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Spoiler Warning!
This article or section reveals details from the fifth season. |
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"We're in the middle of a campaign!" |
A mysterious alternate dimension existed in parallel to the human world, with the two dimensions connected via the Upside Down.[3][4] Dustin Henderson called this dimension the Abyss.[5]
A planet within the Abyss dimension was the apparent home of the Mind Flayer entity, a race of humanoid predators, a flying bat-like species[1] and other lifeforms. The Abyss planet was characterized by desolate landscapes inflected with vines, with clusters of rocks floating above in a "scorched sky".[6] One form of the Mind Flayer, a dark, tree-like structure, stood at the planet's heart and served as Vecna's lair.
A failed United States government experiment, carried out in 1943, accidentally exposed the existence of the Abyss and the life within. Ten years later, a Nevadan child, Henry Creel, was temporarily transported to the Abyss and corrupted by the Mind Flayer, also gaining a unique blood type and a set of psychic abilities. In 1979, a now-adult Henry was banished to the Abyss planet once again. Henry made the Abyss his dwelling, believing he had seized control of the hive mind linking all life on the planet.[2][7][4]
Dr. Martin Brenner instructed Eleven, a psychic child test subject at Hawkins Lab, to 'make contact' with the Abyss. On November 6, 1983, when contact was established with a creature, the unthinkable occurred: a vast wormhole was created bridging Earth (specifically Hawkins, Indiana) and the Abyss planet, with the resultant wormhole becoming known as the Upside Down. When Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer made their presence felt in Hawkins, they were initially believed to originate from the Upside Down, which was considered an alternate dimension in its own right. However, these creatures always originated from the Abyss, only using the Upside Down as their point of entry into Hawkins.
In 1987, the Party entered the Abyss to rescue the children abducted by Vecna. In a final confrontation, both the Mind Flayer's physical form and Vecna were slain. Returning to Hawkins, the Party destroyed the Upside Down, Eleven apparently along with it, severing the Abyss' link to their world for good.
History
1943
In 1943, the United States conducted an experiment involving the USS Eldridge, activating an experimental force field with the hope of rendering the ship invisible. However, when the technology was activated, the ship was accidentally transported to an alternate dimension - the Abyss - with the crew being attacked thereafter by Demogorgons. Only the ship's captain survived the disaster, returning home with major injuries and now possessing a unique blood type. Though unconfirmed, the captain's changed blood heavily implies that the captain interacted with or was exposed to the Mind Flayer in some shape or form.[8]
1950s
Following the USS Eldridge incident, the captain's son, Dr. Martin Brenner, grew fascinated by his father's experience. In the decade that followed, Brenner and other scientists made early attempts at interdimensional travel at a a military base in Nevada, aiming to understand what had happened to the Eldridge and to reproduce it. However, a rogue doctor, a spy for the Soviet Union, stole a silver briefcase from the facility, which contained a strange glowing stone. The stone likely originated from the Abyss and was linked to the USS Eldridge incident, though this is unconfirmed.[8]
The defecting scientist eventually found himself wounded, bleeding and alone in an abandoned mineshaft, where he appeared to have fallen. Some time later, an eight-year-old boy scout, Henry Creel, stumbled upon the wounded doctor, who was still clutching the silver briefcase.[9] The doctor, fearful and paranoid, shot at Henry's hand, even as Henry offered to get him medical help. In a chaotic act of self-defence, young Henry grabbed a rock from the cave floor and used it to attack the man, subduing him.
Henry, acting out of curiosity, decided to open the man's briefcase and discovered the glowing stone.[9] After touching this rock, Henry found himself either mentally or physically transported to the Abyss; Henry experienced a vision of a shadowy entity telling him to "find me" as the stone turned into particles that entered Henry's gunshot wound. Some time later, Henry returned to the mineshaft, but now possessing a unique blood type and an altered personality. The dying scientist warned Henry that the entity would "consume" him and "consume all" and urged him to resist it. A moment later, Henry, either accidentally or intentionally, killed the scientist with the first use of his powers. Coming back to himself and frightened by his actions, Henry fled from the cave.[10]
Brenner later recovered the stone, also finding the spyglass belonging to Henry. Brenner was able to eventually track down Henry thanks to the dropped spyglass, and would eventually make him the first of a new series of test subjects at Hawkins Lab.
According to this account, it was Henry's exposure to the Abyss and/or the Mind Flayer at a young age that led him to develop special psychokinetic abilities. This appears to contradict Henry's own account of events, in which Henry apparently discovered the Mind Flayer and the Abyss at a much later stage in his life.[8][11] After seeing Henry's memory of this encounter, Will Byers believed that the Mind Flayer blocked the memory and made Henry afraid of entering the cave representing it in his mind so as to keep Henry from learning the truth.[10]
1979
Henry's banishment
On September 8, 1979, Henry, now an orderly at Hawkins Lab, tricked test subject Eleven into removing an implant in his neck that was suppressing his abilities. A vengeful Henry then used his restored powers to murder all the other test subjects. He attempted to do the same to Eleven, but she stood her ground and ultimately overpowered him.
Eleven used her powers to pin Henry against the wall of the Rainbow Room and started to disintegrate his body; however, a gate then appeared in the wall and transported Henry away, before sealing up and disappearing again.
1979-1983
A realm unspoiled by mankind
Henry was jettisoned to a strange space between worlds. For an unknown period of time, he fell between two parallel planes; he was constantly electrocuted by lightning leaping across the twin planes. The damage inflicted by the lightning marked the beginning of a bodily transformation; from this point on, Henry slowly morphed into a form barely recognizable as human.[12]
Some point after surviving his fall, Henry exited the inter-dimensional space and entered the Abyss. Though the alternative account of Henry's life showed that Henry had visited this world once before as a child, Henry seemed to have no memory of this as an adult.[8] At first, Henry believed the world to be a kind of 'purgatory', but he soon changed his mind, coming to view it instead as “a realm unspoiled by mankind”. Henry began to traverse the alien terrain, encountering “so many things”, including a species of faceless humanoid predators.
Eventually, Henry discovered “the most extraordinary thing of all”: a living organism made up of swirling, storm-like particles. Using his abilities, Henry formed a psychic connection to the particles. Recalling the giant spider-like "predator" he had envisioned as a child, Henry used his powers to reconstitute the particles into a giant, spider-like entity with a flame-shaped head. In time, this being would become known as the Mind Flayer.[2][3]
With the Mind Flayer at his side, Vecna's powers expanded. The Mind Flayer's body could split into smaller pieces while sharing a collective consciousness. These smaller pieces could possess other creatures and beings, tying them to the same core consciousness; through the Mind Flayer, Vecna could connect various lifeforms to a shared hive mind, with Vecna's will apparently at the top of the chain[2], only surpassed by the Mind Flayer[8], whom he would often fight for full control over the hive[1].
A familiar figure
When Henry initially encountered the shadowy entity in the Abyss, the entity first - either literally, or just in Henry's visions - adopted the voice and form of Alice, Virginia and Victor before eventually adopting the persona of Dr. Brenner. The entity claimed it wanted to "study" Henry, and that he was the "most magnificent thing" it had ever encountered. The entity encouraged Henry to take control of the various Demogorgons that roamed the landscape, which Henry achieved by systematically penetrating the mind of each individual creature.
Henry and the entity developed a complicated relationship via psychic connection; Henry repeatedly attempted to seize full control over the entity and the hive mind, but the entity would retaliate, forcing Henry to re-experience troubling memories.[1]
1983
Making contact
After the massacre and Henry's disappearance, Eleven became the sole focus of Dr. Brenner. In a series of experiments, Eleven would be immersed in a deep psychic state via sensory deprivation tank. She could observe people in different physical locations while in this frame of mind. Brenner sought to use this power to spy on enemy Russians.
While Eleven eavesdropped on a Russian spy from within her mental void, she accidentally encountered a monster. At Brenner's request, Eleven made psychic contact with the Monster - and by extension, Vecna's hive mind - on November 6, 1983, while the creature fed off a large, yellow egg.
In the moment contact was established, a second gate cracked open in the wall of the tank room. However, this gate led to a completely different-looking place than the Abyss; this new realm was a perfect physical copy of the human world, albeit one that was "frozen" on November 6, 1983, devoid of human life, and infected with the Abyss's spores, vines and creatures. This place would soon become known as "the Upside Down"[13] and was a wormhole connecting the Rightside Up and the Abyss, inadvertently created by Eleven's contact with the Monster.[9][5]
1987
Waking up
In 1987, after escaping from Camazotz with the help of Max Mayfield, Holly Wheeler woke up in the Abyss nearby Vecna. She escaped briefly though a gate to the Upside Down, but was pulled back to the Abyss by Vecna and re-connected to the Pain Tree.
Final Confrontation
In order to save the children and stop Vecna once and for all, the Party crossed through the Upside Down and into the Abyss itself. As they approached the Pain Tree, it transformed into a new massive form for the Mind Flayer. While Eleven and Will Byers fought Vecna, the rest of the Party lured the entity into an ambush, spearing, shooting and burning it from all directions. Overwhelmed, the Mind Flayer's physical body was killed and Vecna mortally wounded, bringing an end to their reign of terror. The Party rescued the kids from within the Mind Flayer while Joyce Byers finished Vecna off permanently.
The Mind Flayer's particles still exist within the Abyss, leaving it unclear whether it or other creatures native to the world are still active. Regardless, the beings within the Abyss no longer have access to humanity as the Upside Down was destroyed by Jim Hopper and Murray Bauman, severing the link between the worlds for good.
Nature
???
Known visitors
Dimension/planet visitors
- Mike Wheeler[10]
- Nancy Wheeler[10]
- Will Byers[10]
- Joyce Byers[10]
- Jonathan Byers[10]
- Eleven[10]
- Lucas Sinclair[10]
- Dustin Henderson[10]
- Steve Harrington[10]
- Robin Buckley[10]
Vecna's vessels
- Holly Wheeler
- Derek Turnbow
- Mary
- Debbie Miller
- Thomas
- Joshua
- Glenn
- Rebecca
- Wendy
- Benji
- Valerie
- Roger
Behind the scenes
During the development of Stranger Things 2, the Duffer Brothers created a 20-page document describing the mythology of the Upside Down, which included references to the Abyss. The dimension was originally intended to be named "Dimension X", a deliberate reference to a similarly named dimension from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.[14] The Dimension X name also appeared in "The Piggyback", and in Michael Maher, Jr.'s concept art, leading it to be adopted by the fanbase to describe the then-unknown location. However, Stranger Things 5 ultimately opted for a different name, "the Abyss".
Maher's concept art originally emphasized a link between the Mind Flayer's particles and the world's floating rocks, saying that the particles had an "anti-gravity" element to them. However, this concept was ultimately cut from "The Piggyback", since it would take too long to explain and detract from the rest of the scene.
Trivia
- In Dungeons & Dragons, the Abyss is one of the planes of existence, best known as the home of demons.
Gallery
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For this subject's gallery, see The Abyss/Gallery. |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Stranger Things VR
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "The Piggyback"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://www.michaelmaherjr.com/dimension-x
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 @michael_maher_jr on Instagram
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "The Bridge"
- ↑ The teleplay for "The Piggyback"
- ↑ Stranger Things VR
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Stranger Things: The First Shadow
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Escape From Camazotz"
- ↑ 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05 10.06 10.07 10.08 10.09 10.10 10.11 "The Rightside Up"
- ↑ In SFX Magazine #372, the following is said: "While some of Creel's origin story has been told, [Kate] Trefry emphasises that the version of events seen on screen may not be reliable; we were, she notes, told what happened to the Creel family by Henry himself. '[The First Shadow] is a different perspective,' she says. 'We're reaching back into Henry's past to understand why he is the way he is.'"
- ↑ https://www.michaelmaherjr.com/hellscape
- ↑ "Spotlight: Production Design with Chris Trujillo", from the Stranger Things YouTube channel
- ↑ "'Stranger Things 5' Volume 2 Spoiler Interview: Duffer Brothers Explain the Upside Down's Origins, Will's [SPOILER], That Breakup and Why Eleven Might Not Get a Happy Ending" Variety. December 26, 2025.
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| Locations | |
| Entities | |
| The Flayed | |
| Visitors | |
| Miscellaneous | The Abyss • Camazotz • Cyborg Demodogs • Dungeons & Dragons • Exotic matter • Fabric of space-time • Hellscape • MAC-Z • Mind Lair • Pain Tree • The Keys • The Void • Upside Down Egg • The Upside Down (episode) • The Upside Down (track) • Vecna's curse |