#digbysdiscoveries

Ill start with a question: do you remember the Monopoly man having a monocle? 🧐

If you do, this is an example of the #MandelaEffect or #FalseMemory, as the character has never had a monocle, all the way back to 1936. Source: https://lnkd.in/eyJiumR3

I had come across references to the #MandelaEffect in TV and online and finally got round to using good old Google and #wikipedia to find out a little more about what exactly it is.

What I found interesting was that the #MandelaEffect is relatively recent, being named after Nelson Mandela, following his death in 2013 - many people reported they recalled him dying in prison decades earlier. It is widely credited to a self proclaimed “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome as early as 2010.

I then found suggestions that this is ‘proof’ of alternate history or some form of change in the timeline. In that, something has changed but not everyone’s memories are updated to reflect the change.

However, work on #FalseMemory actually goes back much further than 2010/2013 with original studies being conducted by Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet. Other notable studies occurred in 1974 lead by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer. The #wikipedia page goes into greater detail about these events and in far better detail than I can share!

These studies to me, highlight some really interesting points which actually we are probably all aware of in some way or shape in our every day life and our life journey to date. It also talks to me about the fact that I/we actually still know very little about our brains and general mental health and abilities.

Think of nostalgia, the act of recalling a memory, viewing with ‘rose tinted glasses’ which makes the memory better than perhaps the event once was. Then extend that further to acknowledge that other people involved in said event may have a different experience of the event to you. Add to that language changes and how that affects recall - think about reading words, even if the letters are jmubeld and not in the rghit order, your brain fills in the blanks and re-orders them, which means if pushed to recall, you would actually recall what you know the word to be, rather than what was actually there.

Of course, this is a very basic summary, further factors such as trauma, presuppositions, misinformation, relational processing and sleep deprivation are a number of other fascinating areas which provide further theories to explain #FalseMemory.

This doesn’t explain why so many of us believe we have memories of the the Monopoly Man wearing a monocle!

#mandelaeffect #falsememory #timetravel #changestothematrix