My newfound fear of doppelgängers.

The phrase "I am my own worst enemy" has taken on an added dimension and a slightly more terrifying meaning since I first saw Denis Villeneuve's psychological thriller, Enemy.

Fair warning: though this isn't a review, some spoilers are coming, so don't read on if you haven't seen the film because the film is best seen without any prior knowledge of its plot whatsoever.

Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role(s), is about history lecturer Adam Bell discovering the existence of somebody who looks exactly like him: Anthony Claire (alias Daniel Saint Claire), a B-actor Bell saw in a film he rented from his local video store. Bell becomes obsessed with Claire and eventually arranges to meet him - but he becomes petrified when confronted by the reality that Claire is a carbon copy of himself, down to the finest detail.

It is an excellent film, one that ultimately becomes about more than just the two men. It is thought-provoking and - in me - fear inducing. For a comprehensive review of Enemy look no further than film critic Jeff York's post. But this isn't a film review. This is about my newfound fear of doppelgängers - specifically my own, I suppose.

Bell is timid and shy where Claire is brash and aggressive. Claire is the more dominating of the two men, despite the fact that physically they are the same person. Where Bell's first reaction is of fear, Claire's is to consider how he could use this situation to his advantage. Put in the same situation, I believe I would react like Adam Bell.

To clarify, I do not have a fear of twins. Apparently that's called duomaieusiophobia, which I will never attempt to actually say out loud. For some people suffering from this phobia, the sight of twins causes symptoms ranging from panic attacks to nausea to being frozen stiff by pure terror.

But no, twins don't give me palpitations, make my stomach turn or anything else. But for some reason, the thought of meeting myself - my exact double in every sense - is horrifying. Phobias are just irrational fears, and this is irrational because I am the only me in existence (that I know of). Still, the thought will not be uprooted.

Although I have come across one other doppelgänger story before - Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Double (I have also seen the film starring Jesse Eisenberg) - it was only after seeing Enemy that I really thought about the consequences of meeting myself (I honestly think I read that book too young; I should go back and read it again). The common perception of a doppelgänger is evil; of one's double attempting to supplant them.

Literally, it means "double-goer" - or, "somebody who walks the same way as you do." The fear of confronting my doppelgänger is perhaps best encapsulated by this quote from an article on the subject of 'doppelgängers presented in fiction'. It was written (coincidentally enough) by a Monica St. Claire:

"Usually when there are instances of a double, there is a ‘splitting point’, in other words a pivotal moment in the text where it becomes apparent that the protagonist has suddenly become one of two halves. The presence of the double causes conflict, as there can never be peaceful co-existence between a character and their second manifestation. In many instances where there is a double, it is the embodiment of a specific set of characteristics either that the original character desires to have, or a concentration of their worst characteristics, thus living up to the ‘evil twin’ stigma."

So, what characteristics would my doppelgänger possess and what would the outcome be of any confrontation? I know the answers to these questions, hypothetical though they may be. I'll be honest, the answers frighten me regardless. Ask yourself the same two questions and answer them honestly. Do you find them frightening too?

In simpler times, before Google became a cure-all for life's mysteries, it was believed that seeing your own doppelgänger was a bad omen, signifying great misfortune for the doppelgänger's original - usually in the form of a serious illness or even death. It was also said that in their spiritual forms, as apparitions, they could misguide their living counter-parts in various ways.

Probably the most famous doppelgänger tale of all is that of Abe Lincoln. The story of his encounter matches up perfectly with that of doppelgänger lore: during his running for re-election, he saw his double in the mirror when sitting on his couch one night - a deathly face alongside his reflection, both staring back out at him. It is said Lincoln rose, only to see the apparition disappear, but that when he re-took his seat it reappeared. His wife felt it was an omen that he would win re-election but would not survive his second term - which, of course, he didn't.

Another tale concerns a poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom I first came across a couple of years ago when I was playing L.A. Noire on the PS3 (for the record, I got the Platinum trophy in that game for 100% completion: I win). One of Shelley's most famous works, the lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound, is central to the game because a serial killer is leaving extracts of the poem at his crime scenes.

What I didn't know back then was that Shelley claimed to have met his own doppelgänger during his lifetime. In Prometheus Unbound, the following passage appears:

"Ere Babylon was dust,
The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know there are two worlds of life and death:
One that which thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live

Till death unite them and they part no more..."

Shelley alleged that his doppelgänger appeared before him and asked, "How long do you mean to be content?" It doesn't seem to be that ominous of a question in isolation, but the encounter clearly made its mark on the poet, and considering Shelley died rather tragically - he drowned a month before his 30th birthday after a storm capsized his boat on the Gulf of Spezia - it ties in with the idea of a doppelgänger being a harbinger of death.

I'll be honest, I don't like the idea of interfering with anything 'paranormal'. I'm not sure if I believe in that type of thing, but I'm not keen to authenticate its existence personally either. It is well known that I do not watch scary movies of a certain type - or any type, really - because I'm easily frightened. Particularly if somebody puts "based on a true story" in front of the title. That's the end of that, hand me Superbad and I'll be on my way.

I still get abuse from friends to this day because of my reaction to movies such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Paranormal Activity, White Noise (Michael Keaton made sure I will never look at 3am on a clock in quite the same way ever again) and The Fourth Kind (the untrue true story of vindictive owls haunting me - that's what I got from it anyway).

The doppelgänger idea intrigues me as much as it frightens me, though, perhaps because I know that many of the reported incidences could be explained away by doctors and scientists as being "neurological problems"; no more, no less - which of course means I could very well unwillingly encounter myself one day, should I ever lose my mind (which is a real statistical possibility, it must be said).

Take the Shelley story I relayed above: a number of theories surrounding his untimely death began circulating after the news broke. Some said he just couldn't navigate to save his life (literally); others said he was waylaid by pirates - and some said that the man was depressed and that he sailed out to sea to die. If one was to be callous, one could say depression is simply a "neurological problem"; but one could also say Shelley encountering himself was his brain's way of telling him that there was a problem and that he needed to address it.

All of this, of course, is assuming that what Shelley saw was definitely an apparition brought on by his mental state at that time, and that there weren't, in fact, two Percy Bysshe Shelleys wandering around the place composing poetry and plotting fatal boat trips. 

My point is that sometimes people see what they want to see when the truth is too hard to bear, despite being clearer to the eye-line; and other times, people see what they don't want to see because the mind finds a way to communicate the truth that the person needs, to come to terms with, however reluctantly.

So, if I ever do meet my doppelgänger I'll know that I have finally lost the plot. It's a frightening thought, but maybe it would be my mind's way of telling me insanity is inbound instead of being the death knell it is supposed to signify. #inFranity