Stranger Things has finally given a definitive answer about the Upside Down in Season 5 Volume 2. What once appeared to be a parallel dimension is now revealed to be something far more unstable and central to the show’s endgame.
What is the Upside Down in Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 2?
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 confirms that the Upside Down is not an independent world. Instead, it functions as a wormhole, described by Dustin as an interdimensional bridge. This bridge connects the real world to the realm where Vecna has been hiding, which he identifies as the Abyss.
Exotic matter lies at the core of this structure that keeps the bridge intact, despite being highly unstable. Events that appear to take place inside the Upside Down are, in reality, moments where characters are moving through this wormhole. Holly’s fall through the Upside Down sky is revealed to be her slipping through the bridge itself rather than traversing a separate environment.
Stranger Things previously established that the Abyss existed long before the Upside Down. After the 1979 incident at Hawkins Lab, Eleven banished Henry into that hostile world, which was already home to the Mind Flayer and other creatures.
The Upside Down was created years later, on November 6, 1983. When Eleven made psychic contact with a Demogorgon, she unknowingly formed the bridge between Hawkins and the Abyss. The Upside Down became a warped reflection of the real world, acting as a passage rather than a destination.
Additionally, the revelations confirm that the show’s monsters never originated in the Upside Down itself. Vecna, the Mind Flayer, and their hive-mind creatures came from the Abyss and used the bridge to access Hawkins. The Upside Down simply served as the transit space through which these beings traveled before entering the real world via rifts and gates.
Even the Duffer Brothers confirmed to Variety, “It wasn’t called the Abyss at that point; it was called Dimension X, which is a Ninja Turtle reference.” It further confirmed that Eleven was the catalyst.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on ComingSoon.
