The Mandela Effect and Your Memory

For anyone that’s ever had Jiffy peanut butter, read the Berenstain Bears, or owned a Monopoly box with a monocled Monopoly man on it, well, check again. These are three examples of what has now been deemed the Mandela Effect. Named after the misremembering of Nelson Mandel’s death in 1980.

Jiffy peanut butter is simply Jif, the Berenstein Bears are actually the Berenstain, and the Monopoly man never had a monocle, these are three facts. Although searching around the internet and asking strangers may produce some different answers. How could this possibly be? Not just one or a few but thousands of people misremembering the same things.

This is the power of the Mandela Effect, and why it has been pushed as far as to be a government conspiracy or multiverse theory. Unfortunately the real answer is not nearly that complex, instead, the answer is that human memory is flawed. Not just a little bit flawed either, but massively vulnerable to manipulation and mistakes.

Memory is the brain’s attempt to recreate past realities in one’s mind, but it rarely does a perfect job. This is due to conformity, priming, memory source errors, false memories, and a slew of other psychological effects. These are all exerted on the average person daily, and typically even without any intention of changing someone’s memories. 

This explains why these little mistakes and gaps in memory can emerge. The Mandela Effect is a simple and generally harmless example, but the manipulation of memory can be pushed pretty far. It’s important for every individual to be aware of not only where their memories come from, but how they’ve been influenced. 

The truth is hard to come by, but by no means impossible to find. Fact checking, awareness, and an understanding of one’s personal limitations are essential to having a consistent worldview. The Mandela Effect goes to show what happens when little chips in one’s memory can be found.