Nakata first has to open the portal to the other world by finding and flipping over the entrance stone. Living in the real world with impaired cognition, a shadow that is only half as dark as regular people's, and the ability to speak with cats, Nakata eventually finds himself compelled by commands from the other world to set right the mysterious imbalance that has made the two worlds porous with each other. The character most emblematic of the existence of a parallel world is Nakata, whose childhood coma results in a portion of his soul leaving his body and traveling to the other world.

Murakami explores the theme of the existence of a parallel world by filling the pages of Kafka on the Shore with inexplicable supernatural phenomena and characters who function in both worlds. The parallel world seems to be the realm of the dead souls and of subconscious desires and evils. Working in tandem with the theme of fate is the major theme of the existence of an alternate reality-a parallel world that exists alongside the world as most people know it. He is compelled to perform the actions of opening the entrance stone and finding Miss Saeki for reasons he cannot explain beyond knowing that it is his destiny to set things right. Bereft of the desires that usually motivate humans, Nakata operates according to ideas he spontaneously receives as commands from another world. Fate also plays a pronounced role in Nakata's life. Although he couldn't have physically been present at the murder scene, Kafka believes that fate has made it so that he somehow killed his father by entering a dream portal.

Kafka also discovers that he has blacked out and is covered in blood on the same night that his father was murdered. Kafka sleeps with both women, never sure whether they are his long-lost relatives or merely surrogates he was destined to meet. Similarly, he wonders if Miss Saeki-another woman he is hopelessly drawn toward-might be his mother. When Kafka meets Sakura, his attraction to her is bound up in the belief that she could be his sister. However, he finds that forces beyond his control compel him to fulfill his father's dark prophecy. Wishing to escape this unpleasant fate, Kafka leaves home. The incident that sets the plot of the novel in motion is Kafka's father's declaration that Kafka is fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother and sister. Fate-the development of events according to destiny and occurring beyond one's control-is the predominant theme in Kafka on the Shore.

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