The Mandella Effect

[HRarehoundingme]

I was just thinking of an old thread and unfortunately it was in chat where people were talking about false memories and how they were convinced things had already happened/people had already died - Nelson Mandella being a main candidate; with people thinking he died 20 years before he did!

The thread on crisp packet colours would also be classed under this "The Mandela Effect is a theory of parallel universes, based in the idea that because large groups of people have similar alternative memories about past events. Advocates of the theory claim that for these collective experiences to be true, the fabric of reality must have shifted at some point in the past, and that therefore not only do parallel, inhabitable universes exist, but that we are constantly switching between them"

Anyone want to talk about it? I remember finding the last thread fascinating - sometimes deleting _chat messages arent great.

[GummyBunting]

The Berenstein Conspiracy is a good example of this

www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-berensteain-bears-conspiracy-theory-that-has-convinced-the-internet-there-are-parallel-universes

[Blaze6]

I remember reading that thread and found it utterly fascinating! I then read about the Mandela affect and so many people were convinced they had already seen his funeral, its mad!

[schbittery]

what other examples are there? I didn't personally remember the Mandela thing or the crisp packets being blue so I can't decide whether I thibk it parallel universes or false memory syndrome.

[HRarehoundingme]

schbittery the thread was 10 pages long full of people who thought other celebs were dead and were surprised to find that they hadn't but other people also agreed. Some people thought they remembered Tiananmen Square differently.

I can't remember much more about the thread except it was fascinating and led to lots of different discussions etc.

[blondebuddha]

There was an article that popped up on my Facebook about this a while ago, it had descriptions of how everyone remembers particular things (e.g. Mr mandella) and then photos proving us all to be completely wrong. Its crazy. But there were so many people agreeing that they all had the same 'wrong' memory.

Makes me wonder if I really do remember telling DH to help with the housework

[blondebuddha]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/christopherhudspeth/crazy-examples-of-the-mandela-effect-that-will-make-you-ques

Found it!

[ohidoliketobe]

I was absolutely convinced Michael Owen had died in a car crash. He was on TV doing pundit stuff and I was so confused because, well, he was dead. My DH thought I was losing the plot. We reached the conclusion I must have had one of those very vivid and realistic dreams which stuck in my subconscious, but I still get a weird feeling when I see him on TV. It was just so vivid. I can picture the newspaper headlines and there being a special TV programme aired about his career.

[Theromanempire]

I find this fascinating and remember the original thread. Just looked at that link and am definitely in the alternative universe for the majority of them - I know it was called Interview with a vampire!! And I remember a Sinbad film in the 90s and so on....it is very freaky

[shouldwestayorshouldwego]

Rather than being parallel universes it is partly because although we feel that our memories are like a video which we can replay, they are largely reconstructed. Researchers have shown participants a film of a car accident and then later asked them different questions. The group who were asked how fast they thought the cars were going when they hit each other were less likely to recall seeing broken glass (there was no glass) than those who were asked how fast they thought the cars were going when they smashed into each other (most were convinced that there was glass). Hearing the word smashed was enough to make them think that there was glass.

For Mandella people think back to when they last saw him and think 'oh he was looking old' and then when someone else suggests he might be dead it seems like a possible scenario. In the same way they think Bob Dylan, 1960s, musician, drugs, not heard of him for ages must be dead then are surprised he won a Nobel prize a few weeks ago. There are too many celebs to hold their status in our memory so we reconstruct the memory based on stereotypes and what we do know. A celeb who holds special significance for us we are unlikely to get mixed up (e.g. if we are a fan) or one who is very famous.

I can remember when all salt and vinegar crisps were blue (which is the correct colour) but it is most likely that it was a change in the distribution of crisps and the rise in the fortunes of Walkers crisps in the South.

[shouldwestayorshouldwego]

Just to clarify I know Mandela is dead now, but when people thought he was already dead but he wasn't.

[NomNomNomBrains]

"Interview with a vampire" is better, as otherwise you're running two "th" sounds together. "Sex and The City" is terrible grammar, unless we're talking about London's financial centre (a different show entirely!).

So, the brain is autocorrecting bad titles!

[Awwlookatmybabyspider]

I remember salt and vinegar used to be blue and cheese and onion green. They swapped over around 1992.
Nothing to do with the Mandela effect. It really did happen.

[PilkoPumpPants]

Bumping this thread as its fascinating.

I was 100% convinced Nelson Mandela died years ago until his actual death. Very strange how other people have thought the same.

[scaryclown]

in MY timeline..Mandella was spelt Mandela

[mintyflamingo]

Haley's or Halley's Comet?

I'm positive it used to be called Haleys when I was a child but is now Halley's apparently

[CheeseTittles]

Bob Dylan isn't dead??