The Mandela effect: how groups of people can all remember the wrong thing
Although popularized by a "paranormal consultant", the effect is real. Our memory is imperfect. We can recall some things differently from how they happened, even remember things that never happened. Sometimes, however, larger groups of people can misremember something the same way. Image credits Eric Smart . Psychologists call these collective false memories — or just ‘false memories’ for individuals. It’s also commonly known as the ‘Mandela effect’, so christened by “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome around 2010. Needless to say, they have enough of a ‘spooky factor’ to capture public interest. Examples of and explanations for the false memories abound on the internet. It’s even been proposed that those people remember alternate universes, which they’ve lived in before somehow switching to our own. Definitely an interesting story. But the origin of this phenomenon is more likely produced by an interplay between how our memories are formed, how they are stored, and our in...
