“The mirror is a portal to another dimension.”

I don’t know where exactly I heard that. I don’t even know where it’s from. My boyfriend says it was a belief back in the early days, that it was debunked a long time ago. But something still pulls me back to it.

When I look in the mirror, I see myself. There’s no portal or ghost on the other end, just me. And yet, I refuse to undress infront of it; I refuse to make love in front of it; I refuse to do something so intimate that the black market could make a profit.

Strange things mirrors are. There’s no one test to determine if a mirror is a dimension. I tried the finger test, the one influencers use to ensure there’s not a pervert getting their rocks off on the other side. The goal is to see a gap between your finger and the reflection. But there was no gap. Does this mean someone’s watching? Is there someone on the other side? The simple answer is no. It’s a medicine cabinet with a mirror attached to it.

Some would say it was the way the mirror was manufactured. They would put logic in it to hide the fear of the unknown. They would call it ridiculous and illogical. But what’s illogical about it? People believe in ghosts, enough where there has been multiple ghost hunting shows made. People believe in aliens and the UFO sightings and federal documents about them, even Area 51. Yet when it comes to a mirror being a dimension, not many people hop on board, except for the witches and medians that say mirrors open a portal to the afterlife.

I’m not so sure that they’re right. If so, dead people would be watching me do my business every day in the bathroom. But what would be better? A camera? A multiverse version of myself? God?

I don’t know what’s on the other side of a mirror. When I look in the mirror, I see myself—my former self, my future self, my yesterday self, and tomorrow self. I’m always watching, and I’ll always remember—the time I stuffed my bra with wet paper towels, the time I puked in the sink and missed the toilet, the times I undressed before hopping in the shower and watched my face turn to disgust. I can recall all of it, and I get embarrassed at the thought.

Except—that’s not it at all. What if it’s aliens all along, that they monitor everything I do—everything anyone does—as a show on TV? What if those in the afterlife are trying to communicate with the living, and your shadow’s reflection wasn’t your shadow? What if it’s paranoia, and I’m being “ridiculous,” skeptics would say? There’s no real evidence of this; there’s no proof. Scientists believe in science, medians believe in talking to the afterlife, conspiracy theorists believe the world was manufactured, so really, mirrors could be a portal to another dimension.

People focus on the bigger picture too much. If we could open the portal, we would. Or are we opening the portal every day by simply looking in the mirror?