Having been around for some time, the Mandela Effect has indeed had its contentious issues. However, now, with our greater understanding of the nature of reality and consciousness, it is worth revisiting. It has intriguing theories, new explanations.
The Mandela Effect: You have clear memories of something. So much so that it’s tattooed in your brain. Then, this particular something that you clearly remember; maybe an audio clip, or an image of, say, a corporate logo, or a TV or movie moment… shows up again, but this time you notice it has changed.
Even though you may have seen it a thousand-plus times, perhaps going as far back as early childhood when you saw it for the first time, you cannot explain this change. “That’s not how I remember it!” you may cry out, but it has definitely altered. How can this be…?!
You’re not alone. There are millions of people noticing the same specific changes in an audio clip, or image; a corporate logo, TV or movie moment that is different to what they remembered.
-This is the Mandela effect at work.
Examples of the Mandela effect (refer to the above images)
* Many would swear that C3PO was all gold in every Star Wars movie, but now its right calf leg is silver. So C3PO never was all gold!
* Pikachu doesn’t have a black tail.
* The “Fruit of the Loom” logo doesn’t have a cornucopia.
* You may remember the man in the Monopoly board game having a monocle, but now it’s gone. The monocle you thought was there had never existed.
* Curious George never had a tail.
* The VW in the Volkswagen logo are separate letters. Fused letters were never in existence.
* In the old Snow White Disney movie, apparently, there is no “Mirror, mirror on the wall…” dialogue. It’s “Magic mirror on the wall…”
The Mandela Effect gets even more bizarre when considering the claims that Nelson Mandela was remembered by millions to have died in prison in the 1980’s. This is where the term Mandela Effect comes from. Yet he was alive up until the year 2013…
Referring to the above images further examples in include:
*Then there’s the James bond movie Moonraker. The one with Jaws and the blond girl with braces. Many people swear that she had braces. -Doesn’t this made a lot more sense for why she fell for the Jaws character…??
*The hyphen that never existed in the snack Kit Kat.
*Apparently, we’ve got it wrong if we remember the cartoons were called “Looney Toons.” No, it’s “Looney Tunes.”
*The Flintstones is really The Flintstones (2 t’s).
*Berenstain Bears is Berenstein Bears
*You’re not alone if you remembered the Kennedy assassination had 4 people in the car. In actuality, it’s 6…
So what is going on here?? Can so many of us remember the same wrong thing?
Let’s explore some of the intriguing theories, new alternative explanations.
1.Neuroscience explanation
This takes the idea that our memory is not like a recording device where recall is merely a ‘playback’ of what we remember. Instead, the neuroscience explanation claims that memories are reconstructions.
In other words, based on past experiences we piece-by-piece reconstruct our memories of an event in relation to pattern recognition, context, our emotions and points of view… This doesn’t necessarily mean that we recall whole memories as facts. That is, false memories may be formed by a process, known as confabulation.
It is reasonable to think that these false memories can happen, given certain circumstances. However, neuroscientists tell us that this is how we form false memories in relation to the Mandela effect. For research details details go here.
This “explanation” has been met with criticism.
Common rebuttals to this flimsy explain away the Mandela effect theory include:
* How can so many people be accused of having the same “false memory” and be called wrong? For example, to fill in a gap by inventing a monocle on monopoly man as a visual short-hand for wealth is too specific, too detailed, too creative to be made up by so many people world-wide through chance.
* What about those who have had first-time direct experience in their life? For example, many young people for the first-time had watched the first Star Wars movie and saw it a dozen times over in that era. They may not like having their intelligence insulted by getting told that C3PO wasn’t all gold because they have false memories…
* Is this a case of explaining away gas-lighting, with more gas-lighting??
* Recording device or not, memory recovery, such as that from trauma, can with patience and persistence bring about memory recall accurately over time.
* It’s been strongly suggested that the subject should be viewed/scrutinized from a different perspective.
2.Social experiment hypothesis
The social experiment hypothesis is an alternative explanation to the above memory failure theory. It’s based on the idea that during the 1990’s, the American mass media was responsible for heavily affecting our memories. It claims all that almost all memory changes can be linked to this era.
Put simply, because of the many alterations; different edits, overdubs and format changes to media, our memories were affected: With so many different versions we formed our own memories based on the many different versions. Our memories are not from the real ones, hence the Mandela effect.
-It was dubbed the social experiment hypothesis because the many alterations in the 1990’s kind of acted as a psychological experiment. Whether it was intentional or not, it claims that the net effect was the rewriting of collective memory: Making people en masse remember something that never existed.
Apart from the rebuttal that the 1990’s American mass media was not entirely responsible, this “explanation” has been met with basically the same criticism as in 1 (above).
Rooted in theoretical physics, another theory put forward is the idea that instead of a memory problem, the Mandela Effect is the result of a glitch between parallel existences.
People share the same memories because they shared the same reality. In other words, the memories they share do exist: At one point, they were in the same alternative parallel reality where, for example, they experience the monopoly man having a monocle. Or where Nelson Mandela did die in prison in the eighties… -A case of having lived in the same quantum timeline.
With infinite parallel existences, one slightly different to the next, this concept comes from the mutiverse theory.
The idea that we are living in a multiverse can extend into dreamwork.
The many-worlds interpretation needs more research to better understand and support its claims.
The simulation theory embraces A.I reality, science and philosophy. This theory suggests that we are living in a simulation. There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that we’re in a simulation.
If this is the case then what we see (or don’t see) is the result of alterations, different computations in this highly advanced simulation we’re living in. Thus, the Mandela effect is the consequence of a glitch or error here and there, or the rewriting of the code for the software programme, to which our memories are independent of…
For examples, in an earlier version of the software programe there was a hyphen in, Kit Kat, Dolly, the girl in the Bond film, did have braces… etc., which no longer shows up in the updated version of the software.
Having nothing directly to do with memory, physics or advanced A.I technology, the spiritual phenomenon embraces the idea that the world reflects the changes that go on within us.
Could the Mandela effect be “breadcrumbs,” by-products attributed to our shifting consciousness causing changes in our outer world? In other words, the changes we see in the world is a result of reality bending and re-orientating itself as a consequence of our different awareness levels in the collective consciousness.
The idea that our outer world is a projection of our inner world goes as far back as ancient times.
-From false memories to mass media manipulation, parallel existences, A.I simulation theory and spiritual phenomenon, that concludes the intriguing theories.
Finally
Reality is not fixed. It’s fluid, something to willfully participate in. As we move into higher and higher levels of mass consciousness, could the elevation be significant enough to change our outer world to such as extent that we will dismantle the controlling enslaving Matrix? If so, then what about the boundless possibilities in this shift and thereafter?
