When people find out you’re an identical twin, they usually want to know: Is twin telepathy real?
My answer is yes.
How could it not be? There simply has to be an unfathomable bond between two people who have known each other since their existence.
My twin sister and I were quite literally the same entity until we inexplicably divided. We are made up of the same matter. We share the same DNA.
My sister, Sarah, and I have an incredible connection that knows no distance. Nonetheless, there are always little instances of our telepathy, or “twinsticts,” if you will.
Sarah goes to school 677 miles away in North Carolina. She chose a school on the beach. I chose a school in cold-ridden western New York.
Yet, whenever I go to call her, my phone will automatically buzz and light up with her name. If I have a song stuck in my head, she’ll send it to me within the hour. At least once a week I will open a snap from her, and we will be wearing the same outfit.
We shared everything growing up. My clothes were her clothes. My friends were her friends. My interests were her interests. Her name was my name.
We began to divulge from our intense identicalness in middle school. We still had the same friends and mostly the same interests, but we began to become our own people.
That, of course, is not to say that we were the same person, we had our minor differences, but rather to point out how interconnected our identities were. For most of my life, I viewed myself through Sarah.
She became my baseline. I had a direct point of comparison for every aspect of my life—grades, beauty, relationships.
We were — and are — not merely connected by our relationship, but through our deeply intertwined experiences and identities.
At a certain point, I have to question: Do we have these “twinstincts” merely because we happen to be identical twins?
My answer is a resounding no.Â
There are plenty of twins who refute the fact that twin telepathy is real. While I’m not saying my relationship with Sarah is unique, it is profound and not merely based on the fact that we are twins.
Before going to college, we had been through everything together. She is the one person who truly understands me. I never need to explain my thought process. I never feel embarrassed or guilty when sharing my innermost thoughts with her because, despite minor judgment, I know that she can contextualize and internalize my reasoning.
When you think about it, it’s incredible to have a person with years of shared experiences from birth. We shared everything and spent all of our time together. So, to a certain extent, it’s reasonable to say that our brain chemistry also resembles each other’s.
Whether it’s through a text sent at the exact same time one is received or an identical blue sweater donned on a Tuesday, it is a gift to have and to know that no matter how far, we will always be tethered.Â