Is “twin telepathy” true?
Some twins seem to be able to read each other’s minds, but is there any real evidence of a “twin thing”?
Talk to anyone with a sibling and they will recall many dumb things they have witnessed while with their brother or sister. Genetic quirks mean that sharing the same parents is not enough to guarantee morphological consistency between siblings, and personalities can become even more rambunctious. With identical twins, however, everything changes.
Although identical twins are the only “monozygotic” twins, studies have shown that there are some differences even among these siblings. While some identical twins look, sound, and act a little differently, others seem to share a unique connection that is beyond our understanding.
The term “twin thing” is often given to twins who share this special relationship. They can read each other’s sentences to the end, to the point where you wonder if they are reading each other’s minds, or they have a way of knowing when something has happened to their twin without being there. Anecdotal evidence of twin telepathy abounds on the Internet, but has science discovered anything that explains, confirms, or denies the existence of this type of twin relationship?
Egg Cracking.
This does not imply a hierarchy of twins, but rather a statement of the fact that different types of twins have different numbers of sperm and egg cells. In the case of twins, called monozygotic or identical twins, one fertilized egg splits in two very early in development, creating two embryos. These babies are born looking very similar to each other because they share the same genome.
Non-identical twins are known as dizygotic twins because separate egg cells are fertilized by separate sperm cells at the same time in the same uterus. Normally, human females release only one egg per menstrual cycle, but this is not a strict rule. Superovulation can occur spontaneously or be triggered by fertility drugs (the standard method of IVF), providing multiple targets for sperm.
It is known that men produce 2-5 milliliters of semen per ejaculation. Since there are thought to be about 100 million sperm in each ml, it is easy to see how an extra egg could be fertilized.
As fans of “This Is Us” may recall, the “twin thing” is not limited to identical twins (that is, as a self-reported experience rather than a proven scientific fact). It is because non-identical twins who shared an ovum but not a childhood may have more personality similarities than identical twins who were separated at birth (“Parent Trap,” hello).
What do twins say?
There is a remarkable story of twins sharing a connection that seems to defy the senses that science has uncovered. British Olympian Mo Farah, in his autobiography “Twin Ambition,” says: “When Hassan is upset or not feeling well, I kind of feel it. Hassan is the same way, he senses my feelings. Hassan is the same way, he senses my feelings. Then he picks up the phone and calls me and asks how I am doing. Or I call him.
IFLScience editor Laura Simons’ grandmother, Joyce Siney, is an identical twin. Siney, now in her 70s, and her sister, Shirley, share an identical twin genome. ‘We’ve never been away together for any length of time,’ Sainey told IFLScience. ‘We are never more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart.
The twins share similar interests, including church activities, knitting, and sewing, and both are pursuing careers in nursing. But when asked about the ‘twin thing,’ Joyce’s experience raised a very important question about this theory.” Maybe if you asked Shirley the question and you asked me, I would give you the same answer: …… But I don’t think it’s telepathy.”
After all, even science is not certain.
Here’s what the research says.
To explore the concept of twin telepathy, researchers are faced with the challenge of coming up with a research design that can clearly test exactly that. The term “telepathy” specifically refers to the exchange of thoughts and ideas through extrasensory means that do not involve the use of known senses such as sight, hearing, or touch.
A pilot study conducted in 2013 sought to establish an objective way to investigate this type of extrasensory connection using four pairs of identical twins. The identical twins were divided into four pairs and the twins were exposed to unexpected stimuli to see if the other twin could sense anything. In this experiment, a variety of stimuli ranging from a jumpy fear of dropping a plate to touching something painfully hot were given in a five-minute period, and if the other twin responded within 15 seconds, it was considered a positive synchronous response.
Of the four pairs of identical twins, however, one pair performed prominently, which is of additional interest. A similar approach was used in the Copenhagen study, in which only one of the four sets of identical twins showed a significant connection.
Interestingly, in the 2013 pilot study, the twin pair with “outstanding results” had something unique: “The twin pair that produced the most hits in this series was the youngest in the sample (25 years old) and one was seven months pregnant. In interviews, the non-pregnant twins talked about how independent they had been in their lives, but were remarkably sensitive to the condition of their pregnant twin sister, which suddenly heightened the twins’ belief in telepathy.”
Because of the synchronic experience, some scientists describe twin telepathy as an analogy for macro-entanglement. You may be more familiar with the term quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is what maintains the connection between distant particles, such that changing one would change the other.
A more specific type of entanglement that may contribute to the connection of identical twins is the stage where one egg becomes two. Most identical twins split four to eight days after fertilization, but some split a few days later. This was explored by parapsychology writer Guy Lyon Playfair in his 2017 paper, “Identical Twins and Macroentanglement,” in which he found reports that twins who split at 8-12 days of development show greater connection. Could this be related to the fact that twins remain literally intertwined until late in gestation?
The twin cohort in the Copenhagen study included a pair of identical twin women who, according to Playfair, were “born tied to each other by the umbilical cord and had to be untied by hand.” The women recounted several anecdotes of what they believed to be twin telepathy. They also happened to be the best at synchronous response experiments. University of Greenwich twin researcher Yoran Brusewitz, whose research focuses on parapsychology, addressed the concept of twin attachment in a 2019 paper. The paper defines instances of twin telepathy and remote emotion sensing (sensing the twin’s state from a distance) as “exceptional experiences” and sifts through studies and surveys that have investigated their frequency in different twin types.
While both opinions are noteworthy, the King’s College study found that almost half (46%) of the twins surveyed denied their ability to sense their twin’s feelings when the twin was not around. Identical twins were twice as likely as non-identical twins to say they could feel, but they were still in the minority.
Twin telepathy, special relationships, or simply similar ideas.
Professor Tim Spector launched the British Twin Registry in 1992, creating one of the world’s richest collections of genotypic and phenotypic information on twins. However, there has been little testing of mind-reading between twins, focusing instead on more earthly concepts such as, “Can genes tell us how to vote?” “
The Department of Twin Research, which hosts TwinsUK, conducted a poll on voting preferences to explore the extent to which nature and upbringing influence party political alliances in the UK. Unlike an experiment that used only eight participants to explore the signs of “twinning,” this poll included responses from a large sample of 2,355 identical and fraternal twins.
The results revealed a genetic influence on voting preferences. When voting for the Conservative Party, 57% of similarities and differences in voting were related to genetic influences. This indicates that identical twins are more likely to vote similarly than non-identical twins. As Sainey says, simply answering a question with the same answer is not telepathic.
As far as science is concerned, so far the jury seems to be still out on the mechanism that could explain twin telepathy and the “twin thing.” But as far as the special relationship is concerned, Joyce and Shirley are the proof.
‘All I’m saying is, thank God I’m a twin,’ she said. ‘I think it’s a very special relationship. Anyway, we are,” he said.
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Is “twin telepathy” true?