False Memories Took Me to School

In the past few years, I have come to believe that a large part of my academic life came to be as a result of the phenomenon that we have learned to be called “discerning false memories.” I can vividly recall my parents taking me to many Penn State football games and driving through campus when I was a very young child; it was these memories that conditioned me to aspire to go to Penn State during my elementary school years. However, when I went the 2007 PSU vs Notre Dame game with my parents, they asked me if I enjoyed my first Penn State football game. Of course I debated with them that they had taken me to many prior to that, but to this day they adamantly deny taking me to Penn State as a child.

I find it so bizarre that our brain has the ability to build these false memories and convince ourselves that they actually occurred. These false memories are the foundation of who I am as an academic today, and I cannot determine where they originated. As glad as I am that I ended up at Penn State due to these false memories, but they have also taught me to not always trust my own memory, which, to be honest, is a very strange sensation.

One thought on “False Memories Took Me to School

  1. Amber Judith Maiden

    It’s really interesting to hear about the fact that you fabricated an entire childhood experience due to false memories. When I was reading about false memories, I was thinking that maybe they happen due to something in our subconscious that wanted to be heard. So maybe your subconscious was telling you to go to Penn State all along! I agree with you that now I am wary to believe my own memories of things that happened in the past unless I have someone else there who also remembers the same thing, that way it’s either a shared delusion or actual fact.

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