Mandela Effect proves that we should question what we remember

This week, I want to do something a little different.

Typically, I take a book, movie, TV show or video game to discuss the messaging. This time, I want to talk about a conspiracy theory.

Now, to get it said up front, I’m not saying I believe in this. I’m saying I think it’s interesting and there’s something to learn from it.

So, let’s talk about the Mandela Effect.

Simply put, the term refers to when a person or group of people have a false memory of an event.

Fiona Broome coined the term in 2009 after talking with a group of people about very clear memories of former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela’s funeral after he died in prison in the 1980s.

For those not up on their history, Mandela didn’t die in prison in the 1980s, but in 2013. He didn’t serve as president until 1994.

Thus, it was named after him.

Other popular examples of the Mandela Effect include:

A pattern of misquoting “Star Wars” with the line “Luke, I am your father,” which is never actually said in the film. The quote is, “No, I am your father.”

In Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” the Wicked Witch never says “Mirror mirror on the wall,” rather its “Magic mirror on the wall.”

There’s some say Mother Teresa was declared a saint in the ‘90s, but it didn’t happen until 2016 after she passed away.

Another classic is Curious George’s character design. People claim he has a trail when he doesn’t.

There’s countless others focused around either dates of events or the spelling of things, like the Berenstain Bears

The conspiracy theory explanation is that these little slips come from alternate realities slipping into one another.

It comes out of string theory, which basically explains the universe and the very nature of reality in terms of tiny strings that vibrate in 10 dimensions.

String theory is unproven and highly controversial.

But that’s the conspiracy theory for the Mandela Effect. There’s also other potential explanations that are based on psychology.

One of them is that false memories are just a thing. In fact, our memories are inherently flawed.

Our emotions and personal bias can influence memories, but we’re also just not very good at remember details.

For instance, a 2003 study of 569 college students found that 73% of people remember watching the first plane hitting the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, but didn’t remember that the footage actually aired the following day, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.

Another potential explanation for the Mandela Effect is the idea of confabulation, or when people make false statements or retellings of events.

People don’t really do so intentionally, at least when confabulating. It’s common in Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

Finally, it could also be attributed to a concept called priming, which is when exposure to a specific stimulus influences their response to subsequent stimulus.

For example, if a person reads or hears the word “grass,” they will recognize another related word, such as “tree” or “lawnmower,” more quickly than an unrelated word.

Personally, I’m not discounting the possibility of alternate universes. I’m not a theoretical physicist.

I do think jumping to alternate universes to explain the Mandela Effect when we have potential explanations based on human psychology is premature.

To me, that’s the lesson in this particular conspiracy theory. We shouldn’t just blindly trust our memories because our brains aren’t video recorders.

Michael Shine is a contributing writer for the Daily American Republic.