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Have you ever realized that something you thought was true never really happened that way? This is how the Mandela effect works: a reality forged with false memories. We explain to you.
Would you say that the man who appears in the Monopoly game wears a monocle? Do you think Pikachu, the character from the Pokémon franchise, has the black tip of his tail? The answer to both questions is negative. However, many people respond in the affirmative. And the reason why this is so has a name: the Mandela effect.
Your mind constructs false memories that it gives truth to without being real or having ever happened. This is what happened to Fiona Broome, who coined this term in 2010 after realizing something. This researcher thought that Nelson Mandela had died in prison in 1980, when, in reality, he was still alive. His experience was not the only one.
Next, we explain what this phenomenon consists of and what its main characteristics are.
What if I told you that the world around you, with its rich colors, textures, sounds and smells, is an illusion, a spectacle presented to you by your brain? If you could perceive reality as it is, you would be surprised by its colorless, odorless and tasteless silence.
~ David Eagleman (The Brain, 2017) ~
The Mandela Effect and the reasons why your mind deceives you
The Mandela effect refers to a false memory shared by many people. They are situations in which, suddenly, you realize that you have given truth to a fact which, in reality, is not true or never happened. And what is most striking: you are not the only one to suffer this mental lapse.
A work published by the journal Psychological Science highlights something interesting in this regard. This phenomenon is associated, in most cases, with icons of popular culture. There are always famous figures, brand logos, and even movies that we remember en masse in one way, when the evidence tells us that it was a different way.
If you are curious to know what the cause of this psychological effect is, below we give you the keys.
Memory biases: “Luke, I am your father”
When a person is asked to say a well-known phrase from the Star Wars saga, the most common one is this: “Luke, I am your father.” However, that expression is not correct, because the one that appeared in the Empire strikes back is the following: “No, I am your father.”
One of the causes that explain the Mandela effect has to do with memory biases. Many times what happens is that you remember certain details incorrectly and even confuse them with related information. Your beliefs, personal and emotional experiences condition the memory.
In this sense, as highlighted in Behavioral and Brain Functions, perception and memory sometimes make incorrect reconstructions of the reality that surrounds you. This process is influenced by numerous factors such as those already mentioned, and this gives rise to annoying false memories.
The brain reconstructs reality: Mickey Mouse suspenders
Visualize in your mind the most classic Mickey Mouse, the one from the early years when Walt Disney popularized him. Now, answer: what are the famous character’s pants like? Do they have suspenders? A significant part of the population believes this idea is true, when the truth is that, in his debut in 1928, he only wore buttons.
An interesting fact about the human brain is that it has a habit of filling in information. You are not aware of it, but it adds data to certain memories until they are biased and falsified. Research published by Nature Communications highlights that when we see a stimulus or object and then proceed to remember it, the brain can reformulate and alter certain details.
The construction of narratives: the color of C3PO, from Star Wars
If we asked you right now what color the famous Star Wars protocol droid is, what would you answer? Chances are, your answer was the same as 90% of the population: gold. Only true fans of the saga point out an important trait: he is golden, but one of his legs is silver.
The Mandela effect is influenced by the social narratives that surround us. That is to say, Your memory is also shaped by your culture and by what you receive from your environment.. This can cause you, at a given moment, to integrate incorrect and even incomplete information into your memory, such as with this small detail from the history of cinema.
Erroneous memories of the Mandela effect are also conditioned by social contagion. People influence each other when we share information. This can mean that, if someone has incorrectly processed an event, they transmit it to others in the same way and no one stops to verify whether this data is authentic.
The effect of suggestion: eThe man in front of the tank in Tiananmen
If there is an iconic image of the 20th century, it is that of a solitary man who positioned himself in front of a tank that was leading the line of military vehicles in Tiananmen Square, China. It was June 1989 and the Chinese army received the order to end the citizen protest. Well, many people remember this moment with a tragic ending: that young man being run over.
However, such an act never happened. He was not shot or run over. He was detained and his fate was uncertain, but such popular image was not real. The Mandela effect often has the power to create unpleasant images for us that did not happen either.. What, therefore, is the reason for such a cerebral mechanism?
When you expose yourself to scenes with a certain emotional impact, your mind becomes suggestive and, then, you can create false memories. An article in the Journal of Memory and Language delves into the fact that, sometimes, the act of reflecting on the meaning of the things you see causes memory to be altered. Almost without realizing it, you consolidate an image that never happened.
The brain prefers to simplify: lsanctification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Mother Teresa of Calcutta died on September 5, 1997, but her sanctification did not come until September 4, 2016. However, many people assume that this act happened before, specifically, during the pontificate of John Paul II. The explanation for this oversight or memory error has an origin.
The brain tends to simplify information, especially when it comes to historical events. For most of us it is more logical that this figure was sanctified almost immediately given its relevance. However, we overlook that this process follows complex guidelines that, for most of us, escape us. That is why such an event was not effective until almost 20 years later.
You are what you remember, but sometimes your memory deceives you
People are our memories. Every thing felt, seen, read or heard builds the person you are. However, suddenly discovering that certain realities that you considered valid are not valid is disconcerting. In fact, you will be interested to know that The Mandela effect also has its impact on the world of music.
It is quite well known, for example, the mistake that many Oasis fans made in their famous song from the 90s: Wonderwall. Most of them said the following in the first chorus: «Today is gonna be the day that it all comes back to you?». When, in reality, what the group was singing was: “Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you.”
All of these errors describe a fact that neuroscientist David Eagleman explains in his book The brain: our history (2017). Each of us creates reality in our own way and, sometimes, what surrounds us is quite different from how we see or interpret it. Now, why not say it, that is what makes us so fascinating and at the same time so complicated.
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