Another manufactured memory

[snopes]

Late last night, GSN aired a 1969 episode of "What's My Line?" on which the mystery guest was Jackie Robinson (not coincidentally, I'm sure, since yesterday was filled with MLB's Jackie Robinson Day celebrations). The panelists ran out of time and didn't guess his identity; the conversation that ensued after they removed their blindfolds included the following dialogue:

Soupy Sales: "You know, one of the biggest thrills in my life was in 1944 when I was in the Navy and went to the Coliseum to see a UCLA football game. You and Bob Waterfield and Kermit Alexander were in the backfield ... Jackie was an All-American football player before he played baseball ... You guys played USC that day and beat them soundly, and you were great. I'll never forget it."

Jackie Robinson (to host Wally Bruner): "Should I contradict him?"

Wally Bruner: "Hmmm?"

Jackie Robinson (to Soupy Sales): "I did play with those guys, but it was too early. I was at UCLA in 1939-40."

Soupy Sales (muttering): "Well, uh, that's what they told me ..."

Clearly, Soupy Sales had never seen Jackie Robinson on a football field but nonetheless retroactively created a memory that he had, based on his having attended a UCLA football game several years *after* Jackie Robinson played for that school.

- snopes

[Floater]

That is not unheard of. When the present leader of the Swedish Left party, Lars Ohly, had just been elected to that post he claimed that he had once played in a football (soccer for the Uessians) match against legendary Swedish player Lennart "Nacka" Skoglund. Eventually ha had to admit that he couldn't have done it as he was only 11 at the time, but he said that the memory of the match was very vivd (he had watched it, though) in his memory and that he had been thoroughly convinced he had taken part.

It is actually very common and very easy to produce. There is a researcher at my university who does research in that field. The big problem he has is with the ethics of implanting such "fake" memories in people.

[Floater]

Just think of all people (mostly in the US for some reason) who claim they have been abducted by aliens after having gone through a session of hypnosis.

[vison]

I would have guessed that Soupy Sales was speaking from a script. Those shows were often not as . . . um . . . spontaneous as they seemed. A lack of research, maybe?

[Tom o' Bedlam]

I think either I or my mom manufacture false memories in day to day life on occasion. An example that immediately sprung to mind was when we bought our parrot a new, larger cage for her to live in. I distinctly remember that she was absolutely ecstatic the moment she saw it; dilating eyes, emphatic vocalizations, the works.

Re-reading the above paragraph, I realize that it could be interpreted as a negative reaction, especially if you're not familiar with such birds (or maybe just our bird?), but trust me; she was, in my recollection, clearly in seventh heaven.

Maybe a month or so later, my mom and I were talking about the cage and she said "It's funny... she loves that cage now, but when we first showed it to her, she wanted nothing to do with it!"

Now, I know I was there when Captain first saw her new cage. Yet somehow I and my mother have completely different recollections of her response to it. My theory (and yes, I admit I may be showing some bias in attributing the false memory to my mom and not to me) is that my mom so much expected (and not unreasonably so) that Captain would be reluctant to leave her old "home" for this new one, that the expectation eventually superceded her memory of the actual event.

Anyway, I realize this might only be tangentially related to the OP, but I figured it was interesting enough to be worth sharing.

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Tom o' Bedlam

I think either I or my mom manufacture false memories in day to day life on occasion. An example that immediately sprung to mind was when we bought our parrot a new, larger cage for her to live in. I distinctly remember that she was absolutely ecstatic the moment she saw it; dilating eyes, emphatic vocalizations, the works.

I must admit that when I first read this paragraph I totally missed the words "our parrot", which gave it a whole new, slightly bizarre meaning.

[JessBoo]

Originally Posted by vison

I would have guessed that Soupy Sales was speaking from a script. Those shows were often not as . . . um . . . spontaneous as they seemed. A lack of research, maybe?

That was my first thought- the producers told them what to say.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by vison

I would have guessed that Soupy Sales was speaking from a script. Those shows were often not as . . . um . . . spontaneous as they seemed. A lack of research, maybe?

Umm, I think the concept of the "mystery guest" wouldn't have worked very well if panelists were given scripts in advance detailing what to say to them. A script instructing a panelist to "Tell Jackie Robinson you saw him play football at UCLA" would be kind of a giveaway to the mystery guest's identity, doncha think?

- snopes

[snopes]

While reminiscing about the Dodgers' move to Los Angeles for an article on the 50th anniversary of that event, former Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe was quoted as saying:

"The thing that most stands out for me is meeting Dinah Shore," Newcombe said. "She was entertaining us at a [welcome] dinner downtown. And at the park, you'd come out of the dugout and look behind you in the seats and see Nat King Cole, Humphrey Bogart, [Bing] Crosby.

"Movie stars just loved baseball. And eventually they loved the Dodgers."

The Dodgers began playing in Los Angeles in 1958. Humphrey Bogart died in January 1957. It's a pretty good bet Ol' Newk never saw Bogie in the stands at an L.A. Dodger game.

- snopes

[callee]

Man, I do that all the time. It's not deliberate, just regular old human error. You tell a story once, in the excitement of telling the tale you screw up some detail, and then the next time you tell that story you remember the last (incorrect) version you told rather than the original event. Voila, a false memory is born. I can't even remember the number of times I've been looking through old year books, reviewing old bank records, old papers or emails, etc., and suddenly come across hard, documentary evidence that something I remembered one way just absolutely could not have happened that way! It's really annoying, actually, and a little bit scary, because up till that moment I would have sworn up and down it had happened the way I remembered, I had vivid details and everything. It always makes me wonder: how much more of my reality is imaginary?

case in point: the other day I was reading a post from the old board, and it made me think about how long I've been on snopes, and I had a very clear memory of sitting in my college dorm in undergrad - sitting in that cramped dorm room with the scream framed on the wall on that old compaq laptop - snopesing away. Problem being, unless snopes has been playing with the dates lately, my join date was long, long after I graduated from undergrad.

[James G]

When in school once I was sat in my form room watching a friend drop small strips of paper out the window, which would then be caught in the wind to perform a merry dance in front of the window. A teacher spotted this and called us all to her office. I explained that I hadn't actually dropped any pieces of paper out the window, but admitted to actively watching. Quite deservedly I was still told to pick up the paper than now littered the field.

The only problem is that subsequently I found myself doubting my own story, perhaps I did drop pieces of paper out the window. Scarily my excuse was made just a few minutes after the event, and I know I wasn't purposely lying, and there would be little point anyway, as I was still clearly an accomplice. What is also odd is exactly how I ended up doing this anyway. I was always strongly against littering, and would even go so far as to picking up rubbish that friends discarded. It was only however upon getting in trouble that I realised that there was a problem with what we were doing.

I know I've also had other memories that must be fake, due to date mismatches. I somehow remember a trip to the lake district, somewhere I have only been at an age where I couldn't concieveably have any recollection, that of 6 months post-coitum.

[snopes]

Readers couldn't believe it when I wrote suggesting Hillary Clinton had false memories -- but our brains can make us 'remember' the most amazing things.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...8-df7e4261250d

[Eve MG]

A few years ago, I emailed a co-worker that "Kathy" and I had agreed to a particular plan for an event we were having. My co-worker wrote back and asked, "Who is Kathy?"

Turns out, I never had that conversation with Kathy, as she no longer worked with us. I had it with a different woman. Kathy had long blonde hair, the new woman had short black hair. Yet I could see Kathy's face when I remembered the conversation. It was actually kind of scary to think that I put that memory together - the right conversation with the wrong woman.

[lynnejanet]

I have a truly bizarre false memory. I dreamt that my husband and I somehow killed and had to conceal a man. It was one of those early morning very vivid dreams, where part of your brain is awake. The awake part of my brain has become convinced that it is a real memory that I am trying to suppress. For several days I was so convinced it was real (and yet knew it wasn't) that I asked my husband about it.

I had a similar experience several years ago, but it happened again just a few weeks ago. In the original, we had buried the guy on the property of our apartment building. This time, we dumped him in a dumpster.

Despite knowing rationally that they are both dreams, I somehow can't shake the feeling that the last one was real. The brain is a very strange and complex thing.

[BrokenBiscuit]

Originally Posted by snopes

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...8-df7e4261250d

The first story in that link really got to me. The concept's terrifying anyway, but the idea that even your most precious memories are suspect...brrrr!

I've definately seen this in action. Sometimes friends tell me stories in first person. Problem being, they're my stories. They honestly do think those events happened to them and they can't remember me telling them about it. Often they refuse to change their minds even with independant witnesses.

One I do constantly is:

"Okay, next left."
"Don't you mean right?"
"I said right!"

I'll swear down blind that I said what I meant until at least three people tell me I'm cracked. I can hear the words echoing in my head!

The best one is that both my sister and I are convinced we had a certain (very silly and very specific) dream in childhood. It is so specific that I'm more willing to believe my memory is false than believe we dreamed the same things. Of course, I'm even more willing to believe that she's wrong.

[kitap]

One of my former co-workers claimed he could remember watching the moon walk; since that is the only memory from around that age he was able to remember, I have to think that he was remembering what he'd been told by his parents "you saw the moon walk!"

I know I've been positive I've told people something, I can even remember telling them but...I didn't.

[wanderwoman]

Originally Posted by kitap

One of my former co-workers claimed he could remember watching the moon walk; since that is the only memory from around that age he was able to remember, I have to think that he was remembering what he'd been told by his parents "you saw the moon walk!"

I know I've been positive I've told people something, I can even remember telling them but...I didn't.

It's too early in the morning. I read over that three times, thinking "how can the moon walk? It doesn't even have legs!"

[kitap]

Originally Posted by wanderwoman

It's too early in the morning. I read over that three times, thinking "how can the moon walk? It doesn't even have legs!"

If he'd seen that, I bet he would have remembered!

[Brad from Georgia]

My wife says that when I tell stories, I lie a lot. Not so; true, my embellishments vary from telling to telling, but the core of my true stories remains true. It's mainly my descriptions that vary.

Case in point: I really was accosted one afternoon in Athens, GA, by a chimpanzee on roller skates and dressed as a cowboy. But my descriptions vary occasionally, like so:

1. "He rolled his lips backward like a sardine tin opening and exposed about a hundred yellow-brown fangs."
2. "And then the ape grinned at me--you know how they curl their lips like the petals of the Century Plant when it opens its blossom once every hundred years--and I found myself face to eyetooth with as dingy a set of choppers as ever gave a dentist nightmares."
3. "I've never seen a worse-looking set of teeth than that chimp showed me then. They were the kind of teeth that would not only eat human flesh, but pack chunks of it away in the crevices to be sucked out and savored later."

My wife thinks of such moments as lying; I think of them as facets of the truth.

Yet I do have false memories of my own; I think I mentioned that for most of my life I firmly believed I had ridden a fire truck during our town's Christmas parade, until my folks told me no, that was my older sister, and I had cried bitterly because I did not get to ride the firetruck. Evidently my subconscious just said, "There, there, little man, I shall make all right" and gave me the phony recollection as a consolation prize.