Sublime

A pattern is a ghost from the past. It cannot help you. The world that generated it no longer exists. Whenever it runs, it draws you into the illusion of that world. If you try to satisfy it, you have accepted that world, and you are in its power, with all its demands, dysfunctions and contradictions. This is the opposite of the freedom you seek.

In my doppelganger studies, I have learned that there is a real medical syndrome called Capgras delusion. Those who suffer from it become convinced that people in their lives—spouses, children, friends—have been replaced by replicas or doppelgangers.

All three-dimensional characters, when we first meet them, are flawed. In psychological terms they are the victims of neurotic trauma: there is a mismatch between their wants and needs; they are dysfunctional, and in order to cope with that dysfunction they have adopted defence mechanisms that help in the short term, but if sustained can cause prof

once these figures came up, they gave me a different handle. They acquired their own life.

A person who has a doppelganger, Freud wrote, “may identify himself with another and so become unsure of his true self.” He wasn’t right about everything, but he was right about that.

Trap #2: Projection

A standard trope in the genre is a nagging uncertainty about whether the double is real at all. Is this actually an identical stranger, or are they a long-lost twin?