Here is proof that your memory of reality is wrong. Darth Vader never said “Luke,
I am your father.” The queen in snow white never said “Mirror, mirror, on the wall”
and Hannibal lecter in Silence of the Lambs never said “Hello Clarice.” These are
some of the most quoted phrases in history, you’ve probably said them yourself at some
point. Except, they never happened. Darth Vader actually said “No, I am your father.”
The queen said “Magic mirror on the wall.” And in Silence of the lambs, Hannibal says
“Good evening Clarice.” This is known as the Mandela effect.
It’s a phenomenon of shared false memories where people clearly and vividly remember
things that never happened. Many people are so sure that they have these memories that
they believe the mandela effect is proof of alternate timelines, or glitches in a simulated
reality. But could that really be true or is it something else entirely?
In this video I’m going to show you the truth about the Mandela effect and how it’s
led to hundreds of innocent people being locked in prison, the altering of history, and how
it’s used to manipulate you. There are many examples of the Mandela Effect.
Remember the rich guy in monopoly? He actually doesn’t have a monocle. Sex in the City
is actually Sex and the city. The fruit of the loom logo doesn’t and has never had
a cornucopia. Pikachu’s tail doesn’t have a black stripe at the end and the berenstein
bears were never called the Berenstein Bears, they were called the Berenstain bears. Remember
a movie called Shazaam starring Sinbad as a genie that grants wishes to two children?
It doesn’t exist. It was never made. People are so sure that this movie existed that even
Sinbad himself tweeted about it where he said:
“Okay for all you people who think I did a genie movie.. well haven’t done one YET
, but I am going to do one so we can close this chapter”
These are just a few examples of the Mandela effect but there are so many more. People
are utterly convinced that what they remember actually happened and this has led to mass
confusion and theories about alternate timelines, reality glitches, or elaborate conspiracies.
I get a question about the Mandela effect almost every time I livestream. So what’s
actually going on here? Here’s where things get even crazier. Let
me explain exactly what’s going on. A project was conducted in the United States that gathered
information on 300 innocent people that were wrongly convicted, some of them having spent
30 years in prison. Advances with DNA testing proved they were totally innocent. It turned
out that ¾ of those innocent people were convicted because of faulty, or false memories
recounted by a witness. In some cases, the witness was absolutely sure they remembered
the convicted person committing the crime when in reality it was an entirely different
person. This happens because most people think their memories are like cameras, recording
everything they’re experiencing exactly as it truly is. Decades of research in psychology
has shown this is not true at all. Memory is constructive and reconstructive and as
cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus points out, instead of memory being like a camera,
it’s more like a Wikipedia page where you can access the information, edit it, and change
it, but so can other people. The problem is you don’t know that you or other people
are changing it. Researcher of psychology Julian Jaynes provides
a series of thought experiments you can do right now to prove to yourself how memory
is constructive. So let’s try it. Pause the video and try to answer each question
completely from memory. Ready? At a stoplight, is it the red or green light that’s on top?
How many teeth do you see when looking at yourself in the mirror while you brush your
teeth or when you smile for a selfie? Without looking, which of your fingers is the second
longest? If you’re in a familiar room that you see every day, write down everything you
remember about what’s behind you, then turn around and see what you missed.
If your memory behaved exactly like a camera you’d be able to remember every single item
in a familiar room and how many teeth you see in the mirror. You see these things every
single day and you’d be able to retrieve them just like looking at a video or pulling
up a picture. But the fact is memory doesn’t work like a camera. When you were trying to
remember some of these things you probably didn’t even think of a specific memory.
For example, when I asked you which of your fingers was the second longest did you pick
out a specific memory of looking at your hands? Odds are you just imagined your hands in general
that’s not actually tied to a specific memory at all, and maybe you tried to rationally
work out which one should be the longest based on what you know about anatomy or other people’s
hands you’ve seen. The fact is that memory isn’t simply retrieving images. Far from
it. It’s about construction and reconstruction of information that might come from many different
sources to create what should be there. Here’s another example Julian Jaynes gives.
I want you to think about when you came into the room you’re in now and sat down and
started watching this video. Go ahead, it’s important, pause the video if you need to.
Now think about what you just imagined. Are the images that you brought into your mind
when remembering exact copies of how it actually happened? Or did you imagine seeing yourself
in the third person, walk in, sitting down, and watching the video? If it was an exact
recording of what happened, of course you wouldn’t be seeing yourself walk in the
door. Did you remember all the sounds you heard and the feeling of taking pressure off
your feet as you sat down? Of course not. Now if you wanted to you could
reimagine all that right now and from the first-person perspective but the critical
point to understand is that when you’re remembering you’re not retrieving exact
images of what happened. Instead, your mind is creating imagery of what you think must
have or should have happened not exactly what actually did. Your mind is doing its best
to recreate it but it’s creating a sort of visual simulation of the event and filling
in the blanks with what you think should be or must be there with the details that you
didn’t consciously pay attention to. Now here’s where the Mandela effect comes
in and it gets weird because it can lead to the altering of history and people manipulating
your memories. Since something like the Mandela effect was causing the conviction of so many
innocent people, Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who I mentioned earlier, wanted to figure
out what was going so she conducted a series of experiments to see if it was possible to
plant false memories in people. In one study she and those she was working attempted to
plant false memories in participants. The false memory was that when the participant
was a child, 5 or 6, they were lost in a shopping mall, crying and scared, but ultimately an
elderly person found them and reunited them with their family. They were successful in
implanting this false memory in a quarter of the participants, some of them even adding
details and describing the incident in vivid detail even though it never happened. In another
study participants were shown a series of random images one of which was a college campus
that they had never been to. When shown the images again three weeks later a majority
of the participants said they either probably or definitely visited the campus in the past.
Multiple studies like this have been done across the world implanting even more extreme
false memories into participants like almost drowning, being attacked by a vicious animal,
and witnessing demonic possession. Explained simply, to implant a false memory, you suggest
that it might’ve happened to the participant and then ask them if they remember it happening.
If it’s framed in the right way the mind will edit your memory to form what it thinks
should have happened rather than what actually happened.
So here’s how the Mandela Effect works when it comes to Darth Vader, the Bernstain bears
and everything else you might have heard about. First someone, somewhere starts describing
whatever it is wrong. For example, when Star Wars first came out it wasn’t as widespread
as it is today so say “Luke, I am your father” provides context rather than just “No, I
am your father.” In the Disney movie it’s “Magic Mirror on the wall” but in the
original book it’s the familiar “Mirror Mirror on the wall.” The monopoly guy doesn’t
have a monocle, but a lot of rich cartoon characters do like Mr. Peanut. Stein is a
very common last name and can easily be confused with the uncommon stain. Sinbad never stared
in a genie movie called Shazaam but Shaquille O’Neil starred in a genie movie called Kazaam.
These are all examples of how some people could have been confused, provided context,
or just made something up. If they tell their friends about it this will start to spread
and because of the power of suggestion they’ll believe that it actually happened. They’ll
start saying “Luke, I am your Father” and all the rest. Flash forward to the YouTube
era and someone decides to make a YouTube video about the Mandela effect. Now you have
a viral video that is perfectly replicating the psychological technique of implanting
false memories. Thank about it:
You start watching a video and it suggests something to you by saying something like
“Thousands of people remember the monopoly guy wearing a monocle. Do you?” That’s
all it takes because what that has done is 1. Provided a reason to believe it could be
true because thousands of other people believe the same thing. 2. Implants the suggestion,
in this case the monopoly guy wearing a monocle, and 3. Asks you if you remember it which triggers
your mind to reconstruct your memory based on what it thinks should be true rather than
what actually is true. Your mind thinks it should be true because the suggestion was
implanted and apparently thousands of others believe it’s true as well providing evidence
for its truth. But now this video starts to go viral, and millions of people see it. Now
millions of people start to believe in these suggestions which even further psychologically
reinforces its apparent truth. Mandela effect videos are the perfect vehicle for a worldwide
viral suggestive technique for implanting false memories. Of course, it doesn’t work
on everyone but it spreads so massively across the internet that it could end up working
on millions. Here’s where it gets interesting because
some people are so sure their memories are true, they believe that this is evidence for
multiple timelines. A principle used in science and philosophy known as Occam’s Razor points
out how incredibly unlikely this is. Let me explain… Psychological researchers have
shown that it’s possible to implant false memories of extreme events in people, like
witnessing a demonic possession. This was false memory was totally made up and selected
by the researchers so obviously it has nothing to do with multiple timelines. Things like
Stein instead of Stain, and wearing a monocle or not are incredibly subtle and are much
easier to implant than something extreme like possession. Occam’s razor is known as the
law of parsimony which, in the context of the natural world and used as the empirical
version, means the simplest explanation is usually the best one. For example, if you’re
walking outside and you see a ball on the sidewalk and you’re wondering how it got
there… well someone or something could’ve dropped it… or it could’ve been beamed
there by aliens. Occam’s razor says that it’s much more likely the ball was just
dopped there. When applied to the Mandela effect, maybe it was multiple timelines…
or maybe it’s the result of a known, studied and researched psychological technique. Occam’s
razor says it’s the latter. But with this in mind you must be extremely
careful. The implantation of false memories can be used to manipulate you and have dramatic
effects on the world when it comes to things like history. How much of history do you think
is completely false because the historian was influenced by outside sources? Always
be on guard. If people can be so easily convinced of something like multiple timelines with
false memories imagine how easily this world can be manipulated and it is. Make sure you’re
constantly using logic and reason to determine if you should believe what someone is telling
you. Don’t rely on your memories alone. The truth is that even though this isn’t
evidence for multiple timelines, reality is drastically different than how you imagine
it to be. Check out my other video to discover glitches in reality all around you right now.
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