What Is The Mandela Effect? Examples And Causes

Described as a phenomenon marked by shared and consistent false memories, the Mandela Effect often centers on specific misremembered details in pop culture.

“It occurs when many different people incorrectly remember the same thing, so essentially a collective false memory,” says Holly Schiff, a licensed clinical psychologist in Greenwich, Connecticut.

While the Mandela Effect was first used to describe a false memory about a specific event in time, the Visual Mandela Effect (VMA), occurs when people falsely remember certain details about a specific image, event or icon in pop culture.

How Does the Mandela Effect Work?

The Mandela Effect occurs when a group of people collectively misremember an image, event or other artifacts of pop culture like movies, books or television. Misremembering may be attributed to distorted memories, misrepresentations on the internet or social media, confabulation and inaccurate post-event details, among other sources.

Why Is it Called the Mandela Effect?

Following a conference in 2010, Fiona Broome (a self-described paranormal researcher) coined the Mandela Effect after discussing the passing of Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa. She claimed others mistakenly believed Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s. In reality, Mandela was still very much alive and didn’t pass away until 2013.

According to Aimee Rai, an integrative somatic therapist and trauma specialist in Cotswolds, U.K., Broome and many others remembered seeing news coverage of Mandela’s death and significant details such as watching a speech given by his widow—all of which never occurred.

Beyond the widespread belief that Mandela died well before he actually did, there are several other notable examples of this same phenomenon—many of which can be deemed the VME since they describe false memories about a specific visual icon.

According to Rai and Dr. Schiff, some of these examples include:

• Mr. Monopoly: One of the most cited examples of the Mandela Effect involves Mr. Monopoly, the mascot of the popular board game, Monopoly. People often misremember him pictured with a monocle.
• Snow White: “My personal favorite is the infamous line from Disney’s Snow White: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?’” says Rai. “The line in the film actually started with, ‘magic mirror on the wall,” but few seem to recall it accurately.”
• Curious George: The popular animated character Curious George is often falsely remembered to have a tail, when in fact he doesn’t.
• The Berenstain Bears: “Many people report remembering the bears’ family name as Berenstein, after the authors,” says Dr. Schiff. “However, both the bears and the authors were named Berenstain.”
• Mickey Mouse: The famed Disney character is often misremembered wearing suspenders, when instead he wears a pair of suspender-less red shorts.
• Henry VIII: While different people across the world have recalled a famous painting of Henry VIII eating a large leg of turkey, Rai says, “no such painting exists.”

While researchers do not entirely understand what causes the Mandela Effect, there are some commonly cited reasons it may occur.

False Memories

One cause of the Mandela Effect is the idea of false memories, or distorted recollections of an event, according to Dr. Schiff. “From a neuroscience perspective, when you recall memories—versus remembering them perfectly—they become influenced to the extent that they can eventually become incorrect,” she says. “Memory is not infallible and can be unreliable at times.”

So how can our memories become false ones? Research shows false memories can result from misrepresentations in our working, short-term and long-term memories, meaning our recall of certain details or events can become distorted over time. Alternatively, we may conjure up false memories based on suggestions or misinformation from others around us.

“We do know that human memory can at times be susceptible to suggestion, so for example, in the case of the Henry VIII painting, it would seem likely that many people saw a cartoon image that did exist, and that their brains recreated that image in the form of a painting,” says Rai.

Additionally, research shows that each time we recall a memory, our brain networks alter the way we remember an event. In other words, the next time you recall an event from the past, you may remember certain details from the last time you recalled the memory—not the original event.

“We know that minor changes to recall are normal and that the brain shapes and shifts memories slightly over time based on our individual experience of a moment—that is why we can sit with a loved one and have two quite different accounts of a shared experience,” explains Rai.

Research also suggests false memories can be created through the imagination. When a person imagines an event or experience in vivid detail, it can be incorporated into their memory as if it actually happened.

What’s more, memories can be attributed to the wrong source. For example, a person may remember hearing a story from a friend, but later believe that they were the one who actually experienced the event.

Sometimes, individuals who have a psychotic illness can experience false memories. Psychotic symptoms may involve hallucinations and/or delusions, where the person believes they are experiencing events that are not rooted in reality. This can then lead to memories of events that may not have happened in real life. In some cases, traumatic events can lead to the creation of false memories as a way of coping with the experience. The brain may alter memories in order to protect the individual from the full impact of the trauma.

The Internet/Social Media

The internet can play a large part in the spread of misinformation, perhaps contributing to shared false memories, according to Rai. Research suggests we’re more susceptible to remembering misinformation when details align with preexisting beliefs or attitudes. Moreover, repetition can play a role in how likely it is for erroneous information to stick. In other words, the more we see or hear misinformation, the more likely we are to believe it’s true.

And with social media enabling anyone to quickly spread any information—whether it is accurate or not—it’s understandable how collective misrepresentations of details or events can happen.

“Remembering something repeatedly builds your confidence in the memory, even if it grows more inaccurate over time,” adds Dr. Schiff. “So if you see stories online or posts or comments on social media where more people are providing incorrect details, these actually become incorporated into your memory as facts.”

Confabulation

Another possible cause of the Mandela Effect is a neuropsychiatric disorder known as confabulation, which is when a person’s brain creates erroneous memories without intending to deceive anyone, and genuinely believes that the false memory is accurate. Confabulation may look like an exaggeration of a real event, mismatching memories from one event into another, recalling a new memory and thinking it took place at an earlier time, filling in missing informational gaps or creating an entirely new memory that never occurred.

“Your brain will remember details that never happened and spontaneously generate details to compensate for any holes in the memory,” says Dr. Schiff.

Research shows some people are more susceptible to confabulation. For instance, people with brain injury or damage, bipolar disorder, dementia or Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS) (a degenerative brain disorder that occurs from a lack of vitamin B1) may have a higher likelihood of confabulated memories.

Misleading Post-Event Information

Research indicates that receiving new information after an event has occurred may transform or even replace existing memories of the event. This means that learning new information after your brain has already stored a memory of an event or image may lead to your memory becoming distorted.

Priming

Priming refers to how exposure to one stimulus affects how a person responds to subsequent stimulus due to subconscious connections. The initial stimulus (the prime) activates a corresponding stimulus that helps individuals more quickly visualize or recognize images or memories. For instance, the word “yellow” may cause individuals to conjure up images of bananas or lemons. Priming can also affect how we perceive other people and influence our behaviors due to underlying connections of certain words and images.

Essentially, priming may affect how we interpret and store certain events, words or images depending on the subconscious connections we make with various stimuli, meaning our memories may not be as reliable as we believe.

Quantum Physics/Alternate Realities

Quantum physics, or the fundamental study of matter and energy, as well as the theory of alternate realities (or parallel universes), are another unproven idea behind the Mandela Effect.

“Some speak to the growing research displayed within the field of quantum physics, and the concept that we exist within one unified field in which our minds are interconnected, and multiple expressions of reality exist at any one time,” says Rai. “For many, this explanation feels too abstract and would be deemed as unsubstantiated.”

Not sure if what you’re remembering is fact or fiction? Recognizing false memories may be as simple as unearthing evidence from a credible source like an encyclopedia, peer-reviewed journal, photos or videos, explains Dr. Schiff. “This evidence can corroborate or disprove your memory,” she says. Of course, this method only applies to details and facts that are actually searchable.

Minor instances of misremembering (like the Mandela Effect examples listed above) are relatively commonplace and not a major cause for concern, unless a person experiences major distress when they find out a memory isn’t entirely true, adds Rai. In that scenario, she says, further psychological exploration with the help of a mental health professional may be warranted.

And in the case of more personal memories, Rai says there are usually very few ways—if any—you or a professional can deduce if certain memories (like something that happened to you and you alone) are false or not.

To improve the reliability with which you recall memories, research suggests repetition can help. More specifically, exposing yourself to the same factual details over and over can help increase memory accuracy over time.

“Being that our memories can be reconstructed and are malleable, in order to treat false memories, you need to start teaching your brain the accurate facts of a misremembered memory,” says Dr. Schiff. “Continued exposure to the correct details will help you rebuild your memory, since memory recall is remembering the information that was previously encoded and stored in the brain [even if it is false].”

Recognizing and treating confabulations may look a little different. Because confabulations are typically caused by an underlying condition, such as brain damage or dementia, treatment may require an accurate diagnosis of the condition causing the false memories, plus working with a mental health professional who can corroborate details with friends and family members.

Similarly, if false memories are due to another psychological condition, such as a psychotic disorder, they will need the help of a mental health professional to treat the underlying psychotic condition. Finally, if false memories are related to an underlying posttraumatic disorder, it is important that the person seek treatment from a trauma-focused therapist to resolve these and other related symptoms.

-Forbes Health Advisory Board member Judy Ho, Ph.D., contributed to this article.