{"id":292,"date":"2020-03-03T07:12:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T15:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/?p=292"},"modified":"2020-03-03T07:12:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T15:12:40","slug":"deception-twins-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/2020\/03\/03\/deception-twins-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Deception – Twins, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Somewhere around age 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They wanted to know if we had extra-sensory perception, or\nESP.  We were called out of class, my\nsister and I, to participate in a student-led science experiment during our\nlast year of high school.  The two scientists,\na boy and a girl in grade 11, were testing all identical twins at the school. I\nremember several pairs of identical twins out of 1,600 students – a small\npopulation of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had instructions. As sender, I was to turn over a card, identify the image and transfer my thoughts to her. <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They sat us on opposite sides of a table, facing each other with a stack of textbooks in between. We couldn\u2019t see below each other\u2019s shoulders, but we could make eye contact. I was presented with a set of cards that each had one icon \u2013 a star, a cross, a checkerboard pattern, squiggly lines. My sister had the same icons arranged in a grid on a single sheet of paper in front of her. We had instructions. As sender, I was to turn over a card, identify the image and transfer my thoughts to her. <\/em><\/strong>As receiver, she was to indicate the same icon from the selection in front of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two students sat next to us as observers. I saw in my\nsister\u2019s eye a gleam and knew we were thinking the same thing: please let us figure out a way have ESP<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a twin has always fascinated people. \u201cWhat\u2019s it like to be a twin? When you look\nat your sister, is it like looking in the mirror? Can you read each other\u2019s\nminds?<\/em>\u201d Short answers: 1) I don\u2019t know anything other than being a twin.\nIt\u2019s normal. 2) I don\u2019t see myself when I look at her. I see my sister. 3) Reading\nminds? Hmmm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother brought us up to have our own identities. On the\nadvice of Dear Abby, who was a twin herself as well as famous advice columnist,\nour mom determined that we should not be dressed alike or paraded around. When\nwe were little, she color coded our shoes so that our extended family could\ntell us apart \u2013 red for me and blue for my sister. It worked until the day we\ninsisted on choosing our own shoes. We promptly reversed the years of color\ncoding, and at the next family party, I didn\u2019t understand why my aunts, uncles\nand cousins were suddenly calling me by my sister\u2019s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So she and I were distinct. We had different friends. We had\ndifferent interests. We read different books and listened to different music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we also shared similarities. We were athletic and played\nsports together. While she preferred other subjects and I preferred English\nabove all else, we both got good grades and were in a lot of the same classes. She\nand I were active in church and community activities. We were very competitive,\nand we often faced life side by side as a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which brings me back to the ESP\nexperiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screw science, and bring on the ESP bragging rights. <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Though we were ostensibly subjects in a science experiment, I\nsaw it as a game to win, and I was pretty sure she was with me. Screw science, basically,\nand bring on the ESP bragging rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pulled a card with a cross, looked at my sister, and\nlowered my eyes to the crucifix she wore around her neck. She pointed to the\ncross in front of her. I pulled a star and looked sideways at the star earring\nI wore. She pointed to the star. My eyes moved to a math textbook that had\ngeometric squares. She pointed to the checkerboard. It wasn\u2019t always as easy as\nthat, but we came up with a system that got more right than wrong.  She and I switched places, and we continued with\nthe same system until we finished as both receiver and sender. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were successful.  When\nwe completed the test, the two students looked flustered. They stared at us\nthen conferred with each other out of ear shot. \nThey came back and sat down facing us. One of them questioned us. Be honest.<\/em> Did you cheat?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if any of the other twin pairs who took the\ntest cheated as we did. And I would wager that none of the other twins\nexhibited signs of it. So when our results showed that us \u201ccommunicating with\nour minds,\u201d our student scientists couldn\u2019t believe what they\u2019d seen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sister and I burst out laughing and confessed. The\nscientists looked relieved more than angry. We re-took the test without cheating\nand without displaying ESP this time, much to the satisfaction of our testers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They wanted to know if we had extra-sensory perception, or ESP.  We were called out of class, my sister and I, to participate in a student-led science experiment during our last year of high school.  The two scientists, a boy and a girl in grade 11, were testing all identical twins at the school. I remember several pairs of identical … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,19],"tags":[95,93,97,96,99,98,94],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deception","category-musings","tag-cheating","tag-deception","tag-esp","tag-high-school","tag-identical","tag-science-experiment","tag-twins","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}