It would be mind boggling to find out that sometimes the memories that we think we experienced at a point in time never actually happened. We don’t actually know if our memories are true or not and discerning false memories is not easy at all. For example many theories like source amnesia where you connect an event to the wrong source, or implantation of memories. Something like this happened to me where I thought a memory that I had and would repeat multiple times was true, but later found out it was false.
When I was younger I remember it was the anniversary of 9/11 and I was in 2nd grade. I had just learned and watched a movie on the horrific event and couldn’t wait to go home and tell my mom about everything I had just learned. I vividly remember my mom telling me that the day 9/11 happened that we were actually supposed to be in the city on that day. She told me my grandfather had a doctors appointment and me being only 4 months old she brought me too. But luckily, on our way there she had forgotten paperwork at home in Jersey and had to turn around and we never ended up going because when she was in the house she saw on the TV that the attack had occurred. I repeated this multiple times throughout my life until recently in High School I brought it up to my mom and she told me that my memory was false.
I believe that my false memory was developed through either source amnesia and the implanting of memories. That I heard multiple stories from my classmates about their parents that were supposed to go into the city on that day but something resulted in them not having to and it implanted and I turned it into my own memory.
I really enjoyed reading this response because I think the concept of our mind creating things that never actually happened is very strange, but extremely interesting. I actually have a very similar situation that also deals with 9/11. Up until about a year ago, I believed this elaborate story was all true, but really throughout the years, my mind created a story that was never even true. My story that I believed was that my dad was working in the building right next to the twin towers, but there was something wrong with his car that day, so he ended up not being able to get to work, which in the end saved his life. I was so sure about this story that I would share it to my class when the topic of 9/11 would come up. But really, the story goes that my dad commuted every day to NYC right through the World Trade Center but soon before the attack he left his job to move to PA. So, because he got a new job, he was able to avoid commuting that day to NYC for work, which if we never moved, he could’ve been there that day. The brain is a very interesting thing and the fact that while I was growing up my brain was able to pick up pieces of a story, that was most likely overheard by me in conversation, it was able to create its own story that for years I really believed was true.
Your personal experience was was so interesting to read! I can’t believe you had a memory so explicit almost your entire life and it tuned out to be false. It is crazy how we can have one thing in our mind from as far back as we cam remember just to find out that it was all not true. I have had a few instances in my life where I would remember something that happened to me from my childhood, where I would be with my mom and then retell it to her exactly how I remember; just to hear that most of it was not true. Before learning about this topic in class I have always wondered why that has happened to me that I think I remember something when in reality I didn’t. Sometimes its a slap in the face to hear that something that you remembered all the way from your childhood until now could have been completely false.