Doppelgangers

The term doppelganger has been used rather informally in many situations to refer to someone who resembles another person who usually lives in the same community or in another community.  I was meeting with some people at a training and they insisted  they saw me in Wisconsin.  They insisted it was me even though we were in Sault Ste. Marie, MI at a training.  The sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” featured doppelgangers.  I was in a book store in St. Ignace, MI and I told the cashier she reminded me of someone and she said I must have met her doppelganger.  What is a doppelganger and what is the origin of that word?

A doppelganger is a German word which means a look alike of a person and is a paranormal double of a living person.  It also means experiencing the sensation that you had a glimpse of yourself in your own peripheral vision and there was no chance this could have happened. There was no mirror to reflect your image off of.  In the past a doppelganger can be viewed as a sinister warning of bad luck coming your way.  Today, the word doppelganger is referred to as someone who resembles you either physically and/or behaviorally usually without regard to any paranormal meaning.

Going back in history the German word is of relatively recent origin, the word doppelganger has appeared in English use in 1851 referring to alter egos and double spirits which appeared in folklore, myths, religious beliefs, and traditions throughout many cultures for centuries.  During ancient Egyptian mythology, a “ka” was a visible or believable “spirit double” having the same memories and feelings as the person of whom the counterpart belongs.  Wikipedia gives the example of “The Greek Princess” an Egyptian view of the Trojan War, a “Ka” of Helen was used to mislead Paris of Troy which helped stop the war.

I have heard of people who have received a heart transplant for example and they take on the same memories and feelings of the person who had the heart before the transplant.  I find that phenomenon to be very interesting. 

 Recent scientific experimentation has created some doppelganger effects by using electrical stimulation. This stimulation was applied to the left temporoparietal section of a person’s brain during an experiment. In September of 2006 a woman was requested to lay flat on her back on a bed and electrical stimulation was applied to the patient’s left temporoparietal lobe.  She reported that she felt the presence of another person in her “extrapersonal space.”  She was being treated for epilepsy; but she was otherwise psychologically fit.  The same experiment was conducted with other individuals with similar results.  The researcher speculated that there may be underlying mental health issues or there may be a failure of the left temporoparietal junction.  What do you believe?

Notable documented doppelganger experiences have existed throughout history.  A biography of Abraham Lincoln denotes:

     “A dream of 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 in 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.”  (Brooks, N. (1895). Washington in Lincoln’s Time. New York: Century)

Doppelganger is a term that throughout history has been utilized to explain paranormal phenomenon and serve as a warning of impending doom. The doppelganger phenomenon may be created by stimulating the left temporoparietal function in the brain. It is used today to explain a double of a living person, who can be physically and/or behaviorally similar to another person.