of this kind generally, this strange illusion in some measure calmed me at the moment of parting. The pain of quitting for ever noble Alsace, with all I had gained in it, was softened; and, having at last escaped the excitement of a farewell, I, on a peaceful and quiet journey, pretty well regained my self-possession.

This is a rare example of a doppelgänger which was perceived by the observer to be both benign and reassuring.

Abraham Lincoln

Carl Sandburg's biography contains the following:

A dream or illusion had haunted Lincoln at times through the winter. On the evening of his election he had thrown himself on one of the haircloth sofas at home, just after the first telegrams of November 7 had told him he was elected president, and looking into a bureau mirror across the room he saw himself full length, but with two faces. It bothered him; he got up; the illusion vanished; but when he lay down again there in the glass again were two faces, one paler than the other. He got up again, mixed in the election excitement, forgot about it; but it came back, and haunted him. He told his wife about it; she worried too. A few days later he tried it once more and the illusion of the two faces again registered to his eyes. But that was the last; the ghost since then wouldn't come back, he told his wife, who said it was a sign he would be elected to a second term, and the death pallor of one face meant he wouldn't live through his second term.

This is adapted from Washington in Lincoln's Time (1895) by Noah Brooks, who claimed that he had heard it from Lincoln himself on 9 November 1864, at the time of his re-election, and that he had printed an account "directly after." He also claimed that the story was confirmed by Mary Todd Lincoln, and partially confirmed by Private Secretary John Hay (who thought it dated from Lincoln's nomination, not his election). The Brooks version is as follows (in Lincoln's own words):

It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great "hurrah, boys," so that I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler — say five shades — than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it — nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a "sign" that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.

Lincoln was known to be superstitious, and old mirrors will occasionally produce double images; whether this Janus illusion can be counted as a doppelgänger is perhaps debatable, though probably no more than other such claims of doppelgängers. An alternate consideration, however, suggests that Lincoln suffered vertical strabismus in his left eye, a disorder that could induce visions of a vertically displaced image.

George Tryon

A famous Victorian apparition was the strange appearance of Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon. He walked through the drawing room of his family home in Eaton Square, London, looking straight ahead, without exchanging a word to anyone, in front of several guests at a party being given by his wife on 22 June 1893 whilst he was supposed to be in a ship of the Mediterranean Squadron, manoeuvering off the coast of Syria. Subsequently it was reported that he had gone down with his ship, HMS Victoria, that very same night, after it had collided with HMS Camperdown following an unexplained and bizarre order to turn the ship in the direction of the other vessel.

Charles Williams

Charles Williams included the above quote from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1820) in his book Descent Into Hell (1939). The lead character Pauline Anstruther has seen her own doppelganger all through her life, and spends her time terrified of any next meeting. In the end, this doppelganger turns out to be a positive force, bearing hope to a martyred ancestor of Pauline's. The terror Pauline had during her life is, in effect, the spread out terror of the burning martyr, allowing the martyr to do without terror and have only joy during his death at the stake.

Ruskin Bond

The owner of a publishing company, Penguin India, Mr Ravi Singh, is reported to have seen the double of the author, Ruskin Bond, at Writer's Meeting Point in Savoy Hotel of Mussoorie while Bond was having his afternoon nap.

In popular culture

Doppelgängers, as dark doubles of individual identities, appear in a variety of fictional works from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Double", to Al-Tayyib Salih's Season of Migration to the North, to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. In its simplest incarnation, mistaken identity is a classic trope used in literature, from Twelfth Night to A Tale of Two Cities. In these cases, however, the characters look similar for perfectly normal reasons, such as being siblings or simple coincidence.

Some stories offer supernatural explanations for doubles. These doppelgängers typically, but not always, are evil in some way. The double often will impersonate the victim and go about ruining them, for instance through committing crimes or insulting the victim's friends. Sometimes, the double even tries to kill the original. In José Saramago's 2001 novel The Double (original Portuguese title O Homem Duplicado), both men's baser instincts come to the surface and they attempt to take advantage of each other. The torment occasionally is earned; for instance, in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "William Wilson", the protagonist of questionable morality is dogged by his doppelgänger most tenaciously when his morals fail. A similar device is employed in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story "The Double: A Petersburg Poem".

In Philip Roth's novel Operation Shylock, the author and protagonist travels to Israel in order to confront a doppelgänger. The faux Roth is revealed to be a surgically altered impostor bent on using the author's notoriety to advance a nefarious political agenda. Although technically not a doppelgänger, the imposture threatens Roth's self-identity and forces him to undergo a personal transformation, both themes associated with Doppelgangers in fiction.

Doppelgängers are also a common theme in cinema, most notably in Henry Selick's Coraline, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Doppelganger from 2003, Avi Nesher's 1993 film of the same name starring Drew Barrymore, and The Abandoned, as well as in many television shows. Primer (2004) featured doppelgängers which were created by way of a time machine. Solaris (1972) and Solaris (2002) had "manifestations" similar to doppelgängers on a space ship. The Australian film Lake Mungo features a portent of death to come. In 2010, the film Black Swan tells a story about Nina Sayers, a dancer who lands the role as Swan Queen in Swan Lake, the film contains scenes of the character who sees a double of herself whenever she feels insecure of herself.

In the ending scene of David Lynch's preternatural drama Twin Peaks, F.B.I. Agent Dale Cooper enters a place called "The Black Lodge", where he sees dopplegangers of all the protagonists. There, each of the dopplegangers embodies a kind of perfect and insidious antagonist of each character, evil and malicious. The image of shadow (which was used in some ancient civilisations to refer to Dopplegangers) could be used here, as they try to overpower their human double.

Doppelgängers have appeared in the science-fiction anthology series, The Twilight Zone, in episodes such as "Mirror Image" and "Death Ship".

Doppelgängers have also appeared in the series Supernatural. Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester investigate a series of several murders committed by a doppelgänger in St. Louis, Missouri.

In the popular drama series, The Vampire Diaries currently airing on The CW Television Network, the character of Elena Gilbert is a doppelgänger of the vampire Katherine Pierce (original name; Katerina Petrova). Both characters are played by actress Nina Dobrev and it's said that the doppelgänger was created to make sure the bloodline was carried down and, that doppelgängers tend to unwind the lives of the ones they look like. In the season 4 finale, it is revealed that Stefan is the doppelgänger of Silas.

In the comedy television series How I Met Your Mother, doppelgängers for each of the five main characters are discovered throughout the show. The discovery of the fifth doppelgänger is a major plot point, focused on in the fifth season finale, entitled "Doppelgangers".

Doppelgängers occasionally played roles on Gilligan's Island. On the episode "Will the Real Mr. Howell Please Stand Up?", a man resembling Thurston Howell III masquerades as him. On the episode "Gilligan vs. Gilligan", a secret agent has an operation in order to look exactly like the main character. On the episode "All About Eva", an unglamorous woman moves to the island and the castaways turn her into Ginger Grant's double.

In the TV series Fringe, a main element of the series is the loss of balance and the eventual collision of two universes and the moral ramifications of it. Most main characters have a doppelganger who is usually slightly different from their prime selves.

Similarly, in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the character Willow meets her own doppelgänger (and alter-ego), in vampire form, in the episode entitled 'Doppelgängland'.

In the video game Resident Evil 6, Carla Radames becomes a doppelgänger of Ada Wong, mutating her body using the "c-virus".

In the Persona video game series by ATLUS, the playable characters often had to face their Doppelgängers in the form of their Shadow, a being of repressed emotions and thoughts.

The doppelganger of the fantasy roleplaying game, Dungeons and Dragons, is a shape-shifting creature which assumes the identities of others.

The doppelganger is the theme for the 12th episode of the 1980's British TV series Hammer House of Horror, "The Two Faces Of Evil".

In 2013 the female rapper Shystie released a diss track towards Azealia Banks titled "Doppelganger".

A form of doppelgangers called simply Gangers and made of a living plastic appear in the back-to-back episodes "The Rebel Flesh" and "The Almost People" in Series 6 of the British science fiction show Doctor Who. These Gangers are used as alternate bodies for workers to project their consciousness into for dangerous tasks; however, it is later discovered that the Gangers are separate people that wish to live their own lives and are angry with the workers for using them and hurting the Gangers they used previously in their work.

See also

• Alter ego
• Bilocation
• Body double
• Capgras delusion
• Clone
• Dharmakāya
• Eidolon
• Etiäinen
• Evil twin
• Fetch (folklore)
• Fylgja
• Ghost
• Homunculus
• Ikiryō
• Look-alike
• Monothematic delusion
• Out-of-body experience
• Syndrome of subjective doubles
• Third Man phenomenon
• Vardøger
• Master-slave dialectic

Bibliography

• Rank, Otto, The Double: A Psychoanalytic Study, 1925 (written 1914).

External links

• Grimm's Saga No. 260 in which a Doppelgaenger appears as Married Woman
• Prometheus Unbound: Text at Barbleby.com