The phrase "turn back on itself" is grammatically correct and commonly used in written English.
It means to reverse direction or go back the way it came from. Example: The hiking trail seemed to turn back on itself, leading us in circles through the dense forest. Another example: The plot of the mystery novel was so complex that it constantly turned back on itself, leaving the readers unsure of who the real culprit was.
Adding to speculation, Malaysian military radar indicates the missing plane turned back on itself shortly before vanishing.
Imagine that sinuous and haunting melody, which keeps turning back on itself, burrowing ever deeper into your psyche.
The story of Metta World Peace, at least at this point in its arc, has turned back on itself.
Three Women is altogether more mysterious, turning inward, turning back on itself, allowing its characters to exchange or alter their basic natures.
At the far end, after manifold adventures, the material turns back on itself, coming home to a hard-won calm, steeped in recollection.
The change in direction initially came on 9 March, when the Malaysian military announced that radar indicated that the plane turned back on itself shortly before vanishing, meaning it began travelling away from Beijing before disappearing.
The timber hitch, in which the rope is turned back on itself at least three times, is a rapidly tied variation that is used by loggers on tree trunks.
Walking that spiraling path, which turned back on itself several times — and turned me 180 degrees — before setting off in another direction, seems to switch the tracks in the brain.
The song doesn't really have a centre, or even an obvious chorus; it opens out like a series of rooms, and then turns back on itself, as if the song's narrator were arguing with himself.
The trail continued to drop, turning back on itself; another, lower trail ran parallel to it now, and would join it within a few yards, and on this trail two figures were hurrying, one of them, in the lead, a large beast running on all fours.
"Diagonal" (1961) is a small, delicate composition in which a long, organic crease partially crosses the center of the paper at a slight diagonal, spreading out on either side through density of line and turning back on itself at both ends in convolutions that suggest the scrolls atop Ionic columns.
