Ever heard of ‘confabulation’? It sounds like a made-up word but it’s the clinical definition used by psychologists to describe the unconscious process of creating a story the narrator believes is true even if it’s proven to be false. ‘Confabulation’ is however not restricted to patients with brain damage or a psychiatric disorder. We all confabulate at times.
Human memory, although amazing in its ability, is also imperfect and can at times lead to the phenomenon of false memories – untrue recollections of past events that feel real even though they are proven false. It’s not intentional, we’re just inventing facts to fill in the gaps in our fallible memory.
One such memory glitch is referred to as the “Mandela Effect” – a term used to describe a collective false memory. For example, lines from famous movies that everyone gets wrong (for example, Humphrey Bogart’s saying “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca), erroneous dates and numbers (apparently many people answer “52” when asked how many states there are in the U.S.), and historical misconceptions (are you among those who recall learning that the cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney was black?).
The “Mandela Effect” is a term used to describe a shared false memory. It originates from an online thread of a large number of people who falsely believe that the South African human rights activist and former president Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s, when in fact he died in 2013.
Why does this occur?
One theory is based on the principle of quantum mechanics and suggests that people who experience the Mandela Effect may have “slid” between parallel realities. After growing up in a universe where Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s, some people wake up to find themselves in an alternate universe where he died in 2013. Or, apparent memory glitches are actually software glitches that cause inconsistencies in our perception of reality.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this kind of speculation, but it provides no practical explanation and it’s not necessary. We don’t have to conduct thought experiments about the nature of reality to explain why we misremember things or why we misremember some of the same things the same way.
One thing most psychologists agree on is that memory is fallible. They also agree that it’s constructive, not reproductive so, the brain builds memories spontaneously out of random pieces of information as opposed to playing them back like a recording so, memories aren’t pure. They can be distorted by any number of factors, including bias, association, imagination, and peer pressure.
David Dunning once said
“The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise”.
If human memory is fallible, what true reality can we trust and ultimately build our lives on?
If it’s truth we seek then we can look to Jesus Christ who said:
“I am the way, the truth and the life…” – John 14:6
He is also “the same yesterday and today and forever” – Hebrews 13:8
If you’re looking to build your life on a true and immoveable reality, build your life on Jesus Christ – the solid rock
Sources:
http://www.snopes.com/2016/07/24/the-mandela-effect/
http://skepdic.com/confab.html
The Bible