Doppelgangers

(Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers for the ‘Through the Wormhole’ episode, Parallel Universes.)

Czasoprzestrzen - It’s Polish for Time-space. I picked up this information watching “Through the Wormhole”.  But, how is that to relevant the paranormal or mythical?

The episode was about information, specifically information in parallel universes, possibly created by tears in space-time, aka wormholes. At the end of the show, Morgan Freeman leaves the audience with a final thought, while there may be a parallel universe where another you is living out your dream life, you may also be living out the dream life of another you in parallel universe.

I never thought terribly hard about it before, but that sounds an awful lot like Doppelgangers to me. Doppelganger or doppelgänger, is a word taken from German, and literally means ‘double goer/walker’. It refers to duplicate of a person; which can literally be a duplicate of them, their future self, an evil spirit in their form, or the ghost of a living person who may or may not be in peril. (In contemporary English it’s also used to describe similarities, physical or psychological, between two people.)

Could it be that doppelgangers are actually the result of where two universes are touching? Some paranormal investigators have proposed that ghosts are the same person still alive in another universe, so conceivably it would be possible to see the ghost of someone who is currently alive, if they are also alive in another universe. One could possibly even see their own ghost.

It’s possible that we, or the inhabitants of an alternate universe can pass into and out of other universes without even registering the change. Similar to rooms in the same hotel, there would be minor differences between the universes, but not enough to be consciously registered without thorough examination, which would require more time than the typical doppelganger experience.

Of course, some real world stories of doppelgangers in which the two people were rejoined, would imply that there is a shared memory or consciousness between people in different universes.

I once read a story written young man, who while writing a term paper, realized he needed another book for reference. He got up and went to get the book, but when he returned he saw himself still there, studying. And he said at that moment, they became one again.