Do you remember your first day in elementary school? If yes, how sure are you that this memory is 100% accurate? Because I’ll tell you this, you may remember something that didn’t actually happen to you.
One woman claimed that back in her childhood, her mother worked in Manhattan when the 9/11 attacks happened. It is false, her mother never worked in Manhattan. In fact, this woman also claimed that she could see an explosion although the house was in another city. There are numerous reasons why she believes that it’s true. And there are numerous cases of people who saw what they actually didn’t.
The other story. A victim of rape asked to show, out of five suspects, the man who raped her. “This one,” the woman said to the policeman.
“That’s what we thought,” the officer replied.
She chose wrong. The man, falsely accused, spent over a decade in prison. (It’s a true story and there are many of those.) So why was she so convinced that she was right? Was it because of what the officer said? Here is the tricky part: it's hard to tell. Her event was so emotionally charged that the memory got impacted due to the trauma. That’s the one way to reason it. She could’ve constantly come back to that memory which made it less and less accurate - which is true for every one of our memories.
Can we even trust ourselves then…?
My recommendation is to record your day-to-day events, while they are fresh in your memory. Live a healthy lifestyle as it yes, does affect your memory.
Funny thing, people who are actually able to remember many of their experiences in vivid details are having a disorder: Hyperthymesia. It is as much of a blessing as a curse…
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