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“I Still Think He Did It”: 41 People Share The Childhood Memories That Their Family Still Questions Today
If you ask me, I would swear tooth and nail that one of the most vivid childhood memories I have is of a girl in my kindergarten class scratching out another girl’s face so badly that all I remember seeing was red.
Now, this definitely never happened, but I can still remember it vividly (and yes, sorry for the mental image). The point is, I’m clearly not the only person with these strange memories that turn out to be little more than figments of our imagination. So when someone asked netizens to share their own fake memories, I immediately felt seen, and here are some of the best replies.
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#1
I vividly remember going to see my dad in hospital after he had been in a car accident. I remember the bruises on his chest from the seatbelt and his old school hairstyle. He had a hip to ankle cast as he had broken his leg in three places and I remember that leg wasn’t covered by the blanket so I could see the cast.
My mum was actually pregnant with me when this happened so there’s no chance I could remember it. However, I’m convinced my mum has got her dates wrong.
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#2
I remember when my mom was having a baby my grandma took care of me when I was sick at the same time. My stomach hurt and i was throwing up when she grabbed a bottle of Pepto Bismol and made me drink about 60% of he bottle. I then threw up pink and that scarred me so much that I throw up every time I drink Pepto Bismol.
#3
I remember vomiting all over the backseat of the family car and spending the remainder of the roadtrip to my uncle's house sitting in the car in just my underwear.
A lot of the stories shared are a mix of plausible scenarios that seem to have odd timing, but there are actual reasons why our brain often makes up information that never occurred, and the most common culprit is something called "source monitoring errors."
According to psychologists, this is often called a "source lapse," meaning your brain will eventually store the content of a memory but essentially lose track of its source. Take the person who "remembers" seeing their dad in a cast. They probably heard their parents tell that story so many times that the brain generated a first-person visual to match it, though they weren't even born yet.
#4
I was a very young boy when the incident happened...
I was at a family friends house, playing with their 2 kids in a paddling pool on a Summer's day. I was young enough that I didn't have swimming shorts but going naked wasn't a big deal so probably anywhere up to perhaps 5-6 years old.
I had a stonking hard-on the whole time. I remember the mum coming out asking if I wanted to perhaps borrow some shorts and I just told her that I was fine without.
So I'm there splish splashing around in all my wooden glory for probably like an hour.
I have 0 interest in verifying with the mother whether that happened or not.
#5
My most vivid childhood memory is not real.
I remember leaving the hospital after I broke my arm in a wheelchair and there was the most beautiful bright sunset I had ever seen. There was also a few rainbows and flocks of bats flying in the sky.
According to my mom it was early afternoon and raining. I can still see it so clearly though.
Edit: I didn't break my arm in a wheelchair guys! Hospitals just push you around in them. I was probably only wheeled to the front door but in my memory I was being wheeled across the parking lot.
#6
My brother managed to get his head stuck in the scrollwork of an iron/wood banister at a hotel, and in the ensuing panic I wandered off to this wonderful place where there was a table full of cookies and candy. As I'm eating the cookies and the candy and whatever I can find - some really angry adult yells at me, picks me up and carries me out of this amazing room filled with sweets.
I was about 3 or 4 years old. I think I crashed a wedding or a bar mitzvah's dessert table while my brother was being extracted from the banister. It was amazing, my parents claim it never happened.
While reading some of these, you're probably thinking "oh, they definitely saw that in a movie," and you may just be right because another explanation for the prevalence of false childhood memories is, in fact, media blending. This can actually lead to weird or vivid memories because there is already a visual component to them.
Experts say it's not at all uncommon for children to incorporate details from, let's say, a family photograph, home videos, or even movies and shows into their mental timeline. You're actually remembering seeing those clear images, even though you've never actually experienced them yourself.
#7
I clearly remember my mom telling me as a kid, that if I put vegetables in the freezer. They turn into ice cream.
I told her now years later how it was a funny joke. But she swears she has never said it.
#8
One time when I was about 5, I was in the backseat of my moms car and saw a huge black raincloud right over us. It looked extra terrestrial or like it could be in a movie about the apocalypse or something. It was probably just a normal cloud but the image of it stuck with me and I think about it it every so often.
#9
There was a thunderstorm one afternoon.
I very vividly remember two lightning bolts travelling horizontally and colliding, forming this spherical cage of lightning in the sky. For just a moment.
I can see it so clearly in my mind - the color of the sky, the room I was in, the way the air felt, the shapes the lightning took; but I haven’t found any example of a similar phenomenon anywhere online sooo...
If someone who knows more about lightning would chime in, that’d be great. :)
Not sure how old I was exactly, but I know I was younger than eight.
Edit: holy c**p! Wow, thanks for responding everyone, looks like lots of people have similar experiences. Ball lightning is coming up a lot - I’m still reading about it and looking for good images, but I’m kind of confused about it so far.
Seems like a lot of people see Will ‘O the Wisp looking things, while what I saw was more like a wizard battle in the sky!
What fun. I’ll get back to you. 😂.
You have probably also heard, time and time again, that the frontal lobe likely develops around your mid-twenties. And whether that's true or not, we can't say, but children's brains do work a little differently from those of fully developed adults. And partly, it is due to how imaginative and creative children may be, without the need for an outside source.
Childcare professionals often quote imagination inflation and boundary extension as ways for children to simply think. They may well just be imagining something vividly enough that the brain will archive it as a memory. Or they might just try to fill in the gaps of a real event by making up details that are, in fact, not real, which is pretty interesting.
#10
I have a memory from when I was young enough to be in a crib. I remember my mom putting me down and I was scared and teething, so I grinned my teeth on my wood crib and I remember that feeling still. The wood was so soft it felt amazing lol after that I remember laying down on my stomach and falling asleep right away. I had to have been about 1 so I feel like how could I remember something from that long ago. But on the other hand, my mom said me and one of my brothers used to bite the crib a lot.
#11
Ok, here I go:
**There was a cornucopia on the fruit of the loom logo.**
At this point I am convinced that it didn't exist though. There is enough proof for me to understand that it wasn't there. But it is arguably the only Mandela Effect that has no real rationalization / explanation.
Before you crucify me - [This thread has the most proof that it didn't exist.]
#12
One time when I was about 7, I was sleeping over at one of my parents friends house. As I was lying in bed trying to sleep, I started to hear footsteps from the floor above. It was just me and this woman in the house and I knew she was asleep. Then I swear to God, I saw footprints forming on the ceiling, slowly walking across it. I'm absolutely convinced that this happened but when I ask my parents about it they have no idea what I'm talking about and don't even remember this "friend". I refuse to believe that it was a dream.
Edit 1: y'all probably are not gonna believe me but I specifically remember being wide awake and not paralyzed in the slightest. This happened like 10 minutes after getting into bed.
And speaking of the brain, there is actually a little part of the grey mass that is called the "hippocampus." Despite its silly name, this hippocampus is, according to scientists, the part responsible for knitting memories together into a story. And, well, surprise, surprise, this specific part of the brain isn't actually fully developed until kids reach 7 years old.
So, it comes as no surprise that children will remember fragments of a story, and then add some (false) details to extend it. However morbid it may be, take the story of the person who remembers seeing someone lying unconscious in a fountain in their hometown. Sure, they recall the fountain, and maybe even seeing it without water, but they somehow made up the memory of seeing a man there.
#13
I remember when I was a child there was this fountain in my city that had some kind of spikes at the bottom (some elements of a construction). And I vaguely remember that once my mom and I were passing by the fountain and there was no water in it, but there was a man lying there in a puddle of blood, pierced by the spikes as if he had fallen on them accidentally. And my mom was like "Oh, let's go, let's go".
Now, I asked her about it when I got older and she said "What? This never happened!" I guess, she wouldn't lie about it and it's not something she'd just forget, so maybe it never happened, indeed. Not sure why I remember this though.
#14
We used to live in an old farm house with a very steep long staircase right next to my room. When I was about 2 or 3 I fell down the stairs. I still remember it because it felt like I was falling in slow motion. I lost my balance, started to fall and tried to grip part of the banister going down again and again but couldn't hold on to it. Through the banister I could see my moms shocked face in the dining room and her jumping up. All still slowed down. When I reached the bottom I slammed against the front door and just kinda lay there and saw my mom running down the stairs towards me. Time sped up again.
I know it happened but I still remember falling so clearly it seems weird. My mom told me I kept saying " I couldn't hold on" in between crying.
#15
I have a vague memory of me and my twin brother being visited by the Bicho Papão, a creature that visits naughty children in Brazilian and Portuguese culture, when we were very young, pretty sure a creature like that is not exclusive from my culture.
Anyways, the freaky part is that my brother also have the same memory, to this day we don't know if it was real or not, but if it was, maybe it was somebody trying to play a prank on us, since we were naughty children indeed.
If you’re a little more skeptical of big scientific explanations, there’s also the whole idea behind the “Mandela Effect,” a supernatural memory theory that explains these glitches not as false memories, but as real events that somehow slipped from one parallel timeline into another. Think of it like a real-life Scarlet Witch situation.
So, do you actually believe in the scientific theories more than the Mandela effect? Or have you had any actual memories that you know for absolute certain are real, but everyone around you tells you they actually never happened? Let us know in the comments below your stories and what your own verdict is.
#16
I have this one memory, I most likely had just turned or was about to turn two years old, and my family and I was at my grandparent's backyard pool. My mom was in the shallow end of the pool with my older brother, and he was clinging to her, too afraid to dip even a toe into the water, my dad was on the patio (on the side of the shallow end) with my Bumpa and Nana (Grandpa and Grandma), they were barbecuing and chatting about one thing or another. I remember thinking my mom looked a little annoyed that my brother was being unreasonably afraid of the water, so my 2 year old mind decided I would show my brother how it was done. I got out of the pool, and ran down to the deep end, I took off my water wings and life jacket then proclaimed proudly to my family about some random nonsense, before jumping in.
The next part of my memory takes a very different tone. I just remember how serene and peaceful it was, to be essentially drowning. Everything was quiet, and calm, to this day I haven't ever experienced anything similar to it. Next thing I know I see my dad and Bumpa plunge into the pool fully clothed swimming towards me. don't know who got to me first to pull me out, and I don't remember anything after that. I asked my parents and grandparents about this and they essentially changed the topic on me, so I have a suspicion it is true, but no confirmation. It just sticks out as extremely vivid, and an oddly happier memory from my childhood.
Update: So I called up my grandparents to ask about it, and it is true, and there's apparently even a home video about it on VHS somewhere. They said no one really wanted to talk about it because it was extremely traumatic for my mom who was so close to me, but couldn't just drop my brother in the water or pry him off to set him on the side of the pool to go and get me. According to my grandparents, when my mom was pregnant with me she was at the zoo with my brother, her friends, and their children and one of the young boys had wandered off and drowned. Kind of glad I called my grandparents first instead of my mom, goodness.
#17
On a roadtrip with my family late at night I saw a tiny blue door carved in a hilll, I remember it so vividly, but it was so long ago at this point idk if it’s real or a dream.
#18
That when I was about 10 I was at my aunty and uncles house in Sydney for Christmas and my cousin who’s a hairdresser PERFECTLY straighten my crazily curly long hair, which takes over an hour. One of my presents that morning was new pyjamas and I put them on and went to walk out into the garden to show my mum my new pyjamas and tripped and fell into their pool, soaking my new PJ’s and ruining my perfectly straight hair (to my cousins dismay).
I literally have such a vivid memory of it happening but I brought it up to my mum once and she doesn’t remember it, so I have always questioned myself.
#19
My very first vivid memory is false. I got a shape sorter for Christmas. When my parents left the living room, my older brother walked over, picked up a block, and threw it in the fire.
I was reminding my mum about this in my early twenties and she laughed. We didn't have an open fire, and my older brother couldn't walk yet.
I still think he did it.
#20
When I was maybe 5 or 6 I remember flipping a coin off my thumb and it rotating for longer than physically possible. Obviously it couldn't have happened, but I remember it clearly.
#21
I remember talking to one of my friends in primary school who mentioned he'd been abducted by aliens. I've asked him a few years ago and he doesn't remember having that happen at all, or mentioning it to me.
#22
I stepped on a roofing nail and got a huge hole in my foot that I had to soak nightly for a month. My mom said it didn't happen, but my dad and sister say it did happen.
#23
In the UK we used to have a TV show called SM:TV Live in the morning on Saturdays presented by Ant & Dec and Cat Deeley (still a smoking hottie by the way) One day the 1st April happen to be a Saturday. Dec goes really woozy while presenting and faints everyone is like 'oh god cut to adverts' which it does. It then comes back and he is fine and like 'April fools!'
Kinda stupid but I cannot find footage of it and everyone I talk to dosen't remember.
#24
I remember when I was 6-8 having a picture of a yellow duck on a red background that I've personally drawn. I also remember having to "feed" it by drawing yellow dots near the duck and I've done it multiple times too. Strange thing is that every morning yellow dots disappeared as if the duck ate them. My parents didn't know that I fed the duck so they couldn't draw over the dots, and I remember seeing same picture without the dots much later, in my teens. Still don't know if that was my imagination or some strange reaction with the paint.
#25
When I was around 5 or 6 years old I remember walking outside on a cloudy day and seeing it raining at my neighbors house across the street but not raining at mine. That’s the first time it ever occurred to me it doesn’t rain everywhere when it rains at my house.
#26
Me at the age of about 5 or 6. I'm play fighting with my dad and at some point I end up sitting on his face and he's lying on his back. My mom made a joke like "haha and now fart" and I thought it was funny and farted. They sent me to my room then. I didn't get sarcasm. I'm now too embarrassed to asked if I dreamed it or not.
#27
I remember playing badminton in the house with my sister. At one shot, I had to back up quite a bit to get it, I tripped and fell backwards and hit my head. I “dreamt” of myself riding a bicycle and then when I came to, my legs were in the air like I was riding a bicycle. My sister says that never happened.
#28
I think this story was true, but maybe its not. Memory is weird.
When I was 10 I was at a circus with my family, we were really close to the show just at the edge of the ring. At one point during the elephant show the elephant sneezed on me, it got all over my shoulder and neck. I started freaking out while my family just laughed at me. I ran to the portapotty ~~crying~~ all macho and totally not crying to clean up and walked in on a woman breast feeding in there. She screamed and I was ~~crying~~ not at all crying. Once she realized I was a ~~small child~~ macho manly man, she tucked her self back in and help me clean up, I was ~~crying~~ totally not crying the whole time and she was wiping up elephant snot with one hand and cradling a baby with another. She is probably still wondering to this day what I was covered in because I didn't say a word to her the whole time, when she was done I ran away and made my parents take me home.
#29
This feels strange to think about to this day because I still believe it to be true, but nobody else in my family does.
I had only just started walking and I remember throwing a teddy bear back and forth with my grandmother, who was pretty ill at the time. I could never catch it because I lacked the hand eye coordination so she would throw it a little short, and I kept throwing short as well because I wasn't very strong. I had just started practising walking, but couldn't fully walk yet. Whenever I would throw the bear way off course, I would get up to try and walk to it but kept stumbling so she would always go and get it for us.
Now, my grandmother d**d when I was about 1 year and a few months old so everyone in my family swore this never happened. They said even if I somehow remember something from that early of an age, there is no way it happened because by the time I started to walk, my grandma was too ill to walk herself.
Creepy part about all this. I remember my aunt taking a picture of us on our really old film camera while doing we were playing with that bear but could never physically find the photograph. I hadn't went back to my home country for a few years. I went back to visit when I was 11 and we were going through old albums and it was there. My aunt swears she never took that picture. Everyone in my family I've asked swears they never took it either.
The picture is me and my grandmother sitting across the living room floor, with that same terry bear, both of us looking at the camera with holding the bear out as if she was about to throw it, but my aunt (or whoever took the photo) caught us by surprise so we both looked at the camera. It wasn't on my mind as we were leaving so I didn't think to take it back, I wish I did.I was maybe one year old in the photo and did not look like I could walk at all so I'm not surprised my grandma didn't even let me try. The memory is so clear in my head and to have everyone tell me it didn't happen is just off-putting.
#30
I was flipping channels on our TV and discovered this awesome show called Candle Cove, it had pirates and skeletons... some of my friends saw it, but my mom said I was making it up.
#31
I'm tellin' ya, this is true.
I was at home with some cousins over for lunch. We were sitting in our living room which was in sight of the front door and front gate beyond that. I saw a newly wed couple go up to our gate, the man opening it for his bride very nicely, and walked up and into our house. My aunt went up and explained that this is our house, and they walked off.
No one who was there has ANY memory of this event, but it is very vivid in my mind.
#32
I hear this is actually impossible to remember, but I recall (in vivid detail) my daycare teacher asking me how old I was and me just lifting up 3 fingers to her.
#33
I am maybe 4 years old. I follow my sister up the outside stairs of our apartment building to where a man is sitting on the top step. He is cleaning a handgun and I don't know him, so I am afraid. My sister chatters away about the gun. "How does it work? What's that part for? Can I hold it?"
I'm frozen-- I want to not be here, but I don't know what to do. I have to wait for my sister, she's the oldest, she should know. The man gets up, puts the gun inside his jacket, and looks at me.
That's all I remember. I have no idea if this happened or if it was a dream, but the memory doesn't *feel* like a dream. My sister doesn't remember it at all, so...it must have been a dream, right?
#34
I remember waking up early on a Saturday morning when I was 4 or 5. I walked out to the big area behind our back yard and saw a hot air balloon taking off.
The rest of my family says it was impossible.
#35
One of those pools that were tall enough to go up to a kids waist or so but be underwater if you got on all fours.
I vividly remember some kid holding my back down so I couldn't stand up and breathe until I had crawled all the way around the pool. Thing is, I don't recall ever owning a pool like that or how I would have known that I'd be let up.
#36
This is one of my most vivid childhood memories and i just accepted it as true until recently when i gave it an extra mull over. idk if it was a dream or what honestly.
there was a worm/caterpillar thing on my tricycle and i remembered being told they can be poisonous and not to touch them.
my parents were telling me to get onto my tricycle so i was telling them no, theres a caterpillar on there. my dads asking me where and im screaming/crying that its near the handles, my parents are telling me theres nothing there and make me get onto my tricycle despite me screaming.
the caterpillar then crawls onto my hand and eats through the fleshy part between my fingers and thumb, on my left hand. this obviously didnt happen but until i really thought about it id just remember that bit as where the worm ate through each time i looked at my hand.
if i was screaming beforehand, i was definitely screaming after. i remember my parents not being able to see it and telling me nothing happened but eventually i got my dad to put some tcp on it.
#37
I had a dream where i punched my freind because he wouldn't stop talkin about trains i asked my freind years later if it was true and she said i actually did it.
But i remember waking up from it
I have no idea what to belive.
#38
When me and my friend were in elementary school, we always went down to the park behind his house, and would catch bugs/spiders/whatever and put them in little plastic containers. But I have a vivid memory of one day making a little habitat for a (non-poisonous) spider in a shoe box to bring to show and tell, and then finding out the spider had laid eggs, and I vividly remember spilling spiders ALL OVER my moms car. It was so vivid and exaggerated (I can remember spiders like flowing out of the box) that I, for years was sure that it was a dream I had, until I brought it up to my mom one day, and she explained how very real it was....
#39
I distinctly remember waking up one morning, walking into the kitchen, and asking my dad who he was. Then I did the same with mom. I refer to this day as my first day of consciousness, even though neither of my parents remember it.
#40
I have a memory of seeing Revenge of the Sith in theaters.
With it being released in May of 2005, I would have been only three years old around the time of its release.
I'm still not sure if it actually happened or if its just something my brain made up.
#41
There was a trucker drinking a beer going down the Hwy - my mom told me to hang on to the wheel while she hung out the window to catch a beer he tossed to her!
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What do you think ?
UKGrandad 1 hour ago
A lot of the contributors to this gallery seem to have misunderstood what the Mandela Effect means.
Jenn C 45 minutes ago
The title and prompt don't say anything about Mandela effect?
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