This is Patty Flaugherty writing today. Pat’s still at football practice, I think, and he suggested that I try my hand at this blogging thing, so here I am, writing today’s blog.
My topic for today is going to be about twins. I thought that would be an appropriate place to start. I’d been reading earlier this summer about paranormal phenomena and one of the things I came across was the idea that twins are somehow more deeply psychically connected than are average siblings. According to what I’ve read, there’s not much empirical evidence to sustain that theory, but they do have a lot of anecdotal evidence. And some of it sounds very convincing.
In the examples I’ve read, twins who had been separated when they were young would later meet in life and find that they had similar interests—hobbies, sports—and similar tastes in clothes or music. They might marry the same type of person, or have a child on exactly the same day as their twin. Uncanny coincidences, if you want to call them that.
But then it starts to get very interesting. There are stories where one twin knew the other twin was in trouble and came to their rescue right at the right time. That has to be more than coincidence.
Now, I know most of these examples are with identical twins, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that fraternal twins can also have a closeness that’s unique. My brother Pat and I have experienced it on many occasions. Now, he and I are nothing alike as far as our personalities go, and we don’t seem to have the same tastes in clothes or music, but there are times when I can know exactly what he is thinking, even though he hasn’t indicated anything particular. He is a boy, and sometimes they can be pretty single-minded and direct, but this goes beyond the obvious things that any astute observer could guess. And the really odd thing is that sometimes he knows what I’m thinking without me having to say a word. And, if you knew my brother, you’d know that’s pretty amazing.
Now, it’s not that he’s not smart. It’s just that he can be so—what’s a good word? Obtuse, maybe. When he gets that single-minded thing going and heads off after some ridiculous notion, you know that, for him to stop and know what I’m thinking, is nothing short of miraculous.
Here’s another instance of this connectedness we experience. Earlier this summer, we were visiting a new friend at her estate in France and we got into some serious trouble. Although it looked like things went from bad to worse when Pat got shot and I got kidnapped, I just knew somehow that Pat was okay. The evidence didn’t seem to indicate that, but I just had this sense. I don’t know what else to call it, but I was sure he was okay.
So, maybe there’s not a whole lot of evidence that this special connectedness exists between twins, but I have no doubt in my mind that my brother and I are somehow specially connected in ways that can’t be explained.