Have you ever recalled an event, or the title of something, and swore it was correct only to discover your memory failed you? Have you ever heard of this happening to a large group of people? As unlikely as it seems for a large group’s consensus to be incorrect, it happens more often than you would think. This fallacy in human remembrance is regarded as the Mandela Effect.
So you may be wondering when was this theory developed? It was in 2010 that Fiona Bloom, a prominent blogger, realized that she, along with many others, incorrectly remembered the death of Nelson Mandela. She whole-heartedly believed Mandela died while being detained, even recalling news coverage about his passing. Others remembered the event exactly as Bloom did, the only issue was that at the time of this discovery, Nelson Mandela was alive, and well.
After this discovery was made, many people came forward protesting that this lapse in memory proves that there is a “parallel universe” somewhere out there. While it is an interesting possibility to ponder there are several other explanations for why this occurs. The misinformation effect could be a possible explanation, as it occurs when one incorrectly recalls personal memories. Confabulation is also involved in most reports of the Mandela Effect, as it is literally the falsification of a memory. I believe that the Mandela Effect is highly linked to false memories. False memories are a phenomenon that describes when an individuals have remembrances of events that never occurred. This usually occurs after a trauma has been suffered, acting as a mental defense mechanism.
Though there its no solid scientific explanation for the Mandela effect, I do believe there is a link between it and science. I hope that with further research that link can be discovered. Here is a link for some common examples of the Mandela Effect, enjoy!
This is a very interesting topic for a blog post, one different from what I expected to find. I like how the history was decribed, but would have liked to see other examples such as White Out actually being Wite Out or Febreze all of a sudden being spelled with 1 “e”. New Mandela Phenomenon pop up all the time and its interesting to see how far we can go with it and see our fallacies in our own logic.