At this point in history, most people are acquainted with the term Doppelganger, one of the most terrifying phenomenon a person could ever experience.
In case you’re new to the term here’s a brief explanation.
Doppelganger refers to the double of a living person. Yes, that’s right, you may have a double out there somewhere.
But although the common usage of the term today refers to someone who looks a lot like you, more akin to mistaken identity, in reality, doppelganger is more than that.
Your doppelganger is you, in some other time but visible now.
It can be the harbinger of bad luck, observed as you die, or before you die, the portent of illness or death, an omen of danger, or simply you before you.
Present in mythology and literature, and depicted in art, it was once considered a paranormal event, and thus discredited.
Modern psychiatry, however, has linked it to bouts of epilepsy and schizophrenia.
But other studies of “sane” people have proven that the occurrence is commonplace and not necessarily pathological in nature.
If your sense of curiosity has piqued now, try staring at yourself in a mirror straight in the eyes for 10 minutes, then close them momentarily and open them again.
That disturbing feeling, that uneasiness you experience from looking deep within yourself is your doppelganger struggling to get out.
Fear not!
Let us take a closer look at some of the most mystifying cases of the doppelganger phenomenon.
Queen Elizabeth I
Before giving up the ghost in 1603, the powerful monarch of England, Queen Elizabeth I, saw her doppelganger lying in her bed motionless.
Her supine doppelganger was described as “pallid, shivered and wan”, which shocked the Virgin Queen.
Even the most steely-willed monarchs can't escape the clutches of folklore's eeriest phenomena.
Elizabeth, known to be level headed, strong of will and savvy, would have known better than to attribute the apparition to spirits and superstition, but still she knew that folklore considered such an occurrence a bad sign.
She died shortly thereafter.
Maria de Jesus de Agreda
“Two places at once? You must be a god.”
Ancient saying
The 17th century Franciscan nun, Maria de Agreda, converted the Jumano Indians of New Mexico and Texas from her rural convent in the province of Soria in Spain and without the aid of Skype.
Maria de Agreda claimed to have the gift of bilocation, the phenomenon of being in two places at the same time, reporting that she was “transported by the aid of angels.”
You've heard of work-from-home, but what about convert-from-home? Maria de Jesus de Agreda was Zooming her way to new disciples long before the internet.
Seeking protection from another tribe, the Jumano Indians requested missionaries from Father Alonzo de Benavides, who asked them why they were so eager to convert.
They answered that they had been visited by a lady in blue who told them to ask the priests for help.
She was investigated by the Inquisition for witchcraft but was found innocent.
Such astral voyages are a form of doppelganger but with no deathly implications.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The famed English romantic poet had seen his doppelganger several times during his lifetime.
But on one occasion during a trip to Italy, after his children died, the poet was left bereft, victim of a heavy depression, ill and tired.
He encountered his doppelganger on the terrace of his house as he was strolling.
They met halfway and his double said to him: “how long do you mean to be content.”
The story, retold by Mary Shelley after the poet’s death, is given more credibility when she recounts how a friend, Jane Williams, who had been staying with the Shelleys also came across his doppelganger: “
But Shelley had often seen these figures when ill; but the strangest thing is that Mrs Williams saw him.
When your own reflection starts asking life's existential questions, maybe it's time for a wellness check.
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, 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.”
Shelley’s second encounter with himself was on a beach, the doppelganger pointing to the sea. He drowned in a sailing accident not long after that.
Catherine The Great
The Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, was awakened one night by her servants who were surprised to see her in her bed.
They told the Czarina that they had just seen her in the throne room.
In disbelief, Catherine proceeded to the throne room to see what they were talking about.
When you command an entire empire but can't even command control over your own apparition—that's what I call an identity crisis.
She saw herself sitting on the throne.
She ordered her guards to shoot at the doppelganger.
Of course, the doppelganger must have been unscathed, but Catherine died of a stroke just weeks after that.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Writer, poet and politician, the German genius Goethe was one of the most respected men in Europe in his day, and still is.
Goethe encountered his doppelganger as he was riding home on a road after visiting a friend.
He noticed there was another rider approaching from the other direction toward him.
As the rider got closer, Goethe noticed that it was himself on the other horse but with different clothes.
Imagine bumping into your future self and the most noteworthy thing is a change in wardrobe. Not sure if that's comforting or disappointing.
Goethe described his encounter as “soothing” and that he saw the other with his “mind’s eye” more than with his actual eyes.
Years later, Goethe was riding down the same road when he realized he was wearing the same clothes as the mysterious rider he had encountered years before.
He was on his way to visit the same friend he had visited that day.
Abraham Lincoln
“Well eventually, over time, we all become our own doppelgangers. These completely different people who just happen to look like us.”
Unknown
Honest Abe once confessed to friends privately that he had an inexplicable experience on the night of his first election.
The then candidate took a moment to rest on his couch one evening and happened to turn in the direction of a mirror and saw his own face and saw not one but two faces.
Next to him was his doppelganger, pale and ghostly, looking at him from the mirror. He sprung up from the couch and the “other” had disappeared.
Lincoln saw two faces in the mirror: one that would emancipate a nation, and another that would haunt a presidential legacy.
He sat back down, only to see it again.
Although Abe was alarmed, his wife Mary was even more so.
She interpreted the event to mean that the doppelganger was his dead self and that he would die in his second term.
The rest is history.
Emilie Sagee
Sagee was a dedicated teacher working in France in the mid-19th century.
Adored by her students, Sagee was constantly tortured by her doppelganger in public.
Her ghostly other would appear as she was giving class in open view of all of her students, who also saw the apparition.
Her doppelganger would stand at her side as she was lecturing and mimic her every move to the amazement of her students.
An educator so good, she could literally be in two places at once—too bad the parents weren't impressed.
From the classroom to the school grounds, her doppelganger soon decided to go it alone and was seen performing tasks on its own around the school.
Some students would even try to interact with it but noticed that it was kind of ethereal.
After a while, parents started to take their children out of the school and Sagee soon lost her job.
Nothing else is known of Emilie Sagee.
George Tryon
Vice-Admiral Tryon is remembered for a daring yet flawed maneuver that led to the collision between his ship, the HMS Victoria, and another, the HMS Camperdown, off the coast of Lebanon.
This tragic event resulted in the deaths of 357 sailors, including Tryon himself.
As the HMS Victoria rapidly sank, Tryon exclaimed, “It’s all my fault,” thus absolving any other sailor or officer from blame. He perished in the sea alongside his crew.
Simultaneously, thousands of miles away in London, his wife hosted a lavish party at their residence for friends and the city’s elite.
Here's a man who knew how to make an exit—both at sea and at a high-society gathering.
Some guests reported seeing Tryon, donned in his full uniform, descend the stairs, traverse a few rooms, then hastily exit through a door, vanishing into thin air—all while he was meeting his fate in the Mediterranean.
The subsequent day, those who had observed this surreal occurrence were profoundly shaken upon hearing of the Vice-Admiral’s death off the coast of Africa, and none could fathom an explanation.
Sir Frederick Carne Rasch
British MP Carne Rasch was due to attend a parliamentary debate in 1906 when he came down with the flu and was bed-ridden for some time.
No one expected to see him that evening, so when fellow parliamentarian Sir Gilbert Parker spotted him in Parliament during a debate he was at once well-pleased and surprised.
He sat next to Carne Rasch, greeted him and said “I hope you’re feeling better”.
Seeing no reaction in his friend’s face, Gilbert concentrated on the debate. When he next turned to look at Carne Rasch, he found the seat empty.
Now here's a politician so committed, even bedridden, he'll show up to vote. No absentee ballots for this guy.
Gilbert searched for his friend in the lobby of parliament but to no avail.
However, other parliamentarians had also seen Carne Rasch during the course of the evening, thus giving credence to Gilbert’s claim.
Carne Rasch, fully recovered, found out about the incident and wrote a lengthy newspaper article jokingly explaining that his will to participate in the debate was so strong that his spirit was forced to attend on his behalf.
Luckily for Carne Rasch he lived on for a few more years.
Doppelgängers: The ultimate identity crisis
In a world where selfies reign supreme and identity theft is a click away, the tales of doppelgängers serve as a chilling reminder that our most uncanny double might not be digital, but spectral.
From queens and poets to teachers and admirals, these stories prove that seeing double isn’t just for happy hour at the bar.
Whether a harbinger of doom or a glitch in the matrix, the doppelgänger phenomenon continues to perplex, fascinate, and spook us out.
Just in case you spot someone who looks eerily like you, maybe don’t rush to snap that “twinning” pic for Instagram. After all, some likes are just not worth the existential crisis.
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