Healing Narcissus : reaching out to Echo

The main thing about narcissism, from what I have read and experienced, is that  it has a poor prognosis. Therapist have theorised  for generations about the best way forward in attempting to heal this distressing, dark, self destructive and generally negative way of life.

My feeling is that Echo is the answer.

To remind you, Echo was the nymph who loved Narcissus, but that love was not reciprocated. All his energy was directed towards maintaining contact with his other half, his Beta twin, who could never love him back, but whose continuing presence was essential.  Here is her story:

Narcissus: behavioural perfectionism

Are you a perfectionist?

Here is a test for you to find out.

Some of the statements in this questionnaire  are related to your behavior:
Notice how some of them are to do with being second rate, or No 2. ( Remember that Narcissus cannot cope with being No 2, because in the Dream of the Womb the Beta twin does not survive.

• Organization is very important to me.
• If I do not set the highest standards for myself, I am likely to end up a second-rate person
• It is important to me that I be thoroughly competent in everything I do.
• If I fail at work/school, I am a failure as a person. 
• If someone does a task at work/school better than me, then I feel like I failed the whole task.
• If I fail partly, it is as bad as being a complete failure.
• Even when I do something very carefully, I often feel that it is not quite done right.
• I hate being less than the best at things.
• If I do not do as well as other people, it means I am an inferior human being.
• I expect higher performance in my daily tasks than most people.

Now lets look at how this may relate to low self esteem:

Narcissus: fear of inadequacy

For the MZ womb twin survivor, a deeply-felt fear is of being weak and inadequate, unable to cope.  The only way to be safe is to be utterly strong, to the point of omnipotence.  Basically, it is better to be the dominant one, the No 1 in any given situation, than to be No 2.

I observed two people in conversation - if you can call it that. It was more of a duel than an equal sharing of ideas.  The first, a man, mentioned a terrifying experience involving snow in late May in the mountains of southern France. At once, sooner than acknowledge that snow at that time of the year would be unexpected and doubtless alarming, the other, a woman, was quick to point out that on her recent trip to Colorado there had been snow in July, three feet deep.

I was conscious that this was combat, not conversation. This kind of "How deep is your snow?" competition can be readily observed, as it morphs readily into " How clever is your child?" between parents or "How painful is your back?"  among older people.

I wondered why such competitive behavior was chosen, and what  pay-off there may be.  But then I thought about MZ womb twin survivors, who carry somewhere in the back of their minds a memory of half of them being so weak and inadequate that they were  unable to survive at all.  Then it was clear to me that this kind of competitive behavior is not just a little light-hearted banter, but a matter of life and death.

Narcissus: a life self-sabotage

There is one person who is highly narcissistic and has been featured in TV programmes because of his extreme narcissism and his name is Sam.

He lives a life of self sabotage, yet he survives because he knows he is the Alpha Survivor and superior to all other beings in the Dream of the womb wherein he lives.....

So, no matter what serendipity, what lucky circumstance, what blessing I shall receive - I will always strive with blind fury to deflect them, to deform, to ruin. And being the talented person that I am - I will succeed spectacularly.

I have lived in fairy tales come true all my life. I was adopted by a billionaire, an admiring student of mine became Minister of Finance and summoned me to his side, I was given millions to invest and have been the subject of many other miracles - but I was and am intent on bringing myself to biblical destitution and devastation.

Perhaps in this - in the belief that I have the omnipotence to conspire against a universe that constantly smiles upon me - lies the real magic of my thinking. The day I stop resisting my endowments and my good fortune is the day I die.

Narcissus: why empathetic failure hurts

Imagine that you are a tiny twin embryo, for many weeks moving in perfect synch with your identical twin:



But then,  because your twin dies, you are left alone.....



What would you miss?

Narcissus: inwardly-focussed energy

I am in the USA at a conference today, so not much to say, except that if you watch this movie it may explain why the energy of the identical womb twin survivor is focused inwardly. More tomorrow!

Narcissus: bullying - a way of restoring the original twin bond

The monozygotic twin bond is closer, more enduring and more emotionally loaded than any other kind of relationship.  But when we think of Narcissus as a womb twin survivor,  we see someone who is bonded for life to his twin,  so he will seek his twin in others, and attempt to replicate the original bond.

But in the Dream is a weaker, more vulnerable version of himself. So in the reenactment of their dream, the Alpha womb twin survivor seeks out weaker and more vulnerable versions of himself.  This is how he may become a bully, for his need is paradoxical - he seeks out a vulnerable little person.  But he wishes that other person to be equally strong - as strong as he is.  Only then may the original twin bond be restored - the twin bond that was there long ago, before the Beta twin died.

Narcissus: the urge to merge

The sole survivor of a monozygotic twin may seek to merge with other people, for that is their model of relationship. Bee says she has always wanted someone totally merged with her, but that degree of merging just doesn't happen in born life, naturally enough. To keep the Dream alive, all relationships go through a cycle:

1. Encounter
2. Rapid development of intimacy
3. Desire for constant contact, 24/7
4. Over - dependent and demanding behavior intrudes into the other person's private space,
5. The other person is soon drained of empathy and energy and cannot maintain the relationship any longer.
6. The other person asks for a complete separation
7. The relationship ends permanently
   

Narcissus and his twin - the myth

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the myth of Narcissus is about the lost identical twin. That means that what we call "Narcissistic personality disorder" is not a disorder at all, but a perfectly normal response to the loss of your own identical twin before birth, if you are a monozygotic (MZ) womb twin survivor.

Consider the myth: as related on a special site about narcissism

In this tale, told by Roman poet Ovid and remembered for his verses on love, a young girl named Echo falls in love with a vain youth named Narcissus. He was the son of a woman that the river god had encircled with the windings of his streams, thus trapping and seducing her. Worried for her son’s welfare, she consulted a prophet regarding his future. The prophet reports: Narcissus "will live to a ripe old age, as long as he never knows himself."

One day when Narcissus was out hunting, Echo follows the handsome youth through the woods, longing to address him but unable to speak first. When Narcissus finally heard her footsteps he shouted "Who goes there?" Echo answered "...goes there? ...goes there?" And so it went, until finally Echo showed herself and rushed to embrace Narcissus. He pulled away and vainly told her to leave him alone. Narcissus left Echo heartbroken and she spent the rest of her life lonely and pining away for the love she never knew. Only her voice remained. 

Eventually Narcissus became thirsty and went to drink from a stream. As he saw his reflection, he fell in love with it, not knowing that it was him. As he bent down to kiss it, it seemed to "run away" and he was heartbroken. He grew thirstier but he wouldn't touch the water for fear of damaging his reflection, so he eventually died of thirst and staring at his own reflection. The narcissus flower is closely identified with the boy and was said to spring from the ground around the pool where Narcissus died. In the roman version it is suggested that Narcissus is transformed into the flower.

As life would have it, the desire for connection, understanding, and proximity to the other becomes so great…that the longing kills Narcissus.

Womb twin surviviors and MS

 It is possible that people with MS are womb twin survivors. Why do I say that?

BECAUSE ITS AN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE

Muscular sclerosis is a condition where the nervous system gradually deteriorates, leading to a gradual loss of bodily function, because the individual nerve cells are being destroyed by the immune system. 

This article about MS and a twin study suggests that there is more to MS than genetics. 

Twin studies provide an opportunity to compare genetically identical siblings (identical twins) with twins who do not share identical genes (fraternal twins). If a disease is under genetic control, identical twins should both have MS more frequently than fraternal twins. The risk for developing MS in an unaffected fraternal twin is 2%, and the risk in an identical twin is 25-30%. These data strongly support the hypothesis that genetic factors play a significant role in disease susceptibility. However, they also point to a strong environmental influence because only a minority of genetically identical twins are both affected with MS.

This essay on MS lists some of the main symptoms and has some good links

MS is a demyelinating disease. Specifically, degeneration of myelin, a material that is composed mainly of fats and serves as an insulation for the nerves, much like the covering of an electric wire, degenerates. This fatty insulation allows a nerve to transmit its impulses with lightning-like speed, enabling people to move almost without thinking. The loss of this myelin insulation causes what is, in effect, a short-circuiting so that a person loses the ability to make smooth, rapid, and coordinated movements. With multiple sclerosis, the loss of myelin appears to the naked eye as a hardened sclerotic (scar) area. These areas are multiple within the central nervous system, thus the term multiple sclerosis.

 This year MS was proven to be an autoimmune disease.

Experts had previously debated whether MS is a degenerative disease that causes immune system inflammation but this research suggests it's the other way around, according to Compston - and that can guide future treatments.  "It is now clear that multiple sclerosis is primarily an immunological disease," Compston told Reuters. "This is the way to nail this disease and get on top of it."
The study was published in the August 11 issue of Nature.

Autoimmune diseases have been connected to microchimerism.  (Cells from the mother that pass the placenta into the fetus, and vice versa.) [See article here]

 Microchimerism, the persistence of foreign cells thought to derive from previous pregnancies, has been associated with autoimmune diseases

 Chimerism is also connected to being a womb twin survivor.

It looks like the immune system is trigger-happy,  because of the tissues  with  foreign DNA , and if all goes well an the immune system is strong then there is little or no reaction but when there is stress, the immune system is triggered.

All hypothetical of course on my part, but worth exploring.

The research is pointing towards a form of microchimerism that is not the same DNA as the mother's cells at all but from another source:

A fetal or maternal source was identified in all patients who tested positive by HLA-specific qPCR. Unexpectedly, a few RNs ( rheumatoid nodules) also contained Mc ( microchimerism) without evidence for a fetal or maternal source, suggesting alternative sources.

Dare we believe that this "source" of foreign cells is the vanished twin and that blood stem cells can pass from one twin to another? An eminent histologist once told me that this was possible...... At least one medical report suggests it directly....

More to discover,  but interesting so far!

The vanishing DZ twin and the chimera

This man was found to be a chimera of himself and his vanished twin sister, 40 years after his birth.

We report the case of a 40-year-old man diagnosed with a scleroderma-like disease. Clinical similarities with graft versus host disease prompted initial testing for chimerism employing fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Female cells were observed within peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the patient.

Because maternal cells have been detected in healthy immunologically competent adults and patients with autoimmune conditions, we hypothesized that these cells were of maternal origin. Contrary to our expectations, HLA-specific quantitative PCR (QPCR) ruled out maternal microchimerism. However, HLA-specific QPCR testing was positive for the paternal HLA haplotype that the patient did not inherit. We reasoned that the most likely origin of chimerism with non-inherited paternal HLA alleles was from an unrecognized “vanished” twin. The patient had never received a blood transfusion.

This report suggests that cells from a vanished twin are a possible source of chimerism. The frequency of chimerism from this source is not yet known and whether the scleroderma-like disease observed in the patient is anecdotal or implies a potential association with autoimmune disease remains to be elucidated.

 Read whole article here

The chimera - the twin inside me

Here is an article about the twin inside me  - a chimera

Lydia Fairchild was twenty one when she had her first baby. Despite being separated from the baby's father, Jamie Townsend, she and Jamie had a second baby a year later. Another year on and and she became pregnant for the third time after which she and Jamie split up again. With no steady work and unable to support herself and the children she applied for state benefit.

Her world was about to be turned upside down.

The State Prosecutor's Office required DNA tests from Jamie to prove that he was the father of the children and, as a matter of course, Lydia was also tested.
In December 2002 she received a phone call from the prosecutor's office asking her to come in for the results. This was unusual and it soon became apparent why. The results confirmed that Jamie was the father but they also revealed that Lydia was not the mother. A normal DNA test proving a mother-child link would show a 50% match between their DNA patterns. Yet Lydia's DNA showed no match at all.

And here she is to tell her extraordinary story: 

Alfred Austermann talks about womb twin survivors

Interview with Alfred Austermann - The Vanishing Twin Syndroom or The Surviving Twin Syndrome.

About one person in ten is not alone at the beginning of the pregnancy and embarks on the journey into life together with a twin… When one of them dies, the surviving child suffers an immense shock. Even though there will be no conscious recollection of this shock later on, an enormous hole will be left and will leave its mark on a person’s entire life.

Deep-seated feelings of inexplicable longing, loneliness and guilt can result from this early loss.

Womb twin survivors in multimedia and poetry. The vanishing twin.

The concept of the vanishing twin is so subtle and extraordinary that it requires extraordinary measures to express it. Here is one example - it's strange, but stay with it and let it speak to you.



How would you express your feelings about your twin if you had the skills to do it?  People make art, sculptures, poetry.

Here is a poem...

Womb Twin survivors in dance: vanishing twin

The story of the lost twin and the haunting memory of Someone very near, can be expressed in dance.



The whole womb twin story is non-verbal,  the passions are deep and subtle. The bodily movements  can reveal that your prenatal memory is locked into your body, more clearly than into your brain and your memory.

Here is an idea: make your own womb twin dance.  See if you can find a way to express your feelings about your twin with your body, not using any words at all.

I did that once: I bought myself a long turquoise chiffon scarf to represent my twin brother.  I had already a large beige cotton stole, that my son brought back from India.

In my own dance I gently swirled the scarves around me,  the two colours intertwined.  It felt good.  It was part of my own funeral ritual for my twin.  Later, I did a ritual burning of the turquoise scarf, and kept the other.  I still have it, and often think of that day.

The womb twin survivor in literature : "Twin Bred"

A new book by Karen A Wyle published yesterday, 15th October as a paperback and an ebook.

 TWIN-BRED

Humans have lived on Tofarn for seventy years, but the Tofa remain an enigma -- from their featureless faces to their shifting number of arms. Misunderstandings breed conflict, and conflict could bring war. Scientist Mara Cadell's radical proposal: that host mothers carry fraternal twins, human and Tofa, who might provide a breakthrough in inter-species understanding. Mara's own twin, Levi, died in utero -- but Mara has secretly kept him alive in her mind as companion and collaborator.

The Tofa agree to Mara's project -- but they have their own agenda. And so does one member of the human Council, who believes that the human colonists should have exterminated the Tofa on arrival. Mara must shepherd the Twin-Bred project through dangers that even the canny Levi could not foresee. Will the Twin-Bred bring peace, war, or something else entirely?

A novel by Karen A. Wyle

A fascinating idea.  The mere fact of being a womb twin survivor is such a wonderful gift, being mainly the gift of empathy towards others.  I read it as an ebook, which increased the sense of other- worldliness.  The story is tense and fascinating, as we are taken through the intricacies of plot and counter-plot, but for me there are occasional moments when the great gifts of being a womb twin survivor  are demonstrated to the reader in a completely new way. (A great twist at the end, which I won't reveal!)

Levi, Mara's fantasy twin brother, is evidently very much alive in her life.  The project is to create a whole population of twins, to change the world. A bold idea, which may capture the imagination of many people, but in particular womb twin survivors will enjoy the moments of insight when the world realises what twins have to offer, simply because they learned to live with others who are very different, long before birth.

Karen, I salute you.  We need more positive stories like this about womb twin survivors. It's not all about death and loss, it's also about gratitude, love and personal responsibility.

Womb Twin Survivors as writers: Alison Larkin

In her book " The English American" based on her own life experience, Alison Larkin has created a character born in America and adopted by an English couple, who discovers her twin once she has had a chance to speak to her natural mother.

Alison Larkin has a web site

On this site the book is described thus:

When Pippa Dunn, adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that “culture clash” has layers of meaning she’d never imagined. Meet The English American, a fabulously funny, deeply poignant debut novel that sprang from Larkin’s autobiographical one-woman show of the same name.

In many ways, Pippa Dunn is very English: she eats Marmite and toast, knows how to make a proper cup of tea, went to a posh English boarding school, finds it entirely familiar to discuss the crossword rather than exchange any cross words over dinner with her proper English family. But Pippa--creative, disheveled, and impulsive to the core--has always felt different from her perfectly poised, smartly coiffed sister and steady, practical parents, whose pastimes include Scottish dancing, gardening, and watching cricket.

When Pippa learns at age twenty-eight that her birth parents are from the American South, she feels that lifelong questions have been answered. She meets her birth mother, an untidy, artistic, free spirited red-head, and her birth father, a charismatic (politically involved) businessman in Washington, D.C.; and moves to America to be near them. At the same time, she relies on the guidance of a young man with whom she feels a mysterious connection; a man who discovered his own estranged father, and who, like her birth parents, seems to understand her in a way that no one in her life has done before. Pippa feels she has found her “self” and everything she thought she wanted. But has she?

Caught between two opposing cultures, two sets of parents, and two completely different men Pippa is plunged into hilarious, heart-wrenching chaos. The birth father she adores turns out to be involved in neoconservative activities she hates; the mesmerizing mother who once abandoned her now refuses to let her go. And the man of her fantasies may be just that…

With an authentic adopted heroine at its center, Larkin’s compulsively readable first novel unearths universal truths about love, identity, and family with wit, warmth, and heart.

Her lost twin brother is there, but only hinted at. The story does not suffer at all because of that, as it is a lovely heartwarming tale.  (I have the audiobook and love it.)

I am looking forward to a book about a womb twin survivor where the lost twin is central to the story. As you will see tomorrow, when you check in with this blog, I have found one.

Womb twin survivors in relationship: a new movie uploaded today

I am making movies at the moment : here is one of them.

Womb twin survivors in flm - Unborn

So they made a film of it.  It was some time ago, but I am so sorry that it had to be a horror film.




The worst line is "By living, you denied it entry into this world."   Not a good thing for any womb twin survivor  to hear. It is the worst nightmare, that you are the cause of your own twin's death.

But the film does tackle some of the more difficult themes, such as feeling haunted by your twin. It also suggests that an exorcism can help.  She has a dibbuk, she says.



Funny that they didn't make so much of the lost twin theme, just the horror? I'll look a bit deeper....

This man hated it:

A young woman discovers her stillborn twin brother's ghost is haunting her in an effort to infiltrate the world of the living but there may be more to the story than just an angry undead twin, something far more ancient lurks in the darkness. Jamby wants to be born now. *groan*

It's sunk without trace, just like the vanished twin. Not surprising really, I suppose.

The Survivor - A true story of a young womb twin survivor

The Survivor by Lynne Schulz    (read more here)    


This book tells the real story of a young womb twin survivor, and what effect the pre-birth loss of his twin sister had upon him. In her contribution to the 2007 anthology, "Untwinned: perspectives on the death of a twin before birth", Lynne Schulz explained what it is like to be the parent of a womb twin survivor, living in a disbelieving world.

The anthology

As the mother of a surviving twin I have experienced ridicule and disbelief from friends, family, child carers and school teachers whenever I have even mentioned that my eldest son is a surviving twin, and therefore different to singleton children. In an attempt to make the lives of other twin loss families a little easier, myself and a small dedicated team set out to try and educate those who came into contact with multiple loss families such as my own to be a little more empathetic towards our unique needs.

Twinship evokes an enormous amount of curiosity and interest throughout our society. The media are often guilty of turning the whole topic of multiple births into a circus event.my second book, The Survivor, I look at how twinship is viewed in different ways. Interestingly enough, the whole concept of twinship continues to be shrouded in mystical, magical, even romantic notions. 

In explaining the differences between a singleton and multiple pregnancy, I want you to imagine that I am holding two apples. Each piece of fruit represents a pregnancy. The first apple is one complete unit, whilst the other has been sliced into two. Even though one apple has been divided into portions, it remains exactly like the first one, i.e. one whole, healthy apple. Now, if we take away one half of the divided piece of fruit, what do we have left ? We are left with part of an apple. It has not turned itself into a banana, or a grapefruit.It remains an apple.
 

When a baby dies in a twin pregnancy, it is like removing half of the apple. The picture now appears out of balance. It does not look quite right to the untrained eye. That is precisely how a surviving twin appears to the world – a slightly unbalanced picture. Something is missing and behavioural patterns and physical abilities may not be quite right. The child has not magically turned into a singleton
package – that child will always be a twin for the rest of their entire life.

Well said!!

Is there a true "Womb Twin Survivor Syndrome?

In the beginning, in 2003, there was the hypothesis. I discovered that I am a womb twin survivor in 2002 and I assumed that there would be others like me, who were also womb twin survivors, who felt like me.  As the number of stories I heard increased, and as the questionnaire statements were gradually refined, it seemed that we did all think and feel the same way. I was therefore able to come up with my first Womb Twin Theory in 2004:

Womb twin survivors spend their lives constantly re-enacting their Dream of the Womb.  Nothing is more important than that - even life itself.  They will go to extraordinary lengths and choose to create all kinds of fantasies, simply to keep that Dream alive, for in the Dream is the twin they yearn for and search for, their whole life long. 

Then came a couple of rather heated exchanges with sceptics on the James Randi Sceptics Forum, to whom I put my hypothesis and the problem I had with finding a control group who were certainly NOT womb twin survivors. They told me in no uncertain terms that I had nothing more than an hypothesis, if that, and to talk about a "theory" would be to make out that I had certain knowledge, which I clearly did not have.

Prenatal trauma - an imprint for life

In the Primal Pages web site, which is about primal psychotherapy, Leah McGoy wrote an article called "An imprint for life", which is all about prenatal trauma. The example she used was a little womb twin survivor who came to her for therapy  - but no one had realised until then what the problem was with him:

Do twins remember the womb? Yes they do, says John James

John James

 In this article , John James, who created the Crucible Centre in Australia, writes how during a sand play session a womb twin survivor found his womb twin in the sand:

How do we identify that someone has lost a twin in the womb? One of our modalities is Sandplay, in which you place small objects into a tray filled with sand. The objects chosen and their symbolic significance usually make the meaning pretty clear.
 
Fred has little sense of achievement, and cannot form intimate or lasting bonds. In the tray he marked an almond-like shape in the sand. In the middle he placed a glass ball enclosing a skull; a fossil on the right, and between them clasped hands. A little goanna was placed on the fossil, which he said had feelings of “soft and uncertain longing.” He then remembered being told he had had a girl-twin that had died well before his birth. He then identified with the goanna and the fossil, and with the hand helplessly holding onto the departed sister. He felt he was the "dead fossil" without her. His inner ‘centre’ lay in the white hands, clasping onto the female who had gone.
 
Where are these memories held? Who remembers these feelings? In the early months the foetus does not have the physical capacity to hear or see, let alone sense or remember experiences beyond the placenta.

He concludes: 

The souls of twins in the womb form a relationship from the moment of conception, if not before. It is our souls who remember when a companion leaves, and later when we connect with our souls from the heart, the memories come flooding back, and all is forgiven.

In his article in the anthology -  Untwinned: perspectives on the death of a twin before birth,  John James writes

We have been finding through them that the ‘disappearance’ of a pre-natal twin was often having a profound impact on the whole of later life of the living twin. This was not in a few isolated cases, but in hundreds of clients. It was a possibility my teacher Elia Carisbrook had mentioned almost twenty years ago and that I discussed in my 1994 book, Notes to Transformation. It was not until the issue kept on turning up that we realised how enormous it was – both in numbers and impact.

With my wife Hilary and our partner Marg Garvan we gradually became more open to the possibility that such a death could affect the deepest psychic structures of our clients. We have now worked with more than fifty Vts situations and, based on its occurrence among our clients, we estimate it affects more than 25 percent of all conceptions. However, this proportion of one-in-four may not be reflected in the general population. It may be that the buried grief from the loss of a twin companion may induce more people to seek therapy than others. This would reduce the apparent proportion.

There is a lot of it about..... spread the world!  It's one in ten of the population, and one of them could be you....

Is pre-natal psychology a load of nonsense? Willam Emerson speaks out

In celebration of 25 years of APPAH, the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and health, the current president, William Emerson, wrote the story of how the loss of his twin sister 12 hours after birth compelled him to study the physical and psychological aspects of pregnancy in great detail, and to work hard over many years to help babies to enter this world with the minimum of trauma.

Many womb twin survivors are attracted towards pregnancy and birth as an area of study, but in a man that seems counter intuitive, as one would imagine that such subjects would be of more interest to a woman. However that little dose of oestrogen, that he would have received before birth, would have  helped him to feel comfortable in an organisation dominated by women.

Steve Jobs RIP - dare to be different

Steve Jobs, the quiet genius behind Apple and the man who made Mac users of so many of us, (including my whole family) dared to think differently. He has died quietly, as he lived, but he leaves a giant hole in the world.

Obama says he was "Brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it." Steve Jobs had Alpha energy and he used it.

Womb twin survivors are born different and it can feel tough to be an outsider, misunderstood. However the very fact of being different, thinking differently, is a great gift.

The Alpha womb twin survivor - the person I should have been?

"The person I should have been"..... the Alpha Survivor who never saw daylight because the Beta twin had to be kept alive somehow?



James Morrison, a very talented musician, writes interesting lyrics about dreams, death, love and unfulfillment.

Hair whorls and womb twin survivors

What is a hair whorl?

The hair whorl is the way that the hairs on our head grow across your head from a single point at the back of your skull.  Hair whorls can develop clockwise or counter clockwise (see here)  in the USA counterclockwise hair whorls are very rare.

In people with short, straight hair, a single whorl is usually fairly obvious. Clockwise whorls are most common; estimates of the frequency of clockwise whorls range from 51 percent in Japan (Klar 2009) to 65 percent of undergraduate psychology students in the United Kingdom (Annett 1985), 69 percent of Nigerians (Ucheya and Igweh 2005), 74 percent of German schoolboys (Bernstein 1925), 81 percent of students in the United States (Lauterbach and Knight 1927), 92 percent of the "general population" in Maryland (Klar 2003), and 94 percent of newborns in the United States (Wunderlick and Heerema 1975)

Counter clockwise whorls go with left handedness, and left handedness, like hair whorls, varies between countries.  Left handedness is related to mirror MZ twinning.  So are people who are not twins but have counter clockwise hair whorls womb twin survivors?  I wonder.


The double hair whorl - what causes that?

The double hair whorl is more common among twins than among singletons.

Left-handedness and the death of a twin in utero

Left handedness, "mirror" identical twins and womb twin survivors  were being discussed many years ago - the ideas behind this womb twin project are not as novel as they may seem. An article published on 1933 is a case in point.

Here is the article in full

First of all, the classic identical twin prank:

Some 30 years ago left-handed Auguste Piccard, gangling, mischievous Munich student, had a barber-shop shave, bet the barber that "his whiskers grew faster than any others in the world." Shortly after "he" reappeared at the barber's with an eighth-inch beard. The flabbergasted barber shaved, learned later that "he" was Jean, Auguste's right-handed twin.

Auguste Piccard grew up to be a professor, and a stratosphere balloonist, and was quite a celebrity at the time, so anything he had to say was taken seriously.

On January 10th 1933 the Deseret News declared:

LEFT HANDED PERSONS DECLARED TO BE SURVIVING HALVES OF IDENTICAL TWINS.

Dennis Neilsen - serial killer and womb twin survivor?

Last night I watched a documentary about Dennis Neilsen, a man who killed 15 people, dismembered them and disposed of the bodies by burning initially, and  then by flushing them down the drain.  As I listened with some revulsion, to this story as it unfolded, I was struck by some of the things he said. It seems that he cold be a womb twin survivor, which would explain (but not excuse) a lot.

He is in prison serving a life sentence and has written his autobiography - he is remorseful but too narcissistic to care much about the consequences of his actions on others, but he asks again and again why he did it. It is a mystery to everyone, it seems, including himself.   He is just mad, or bad, That's is. Or is it? My research may throw new light on this mystery.

I have a particular interest in this man as he is almost exactly my age and he lived in the same street in London - a few years later, but  in the same street. An ordinary man, living in an ordinary house (that smelled a bit strange, because of the bits of bodies in the wardrobe and the tea chest.) 

23 Cranley Gardens, London