How good is your memory? Do you remember certain events and names clearly? How about your favorite childhood book? Or a movie you watched with a friend? What if I told you that there is a chance that, that memory is incorrect? What if I told you that, that memory never happened? That confusion you’re feeling now is the same confusion felt by many affected by the “Mandela Effect”.
The Mandela Effect began when news of Nelson Mandela death on December 5, 2013 broke. This news came as a shock to as many people remember news of him dying in prison in the 1980s. The massive false memory sparked a new trend called the “Mandela Effect”, however, it doesn’t stop there as many new “Mandela Effects” happen everyday.
The second major “Mandela Effect” was the reveal that the children’s book “Berenstein Bears” by Jan and Stan Berenstain was actually called “Berenstain Bears”. This was an important “Mandela Effect” because everyone, including me, specifically remember pronouncing the book with a distinct “e” sound rather than an “a” sound. When this news started to spread many people went back to find their originally copies of the book to prove the effect wrong, but rather, they proved themselves wrong when every copy of the book had the “a” no one seemed to remember. Many people even went back to the toy boxes they had bought to see if they had the missing “e” but to no prevail.
This lead many to come up with theories about why this was happening at such a massive level, even though, psychologist have described it as being as just being a “false memory” due to the brain’s inability to remember everything. The main theory is that the Earth passed through into a alternate or parallel dimension where everything is the same as it was in the last dimension except for a few choice things and events like Mandela’s death and the actual name of the “Berenstain Bear’s” book.
One other theory, is that the “Mandela Effect” is evidence of time travel. The theory goes that we were at once in 1988 when Mandela passed away but through the means of time travel we traveled, or as the theory puts it “slid”, to 2013 were we then watched his funeral. The theory believes that time travel is so brief that we never noticed it. However, this theory is widely unpopular in the “Mandela Effect” community since it hasn’t occurred regularly enough with other effects to prove its existence.
Another, more recent “Mandela Effect” has to deal with the “Fruit of the Loom” brand image. What do you remember it being? Was it an apple with some grapes, some leaves, and a cornucopia? If you remember the cornucopia then you are experiencing a “Mandela Effect” due to the fact that the “fruit of the Loom” brand image never had the cornucopia in the back of the image. This shocked many and only further hardened the belief in the “Mandela Effect” theories.
Overall, there are many more “Mandela Effects” out there and by merely searching the term you are likely to find one that connects to you. Even if you can’t find one now, you are likely to find one in the future that’ll make you question is my memory bad or did I just enter another dimension?
It’s funny that you decided to talk about the “Mandela Effect” because the other day in my SC200 (Science) we also talked about this and the Berenstain Bears. There were a lot of “what” and “no way” throughout the room when my professor brought this up. We refuse to believe that the beloved Berenstein Bears is actually the Berenstain Bears. I have a hard time believing this but that’s what the “Mandela Effect” shows you.