The Mandela Effect: What, Why, and How?

Unlike a written ledger,  human memories for almost all people are not permanently stored.  When a memory is recalled from a variety of sources within the brain it is reconstructed within the current context of what a person now ‘knows’ and not what they ‘knew’ when the memory was first made. The memory appears to then be re-written, replacing the old memory altogether. Memories are reconstructed in terms of what happened, how someone felt at the time, context from the subconscious and probably other brain centers where sensory data are stored (visual, auditory and so on).

This, I would surmise, is the value of dreaming. Dreaming brings memories back in kind of a primal form allowing them to be re-interpreted within the current context and re-stored so the next time they are recalled, they are most relevant to the world that people currently live within.

An interesting study gathered people who were irrationally afraid of tarantulas. They individually discussed their fears of tarantulas with a researcher and then, with the memory still fresh, were taken to a room with a tarantula in a tank and told that they must touch it. Most could not bring themselves to do so. They were then given a medicine known to temporarily block the ‘fear’ center of the brain and told to come back in a week. They went through the same introductory processes discussing the memories that led to their fears and when asked to touch the tarantula, they were surprised that they were no longer afraid to do so. While they remembered events that led to their fears, their fears no longer existed. That part of those initial memories was essentially eliminated because that aspect of their memory could not be re-stored.

In an other study, grad students volunteered to get intrusive background studies of their childhood experiences to see how well they recalled specific events in their lives. They would meet weekly in half hour sessions with the researcher who would go through a few memories with very specific details each week. As part of this process they would ask about something that never happened - in one case an encounter between the subject and a friend with a police officer who let them go when they accidentally took something from a store. When they first said they did not remember that event the researcher simply dismissively said ‘well no-one remembers everything, let’s move on’. The next week, they touched on this false memory once again asking to see if they could remember more. Eventually every person in the study developed a backstory and a detailed accounting of the falsely implanted memory while getting the emotional award of having successfully recalled a forgotten memory. When the students were finally told what the study was actually about, a full 76% refused to accept the fact that the falsely implanted memory never actually happened.

All of this also explains the grandmother who over the years continually inflates the deeds of her children - it is emotionally rewarding.

The fact that a person’s memories are continually being rewritten also explains how propaganda campaigns work and how groups if people can be made to believe things that by any measure are objectively false - election fraud for example. This also explains the values of personally written journals and other permanent records as a means to prevent being steered to a wrong memory or remembered feeling. This is not only about memories of what happened but also about subconscious biases and emotions which all get inter-tangled with what people remember.

Human memory is malleable and changes over time. It is part of why mankind has been able to successfully deal with and adopt to changing conditions. It can also be influenced by others to get people to believe in things that are not true for the benefit of others. It is one of the reasons that massive disinformation campaigns and the megaphones that intentionally spread disinformation are so dangerous.

We all need to be careful to not let the ne’er-do-wells mislead us by checking facts and challenging what we are told to assure that it comports with other facts that we know are true. Vigilance is the key to preventing being misled by others for their self-serving benefit.

Memories are not always precise which is why I verify memories across multiple sources to filter out the incorrect. In my opinion the Mandela Effect occurs when many people all get their news from sources that are incorrect and haven't bothered to check against multiple sources and explain the differences. With the internet and so many tools available it's a whole lot easier to do than the 70s & 80s when I had to physically go to a library, use card catalogues to identify sources; and pull books from shelves, and journals, newspapers, source materials like the Congressional Record from microfilm.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/mandela-effect

Mandela effect: What Is It, how It works, and more

The Mandela effect is one popular but heavily debated type of false memory. Learn more about it her...

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/mandela-effect

If there's a parallel universe can we vote them off the island and send all the wackos, racist bigots, white supremacy, neo Nazi, proud boys, narcissists, authoritarian dictatorship lovers and KKK. My first choice would be Trump and Putin for starters. If there is no parallel universe then send them to Mars, I was think about the sun, to give them a jumpstart.

To my knowledge, I have never experienced this.

I have never heard of this, and I don't recall ever thinking Mandela died in prison.

I'm not familiar with most of these myths, but a few of them have maybe seemed true to me at times.

I do wonder, though, if this is partly why so many people are easily taken in by misinformation or propaganda instead of researching issues for themselves. I don't think there are parallel universes affecting our memories, but I do feel the human mind is fallible and susceptible to persuasion.

I'm sure I have and probably haven't recognized it.  I think many of us remember our childhoods and young adult years more fondly/favorably than what they may have been.  I know I believe that my childhood was during a more peaceful/less socially challenging time and that I'm glad I'm not a youth today, but in reality I'm not sure my time period was as peaceful as I think it was, but then again we weren't dealing with the negative impact of climate change and the looming threat of destroying our planet due to inaction and the greed of fossil fuel companies.

Never even heard of it.

CAUSES ASKS: "Have you ever experienced any of these examples of the Mandela Effect?"  ME:  Got me on a couple of these!  LOL!

This is very common. I don't know why.

I could have sworn Sicily was further away from mainland Italy than it is on current maps. 
Also, I think the human heart has migrated toward the center of the chest.

Or probably as the good old days were not that good

I really wish my hoarding grandparents were still alive. I'm willing to bet they had my childhood books with BerenSTEIN Bears on them. 

I'm more willing to believe that there are parallel universes, or in government reprogramming, than the idea that generations of people are all wrong about something.

can you whiny little idiots leave something alone for once 

The Mandela Effect: What, Why, and How?

The Mandela Effect is the phenomenon of shared false memories, particularly about social and pop culture events. 
The term was created by self-described paranormal researcher Fiona Broome when she noticed that her pervasive, powerful false memory of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s was shared by thousands of other people.

Have you ever experienced the Mandela Effect?

Evidently, I have. Based on the description in the lede, I am given to understand this is not ordinary misremembering but a collective misremembering.

There are likely simple enough explanations for discrete collective "incorrect understandings."

I know that many thought Mandela died in prison because after a while he was no longer mentioned in the media.

The other examples seem to me to be simply inattention to detail and the wrong choice picked because it seems "better."

Teachers should already know this, and why and how it happens, but, given our great political divide and talk about tribalism, everyone should be keenly aware that there are, for some reason, tendencies for collective misunderstandings leading to collective misremembering AKA the Mandela Effect. 

BTW—Years ago I learned that we should not give too much credence to the opinions of theoretical physicists. Their opinions may be sound based on current knowledge and models, but who's to say all factors and variables have been taken into account? There may or may not be crossover points between or even among alternate realities. In Science Fiction from Star Trek to Sliders to the D. C. Universe to Fringe, the bet is that there are.