There’s an unexplained phenomenon that you’ve probably experienced without knowing what it’s called. But those curious instances in which many of us are certain we remember something in a particular way, but it turns is not like that, then you are experiencing what’s known as the Mandela Effect.
The name derives from the popular belief that Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s in prision after 27 years. The truth is that he died in 2013 and was also the president of South africa between 1994 and 1999. This was because a self-proclaimed “paranormal consultant” described how she remembered Nelson´s dead in prision, and all the media effect that came by it. However, none of it happened. Short after, she discovered other people remembered the same thing as she did.
This effect occurs when a large group of people believe that something happened in a certain way when it did not.
You can also create false memories for yourself or create a fake sequence of events with your group of friends or any social group, most likely because they fill gaps of memory with things they “remind” occurring it at that time. Like a famous dictator once said: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently, it will be believed”.
An example of the Mandela effect is with the most famous quote in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” film. A lot of people are certain that the phrase goes “Luke, I am your father”, however, Darth Vader actually says, “I am your father.”
Some people believe that these false memories come from having a bad memory, others considered is related to time traveling or a parallel universe. There are many examples in the entertainment media that can cause this effect, either logos, posters, quotes…
Like, just imaging yourself trying to remember an old memory because you are going to use that idea that was on your brain. While bringing back that memory and using that idea in a conversation, you make changes to that memory with new information and then you put it back into your memories. Next time, you’ll probably going to remember that old memory in a different way as time passes by. So you’ll be experiencing the Mandela Effect.
Have this happened to you?