Two of my best friends from home are fraternal twins and have always sworn to me and my friends that the had some sort of twin telepathy. They would tell us that they would each get the same weird feeling when something bad was about to happen or they could actually feel how their twin was feeling. I’m not saying that I don’t believe them but I was curious to find scientific research that could help answer my question, “Is twin telepathy an actual thing?”

The idea of twin telepathy surfaced during 1844 in the Alexandre Dumas novella, “The Corsican Brothers.” This novella told the story of two once-conjoined brothers. They were separated at birth but even as adults they claimed to share the same thoughts and physical sensations. A claim that is highly questioned today.

In Spring of 2009, strong evidence of twin telepathy surfaced itself and made its way to the press. One day, 15-year-old Gemma Houghton got strong feeling that her twin sister Leanne was in trouble so she hurried to look for her sister and unfortunately found her sister submerged in the bathtub, unconscious and turning blue. Leanna is an epileptic and had suffered a seizure in the tub. Luckily Gemma got to her sister in time to save her and she owes her thanks to that feeling that she got due to their “twin telepathy.” This story of the telepathic Houghton twins made news in March, 2009, but it was not the only one of its kind. Accounts of the psychic connection that is said to exist between many twins, especially identical twins was surfacing all over the place.

Because of the rising questions surrounding twin telepathy, Dr. Cherkas created a survey where he tested how much an individual’s appreciation of humor was affected by genetic factors, a shared environment, or the individual’s unique environment. The results showed that twins had considerably similar responses, therefore they have some sort of unique mental connection with one another.

Guy Lion Playfair, author of “Twin Telepathy” was also known for his extensive research and overwhelming body of evidence indicating that there is a special connection between twins. His studies found that whether or not twins have a connection was based on when division of the fertilized zygote took place. When experiments were conducted in London and Copenhagen, researchers found that on each occasion it was a late-splitting pair who showed the clearest evidence for telepathy on their polygraph charts.

Questions have been flying around for years concerning the possibility of twin telepathy but despite years of research most of the evidence found was not scientific but instead anecdotal. There are definitely some weird stories out there that just about convince you twin telepathy is real but there is no credible scientific evidence  to fall back on.  The idea that two people who shared their mother’s womb and have close to identical DNA have a form of psychic connection is an intriguing one but a hard one to prove.