Two friends are discussing an incident of a year ago. They have very different recollections of it. One is relying on memory, one has a written record. Both believe their version to be true. What one experienced was not what the other experienced. Since they never discussed it, they did not know that until a year later. It’s important to remember in any encounter that what one experiences is not necessarily what the other experiences. If we’re in the presence of something we are not a vibrational match to, we can miss it completely even if it is right in front of our face. This is why, in court, circumstantial evidence is far more accurate than eyewitness testimony. According to a recent study, your memories are changed by the act of recalling them, meaning that every memory we have is colored by the times we’ve recollected it before.The research shows that recalling a memory more often makes that memory less accurate, and that every time you take a memory off the shelf in your brain, you put it back just a tiny bit different. That’s because instead of remembering the actual memory, you’re recalling the memory of the last time you remembered it and any mistakes that might have been introduced there. Like a game of human telephone, those mistakes can build on one another over time, leaving out details and introducing mistakes.
From Brain Distorts Memories Every Time It Recalls Them
