Francais | English | Espanõl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Doppelgänger (disambiguation).

A doppelgänger (pronunciation (help·info)) is the ghostly — in some cases, the physical — double of a living person. The word "doppelgänger" is a loanword from German, in which language it is written (as with any German noun) with an initial capital letter: Doppelgänger. The word derives from Doppel ("double") and Gänger ("goer").

In English, the word is conventionally uncapitalized ("doppelgänger"). It is also common to drop the German diacritic, umlaut, from the letter "ä," writing "doppelganger," although in German the correct spelling without the umlaut would actually be "Doppelgaenger."

In the vernacular, "Doppelgänger" has come to refer to any double or look-alike of a person—most commonly an "evil twin"—or to bilocation.

The word is also used to describe a phenomenon whereby one catches his own image out of the corner of his eye. In some traditions, seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death. A doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives may sometimes bring bad luck, or indicate an approaching health problem.

Contents 1 Scientific investigations 1.1 Cybernetics 2 Folklore 3 Famous reports 4 Emilie Sagée 5 Popular culture 5.1 Literature 5.2 Theater 5.3 Film 5.4 Television 5.5 Comic books 5.6 Video games

[edit] Scientific investigations

Shahar Arzy and colleagues of the University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, unexpectedly reproduced an effect strongly reminiscent of the Doppelganger phenomena via the electrical stimulation of a patient's brain. They applied focal electrical stimulation to a 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 as young, of indeterminate sex, who did not speak nor move and whose body posture was identical to her own. The other person was located exactly behind her, almost touching and therefore within the bed that the patient was lying on.

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, when the patient was seated, electrical stimulation was applied while the patient was asked to perform 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 that the presence 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 exceeded 10mA, at the left temporoparietal junction.

Arzy and colleagues suggest 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 copy of oneself displaced nearby. This copy mirrors the real person's body posture, location and position. Arzy and colleagues suggest that the phenomenon they created is seen in certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, particularly when accompanied by paranoia, persecution and alien control. Nevertheless, the effects reported by Arzy and colleagues are highly reminiscent of the Doppelganger phenomenon. Accordingly, some reports of the Doppelganger phenomenon may well be due to failure of the left temporoparietal junction.

See Monothematic delusion for a detailed description of various psychological problems including Syndrome of subjective doubles — a scientific view of the Doppelganger phenomena.

[edit] Cybernetics

In the midst of a discussion about the applicability of his Conversation Theory or Interactions of Actors Theory, Gordon Pask, the cybernetician, would sometimes startle his clents and co-workers by saying, "There are no Doppelgangers." Pask insisted that the dynamics of coherent interacting bodies are different, and that this makes the construction of identical copies impossible.

The teleportation protocol cannot defeat this, because the copy, once produced, will exist in a different context from that of its parent, and thus will be subjected to different forces. This is an important principle of cybernetics, because these differences, in both living and inorganic matter, though they may be very small, produce, over geological time, the differentiation in matter and life that we see around us.

[edit] Folklore

The doppelgängers of folklore cast no shadow, and have no reflection in a mirror or in water. They are supposed to provide advice to the person they shadow, but this advice can be misleading or malicious. They can also, in rare instances, plant ideas in their victim's mind or appear before friends and relatives, causing confusion. In many cases once someone has viewed his own doppelgänger he is doomed to be haunted by images of his ghostly counter-part.

Other folklore says that when a person's dopplegänger is seen, the person him/herself will die shortly. It is considered unlucky to try to communicate with such a dopplegänger.

[edit] Famous reports

• Emilie Sagée was a 19th-century schoolteacher whose doppelgänger's public appearances were recorded by Robert Dale Owen after having been reported to him by Julie von Güldenstubbe[1]. (The story is described in more detail below.)
• Guy de Maupassant recorded his own doppelgänger experiences in his story, Lui (The light continent).
• It is sometimes claimed that Percy Bysshe Shelley, English atheist and poet, met his doppelgänger, presaging his own death. Shelley, however, met this "doppelgänger" in a dream[2], not in real life.
• John Donne, the English metaphysical poet, apparently ^{[citations needed]} met his wife's doppelgänger in Paris, presaging the death of his unborn daughter.^{[citations needed]}
• Abraham Lincoln told his wife that, soon after he was elected president, he saw two faces of himself in a mirror, one deathly pale. His wife believed this to mean that he would be elected to a second term but would not survive it (Sandburg, 195).
• Rosalyn Greene claims that the doppelgänger phenomenon, via bilocation, is responsible for reports of werewolves and other shapeshifters (Greene, 87).
• Richard Rossi, the maverick minister and Hollywood film-maker, allegedly told police that a man who resembled him had attacked his wife. According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, he allegedly speculated that the mysterious incident was a Satanic counterattack prompted by his work as an exorcist. Rossi stood trial for the assault, with a resulting hung jury, partly because both Rossi's wife and an eyewitness, John Fair, had confirmed the story.([3])
• Gustav Weler was a look-alike of Adolf Hitler.
• Crispin Glover has a frustrated public relationship with eccentric look-alike Rubin Farr

[edit] Emilie Sagée

Robert Dale Owen was responsible for writing down the singular case of Emilie Sagée. He was told this anecdote by Julie von Güldenstubbe, a Latvian aristocrat. Von Güldenstubbe reported that in the year 1845–46, at the age of 13, she witnessed, along with audiences of between 13 and 42 children, her 32-year-old French teacher Sagée bilocate, in broad daylight, inside her school (Pensionat von Neuwelcke). The actions of Sagée's doppelgänger included:

• Mimicking writing and eating, but with nothing in its hands.
• Moving independently of Sagée, and remaining motionless while she moved.
• Appearing to be in full health while Sagée was badly ill.

Apparently also, the doppelgänger exerted resistance to the touch, but was non-physical (one[4] girl passed through the doppelgänger's body).

[edit] Popular culture

Doppelgängers appear in a variety of science fiction and fantasy works, in which they are a type of shapeshifter that mimics a particular person or species for some, typically nefarious, reason. ^{[citation needed]}

A temporal doppelgänger is any version of oneself that one may encounter during time travel. It is an exact likeness of one at a specific time in one's history (or future). Encounters with oneself may occur when one version of oneself travels backward through the timestream and meets a younger version of himself, or when two or more of the same person from different points within the timestream travel to the same moment in their futures. Nigel Watson writes about the doppelgänger phenomenon in flying-saucer tales, which have a long history of look-alikes. In the February 2006 edition of Fortean Times (pp. 50–53), he gives his take on UFOs, fairies and their links to modern science fiction. Often, in fiction, the Doppelgänger is merely an evil version of the person he resembles.

[edit] Literature

• E.T.A. Hoffmann's novel, Die Elixiere des Teufels (The Devil's Elixirs, 2 vols., 1815-16).
• Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein (1818, rev. ed. 1831; and its many film adaptations), in which the Creature is often thought of as Victor Frankenstein's doppelgänger.
• James Hogg's novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824).
• Heinrich Heine's poem, Der Doppelgänger (1827), famously adapted to music (and given that title) by Franz Schubert in 1828.
• Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, "William Wilson" (1839) and "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839, revised 1845).
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella, The Double (1846).
• Alexandre Dumas, père's, The Man in the Iron Mask (1850; the third part of Dumas' novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne).
• Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853).
• Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), two of whose characters, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, look almost identical.
• Charles Dickens' novel, Great Expectations (1860-61), whose character Dolge Orlick is a doppelgänger of Pip.
• Mark Twain's first historical fiction—the novel, The Prince and the Pauper, in which Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII of England, and his pauper look-alike, Tom Canty, trade places (1882).
• Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).
• Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890, revised 1891).
• Anthony Hope's novel, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894).
• Bolesław Prus' novel, Pharaoh (1895), whose characters include the Haranian Phut (aka the Chaldean priest Berossus) and his look-alike (chapter 20), and the protagonist Ramses and his look-alike and nemesis, Lykon; chapter 33 also refers to look-alikes of Ramses the Great.
• Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula (1897).
• Joseph Conrad's novella, The Secret Sharer (1909).
• Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Despair (1934).
• Charles Williams' novel, Descent into Hell (1937).
• John W. Campbell's science-fiction novelette, Who Goes There? (1938; made into the films, The Thing from Another World and The Thing).
• Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Lolita (1955).
• Daphne du Maurier's novel, The Scapegoat (1957).
• John Knowles' novel, A Separate Peace (1959), whose main character, Gene Forrester, is immensely jealous of Phineas (Finny), his roommate, and eventually hurts him and replaces him (note the "Olympics" when Phineas insisted that Gene act as his replacement).
• Julio Cortázar's novel, Rayuela (1963), whose main character, Horatio, becomes convinced that his friend Traveller is his doppelgänger, and repeatedly accuses him of this.
• Frank Herbert's novel, Destination: Void (1965).
• Ursula K. Le Guin's novel, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968).
• Jorge Luis Borges' short story, "El Otro" ("The Other"), included in The Book of Sand (1975).
• Lois Duncan's novel, Stranger with My Face (1982).
• Clive Barker's "Human Remains," part of the collection, Books of Blood (before 1984?).
• Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy (1985-86).
• Stephen King's horror novel, The Dark Half (1989).
• Martin Amis' novel, Time's Arrow (1991): the narrator is Tod T. Friendly's doppelgănger.
• Dean Koontz's novel, Mr. Murder (1993).
• Philip Roth's novel, Operation Shylock (1993).
• Michael Chabon's novel, Wonder Boys (1995), whose narrator has a friend and a student—his current and lagged doppelgängers.
• Peter Straub's novel, Mr. X (1999).
• Haruki Murakami's many novels.
• Anne Rice's novel, Blackwood Farm (2002).
• José Saramago's O Homem Duplicado (The Double, 2003).
• "Gary Troup"'s novel, Bad Twin (2005?).
• Marie Brennan's novel, Doppelganger (2006), about a witch who must hunt down her doppelgänger in order to realize her true potential.
• Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker's horror novel, House (2006), features the four main characters occasionally encountering their doppelgängers.

[edit] Theater

• David Ives' Enigma Variations, a one-act play that features two female characters named Bebe W. Doppelgāngler, one of whom is a Doppelgānger of the other.

[edit] Film

• Stellan Ryes' film, The Student of Prague (Der Student von Prag) (1913).
• John Cromwell's The Prisoner of Zenda, starring Ronald Colman, Raymond Massey, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith, Madeleine Carroll, Mary Astor (1937).
• Alfred Hitchcock's film, Strangers on a Train (1951).
• Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958).
• Jerzy Kawalerowicz's film, Pharaoh, adapted from Bolesław Prus' novel (1966).
• Gerry Anderson's 1969 film, Doppelgănger, released in the United States as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.
• Basil Dearden's film, The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), starring Roger Moore.
• Roman Polanski's interpretation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth (1971 film).
• Michelangelo Antonioni's film, The Passenger (Professione: reporter, 1975).
• Brian De Palma's Obsession (1976).
• Stanley Kubrick's film, The Shining (1980).
• Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984).
• Nick Castle's The Last Starfighter (1984), in which the Beta Unit clone replaces Alex on Earth.
• Teddy Page's Deadringer (1985), starring Max Thayer.
• Paul Mazursky's Moon over Parador (1988), starring Richard Dreyfuss.
• David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988).
• Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall (1990), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• The Lookalike (1990), starring Melissa Gilbert.
• Krzysztof Kieślowski's film, The Double Life of Véronique (Podwójne życie Weroniki, 1991).
• Gary Ross' Dave (1993).
• Avi Nesher's 1993 film, Doppelganger, starring Drew Barrymore.
• Peter Hyams' 1994 film, Timecop, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
• Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis (1994), starring Steven Soderbergh.
• Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes (1998).
• Peter Howitt's Sliding Doors (1998), starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The two characters never meet, but their separate lives influence each other.
• Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
• David Fincher's Fight Club (1999).
• Clive Fleury's film, Big City Blues (1999).
• Norio Tsuruta's Ringu O: Bâsudei (2000).
• Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2000 film, Kôrei (released in the U.S. as Seance).
• Rakesh Roshan's Say This Is Love (Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai, 2000).
• Jon Turteltaub's The Kid (2000).
• Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001). The character, Frank, may be considered a temporal doppelgänger.
• Jet Li's The One (2001).
• David Lynch's film, Mulholland Drive (2001).
• Brian De Palma's film, Femme Fatale (2002).
• Steven Soderbergh's film, Solaris (2002), starring George Clooney.
• Before the Light Turns Green (2002).
• Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2003 Japanese film, Dopperugengâ.
• Bryan Singer's X2: X-Men United (2003). Mystique may be considered a doppelganger.
• Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Prestige (2006). Angier uses an electronic machine to create dopplegängers of himself for his magic acts.
• John Boorman's 2006 film, The Tiger's Tale, starring Brendan Gleeson.

[edit] Television

• In the show Northern Exposure, Chris Stevens has a benevolent doppelganger named Bernard Stevens.
• In the show Family Guy, Stewie Griffin has a rivalry with his doppelganger half-brother, Bertram Griffin. Both characters are evil baby geniuses.
• In the television show, 6teen, the gang meet their Doppelgängers.
• In Darkwing Duck, Darkwing's Evil twin is NegaDuck
• The television series Alias features a technology called Project Helix which is used to create doppelgangers of several characters, including lead character Sydney Bristow.
• American Dragon: Jake Long episode "The Doppelganger Gang" features Jake creating doppelgangers to do his chores and other tasks. He creates one to practice double Dutch with Trixie and Spud, one to be in the Cougar Scouts that his dad enrolled him in, one to babysit Haley, one to do his chores, and one for school. He later inadvertadly creates one that is completely evil (Yang Jake) to fight Brad, but then goes too far and a weakened Jake must fight.
• In two episodes of Joss Whedon's series Buffy the Vampire Slayer a vampire version of Willow Rosenberg appears, first in an episode set in an alternate reality ("The Wish", written by Marti Noxon), and then again in a truer example of the doppelganger phenomenon when the vampire Willow is inadvertently brought into the series' "main" reality ("Doppelgängland", written by Joss Whedon). Additionally, the character of Xander Harris is "doppelgangered" when his persona is split into "slacker" and "driven" aspects in the season 5 episode "The Replacement". Also The First Evil could be considered a doppelganger, as it takes on the appearances of people that have died.
• Cardcaptor Sakura episode "Sakura and another Sakura", a Clow Card (The Mirror) is impersonating the series Protagonist Sakura Kinomoto and framing her for a number of incidents. Before it is captured, the card lures her brother off a cliff and almost kills him. With a change of heart, the card then allows Sakura to capture her.
• Charmed episode "It's A Bad Bad Bad Bad World" has the sisters dealing with doppelgängers.
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode 213, "Identity Crisis," serial killer Paul Millander, pretending to be a Las Vegas judge, claims to have a doppelganger for whom Gil Grissom has mistaken him.
• Friends episode 2.10, "The One With Russ," Ross has a doppelgänger named Russ. In the end credits of this episode, Russ appears to have been played by an actor named only as "Snaro", who the writers of the show said was a well-known Croatian actor. It has since been revealed that David Schwimmer, the actor who plays Ross, also played the part of Russ.
• In the anime Great Mazinger, the Mycene steal the plans to the machine and build an army of vitual identical doppelgangers, except without the ability to pull its cockpit aircraft from its head and missing its Scramble Dash jet pack.
• The intelligent car KITT from Knight Rider has an evil twin named KARR.
• Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode "Firefall"
• InuYasha — A major plot in the storyline is when the half-demon Naraku tricks Inuyasha and Kikyo into hating each other by transforming into InuYasha and fatally wounding Kikyo. Kikyo uses her last bit of energy to pin InuYasha to a tree with a sacred arrow, where he remains for 50 years. Naraku was formed when thousands of demons devoured a dying man, and might have doppelganger abilities.
• Martin Mystery episode "Revenge of the Doppelgänger" features a young woman who has exorcised her doppelgänger, but it remains at large searching for her and stealing the face all three women who resemble the woman. Diana refers to it as "those little guys who appear on your shoulder in cartoons".
• NCIS television series episode 2-12 "Doppelgänger". Despite the plot having nothing to do with doppelgangers, it is an interesting subplot, having a naval team being almost the same as the field team, though Ducky and Abby were not represented.
• Neighbours episode “The Joy Flight”, Janelle briefly sees Dylan’s doppelganger when he is involved in the plane crash.
• Red Dwarf, season I episode "Me²", Arnold Rimmer creates a hologram copy of himself with whom he soon engages in bitter conflict. At the end of Season II, episode "Parallel Universe", the entire crew hops to a parallel dimension and meets their female counterparts. In season IV, episode "Dimension Jump" and season VII, episode "Stoke Me A Clipper", Rimmer meets his double from another universe, Ace Rimmer, who is just as successful as Rimmer is neurotic.
• "Saturday Night Live" episode 1440, first aired 03/11/2006, contained a film called "Doppelgangers" about three cast members eating sandwiches outside.
• "Sealab 2021", "Lost in Time." When Quinn and Stormy travel back in time to avert the destruction of Sealab, Captain Murphy mistakens them for doppelgangers and locks them up.
• "Sealab 2021", "Vacation." Quinn programs a holographic Captain Murphy that is used to run Sealab while he is on vacation. Captain Murphy refers to the hologram as doppelganger.
• Sliders episode "Season's Greedings" written by Eleah Horwitz first aired: 12/20/96. As well as a number of the show's other episodes since they move through different dimensions and sometimes encounter themselves on these other "Earths".
• "South Park In episode 6x16, "My Future Self n' Me," both Stan's and Butter's parents hire actors from Motivation Corp. to pose as their future (failure) selves, in hopes that they'll stay away from drugs. Cartman's actual future self/doppelganger appears at the end of the show, but fails to convince Eric to successfully alter his future. In episode 7x04, "Cancelled," the episode when it is revealed that Earth is just a show, the organism they meet is a doppelganger, turning from his original self to a taco that defecates ice cream.
• In a Hammer Film Productions episode "The Two Faces of Evil" a family is attacked by the father's doppelganger.
• In David Lynch's Twin Peaks television series, in the final episode-#29; Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) enters the Black Lodge and is met by his "doppleganger" as well as evil doubles of Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), and Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham).
• Naruto in the television series Naruto, his shadow clone jutsu resembles a doppelganger.
• Ichigo from Bleach has an "inner evil" that is similar to a doppelganger.
• There is an Episode of The Twilight Zone called "Mirror Image" where a woman sees her doppelganger.
• In an episode of the X-Files, Kathy Griffin guest stars as her Doppelgänger. In the episode The Calusari, a young boy's dead twin is his Doppelgänger.

[edit] Comic books

• Bizarro of Superman
• Spider Doppelganger of Spider-Man
• Venom of Spider-Man
• Luke Skywalker created a Doppelgänger of himself using the Dark Side of the Force in the comic series Dark Empire
• Captain Valor and Milo from Hero Squared.

[edit] Video games

• Dark Samus and SA-X for Samus Aran of the Metroid series
• Wario and Waluigi for Mario and Luigi, repectivly
• Shadow Mario for Mario in Super Mario Sunshine
• Jeff(green version of Billy) for Billy in Super Double Dragon
• Shadow the Hedgehog, Silver the Hedgehog, Mephiles the Dark, and Metal Sonic for Sonic the Hedgehog
• Dark Link for Link of the Legend of Zelda series
• Evil Crash and Fake Crash from the Crash Bandicoot series.
• The Doppelganger Demon from Devil May Cry 3
• Liquid Snake for Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.
• Ryu Hayabusa's doppelganger from Ninja Gaiden 3
• Dark Casi, Dark Jake and Dark Specter for Casi, Jake and Specter in Ape Escape Million Monkeys.
• Hans Davis for Solid Snake in Metal Gear Acid.
• dopple ganger monsters in Seiken Densetsu 2 & 3.
• Two forms of an Alucard doppelganger are used in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
• In the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, Doppelganger is a boss monster having the appearance of a ghostly swordsman
• In Guild Wars, the Doppelganger is an enemy double which the player must defeat to advance.
• Klunk for Clank in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
• Doppelganger monsters in Baldur's Gate series.
• In Kingdom Hearts II, while investigating the 'Seven Wonders of Sunset Terrance', Roxas comes face-to-face with his Doopelganger, and subsequently has to face it in combat. Roxas can also be considered a doppleganger to Sora, as he is his Nobody.
• Xemnas from Kingdom Hearts II can be considered a doppelganger to Ansem of Kingdom Hearts, though in reality this role can also be reversed because of the method in which both came into existance, Ansem being the Heartless of Xehanort, while Xemnas is his Nobody. It is not known if the remaining members of Organization XIII can be considered doppelgangers as it is never revealed if their previous identities maintained human appearances upon becoming Heartless.
• Cloud Strife of Final Fantasy VII has numerous doppelgangers who explain his past to him when he falls into the life stream. He also lives in the shadow of Zack, the mercenary whome he believes he is.
• In Final Fantasy II Firion has to remove a doppelganger of himself using a black mask in order to obtain a rod in further parts of a cave.
• The Doopelganger quest in Legend of Mana
• Alucard (Castlevania, Symphony of the Night) battles several doppelgangers throughout the game.
• In Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse there is a Doppelganger boss that changes bodies to match yours if you change to your spirt helper or back to Trevor.
• In .hack//G.U., the character of Atoli can be seen as a doppelganger to Shino. Also, the Doppelganger monster takes the form of Haseo if encountered in the field.
• In the Real Time Strategy game Warcraft III, the hero of the Orc Blademaster can make multiple doppelgangers of itself to confuse its enemies.
• In God of War, Kratos battles many doppelgangers of himself in the 2nd to last battle of the game.de:Doppelgänger (Person)

es:Doppelgänger fr:Doppelgänger it:Doppelgänger ja:ドッペルゲンガー pt:Doppelgänger ru:Допельгангер fi:Kaksoisolento sv:Dubbelgångare th:ดอพเพลแกงเกอร์