My Memory of Running Away?

I've had similar experiences in my life! Often I wake up believing I had an experience or a conversation with someone, only to ask them to clarify and realize it never happened. Our mind can do crazy things! Our situations are definitely cases of false memories. What's interesting though is that your's supports the fact the many false memories happen during childhood, which is a hypothesis discussed in the Psychology course book. Children have impeccable imaginations- they can play in a refrigerator box for hours on end- yet we must be aware that their impeccable imaginations are subject to false memories!

It is crazy to think that we can believe something to be true and realize that we made it up in our heads. I think that sometimes we think about something so much and and plan so intently on it happening that it just gets saved permanently into our brains. I have also been guilty of hearing someone elses story or experience so many times that I have believe that it happened to me as well. It is also interesting to think of the random details our brain picks up and why they are so vivid in our memory.

I feel like many people have experienced these false memories. I also have a vivid memory of being on a vacation somewhere and once brought it up to my parents to which they responded that we had never gone on the vacation I described. Overall, as odd as these false memories are I feel like they are a good thing - Especially if the false memories are there to cover a bad memory, in the case of abused children.

The concept of false memories are so mysterious because most of the time the individual is able to recall the memory in vivid detail. Discovering that the memory did not take place is a huge shock to them. I think that a large part of the creation of this memory is due to hearing stories and taking them as your own. For me, I have had false memories that have dealt with injuries and trips to the emergency room. I believe these were formed from hearing about my brother’s and sister’s injuries that I take on as my own. This idea shows how malleable memories are. Hence, if we believe that something happened or simply wonders if an event occurred or not, it can become a memory. I recently read an article that tried to describe the creation of false memories biologically. The parts of the brain used to actually perceive an object and to imagine an object overlap. Thus, a vividly imagined event can leave a memory trace in the brain that’s very similar to that of an experienced event. It then becomes difficult to decipher what was imagined and what actually took place.

This blog post brings up another interesting point about how our perspectives change as we grow older. Similiar to how degn0034 remembered the forest being a lot larger than it actually was, I too remember playing in my grandparents back yard and remembering it to be very large; the size of a football field in fact. Now when I go back to their house I realize that the yard is no more than a small patch of grass. Its so mysterious how our perspectives change over time but I think its probably due to our mind sets and our understanding of the world. We also grow physically which changes the relative size of things as we grow older. It would be interesting to know more about this phenomenon because I'm sure that most individuals have experienced some form of this type of memory.

Along side of having false memories from childhood, I find it very interesting that by looking through pictures from our childhood and hearing stories from our families we can make memories that we don't actually have. For example, when I was two our family took a trip to the redwood forest. According to my family, my mom and I got lost for awhile and I guess it was pretty traumatic for my mom. After hearing the story many times over the years and seeing pictures from the trip, I have acquired a memory of this event. But as we know, most adults can't retain any memories from before the age of three and I think that although this memory I have my have indeed happened to me, I don't think the vivid detail with which I recall the event is an actual memory. It's a true, but at the same time, false memory.

Childhood memories are hilarious! As a child, my family and I went camping up in norther Wisconsin every summer and I remember it very vividly, what I remember as a flashbulb memory. But as our book says, flashbulb memories can sometimes be false, and the way i recollect the woods is very skewed. I can remember my brother and I trekking through thick brush, creating tree forts up way high in trees, and digging massive holes, and hiding out favorite rocks. Last summer we went back for the first time since I was 10 and it was nothing like my memory remembered. Flashbulb memories can be, like the book states, very skewed.

Very interesting memory! I've had some of those too of me in my old house and me somewhere that has these particular flowers but I can't seem to place my finger on where that actually was...but I'm pretty sure that the reason those woods looked so big was because you were littler and younger back then possibly? I know that's how it is for me and my memory of being in my old house which I remembered to be huge but going back to it, it really is not. It's weird how skewed and morphed our memories can be.

This was a very interesting story to read. I think the fact that children have such vivid imaginations had a lot to do with your mistaken memory. Having imagined all the details over and over could have cemented the colorful story in your mind.

That is very interesting, and I also have a similar experience. I have a vivid memory of running down the stairs in my house in France (where I lived at the time) crying and screaming. I remember pounding on the door and being so angry with my parents for leaving me at home without telling me that they were leaving. Little did I know that the reason they left was because my little brother was being born, but I was two years old and couldn't comprehend this!

The funny thing is, is that my grandma (who I was left with at the house) actually did say that I threw a tantrum that night. So the major parts of this memory seem to be at least somewhat true. However the part about how I ran down the stairs, it turns out, could not possibly have been true simply because of the layout of the house. The way I remember this event was impossible, yet the memory seems very clear in my head. It's very interesting both how I actually do have a partially true memory from such an early age and how memory can change in subtle ways over time.

Everyone seems to posses these false memories whether they know it or not. I too have had one of these false memories. I remember sitting at my dinner table when my family lived in Arizona and watching a hot air balloon land in the desert behind our house. I remember the colors of the balloon being very vivid and seeing people step out of the basket. When I brought this up to my parents a few years later they said it never happened and in fact wasn't possible because there was a road surrounded by homes behind our house. Misremembering this information as a actual memory is very interesting and makes you question whether what you remember actually happened at all.

I think this a very interesting topic is psychology. It is weird how real a memory from our childhood can be to us when realistically it did not actually happen. Theses are cases of false memory. The psychology text book talked about false memories and said that the majority of false memories happen during childhood, which is when yours happened. I have a lot of memories from my childhood as well that I do not think actually happened. I read a story one time that a man was accused of murdering his daughter and was put in jail for many years. He pled guilty even tho he did not actually commit the crime. Since he was in jail for so many years he convinced himself that he actually did commit the crime and has a visual memory of committing the crime himself. It is interesting how our memory works and how we can create false memories or force our memories to create a memory that did not exist.

I think this a very interesting topic is psychology. It is weird how real a memory from our childhood can be to us when realistically it did not actually happen. Theses are cases of false memory. The psychology text book talked about false memories and said that the majority of false memories happen during childhood, which is when yours happened. I have a lot of memories from my childhood as well that I do not think actually happened. I read a story one time that a man was accused of murdering his daughter and was put in jail for many years. He pled guilty even tho he did not actually commit the crime. Since he was in jail for so many years he convinced himself that he actually did commit the crime and has a visual memory of committing the crime himself. It is interesting how our memory works and how we can create false memories or force our memories to create a memory that did not exist.

Memories can cause much confusion, especially when one isn't sure if what you remember is real or not. When I was a child, I also always dreamed of escaping and living in a tree with my cousins. But I was too much of a wuss to actually do that. I do have a very clear memory of when I was a child of three and I rode on a huge dog around our small Russian village. I brought this memory up a year back and to my surprise was told that it never happened. But I was surprised to hear that we did have a dog and our village was similar to what I "remembered" it as. So parts of the memory turned out to be true.

False memories are a strange thing. I distinctly remember going on a cruise when I was 5 years old. I remember the smell of the ocean, the sites, seeing all of these different people and eating in this huge dining hall. When I asked my parents about it a few years back they gave me the strangest look and asked me if I was okay. According to them i have never been on a cruise ship at all. They told me I did have a toy cruise ship that I would play with when I took baths all of the time. I found this very strange because I had such a vivid memory of that cruise. It is interesting how doing something ordinary as a child, like playing with the toy boat, can leave a memory of something much more amazing, like the cruise, as an adult.

False memory is such an eerie topic. It is hard to get grasp on the fact that we somehow make ourselves remember experiences that never happened. Your story is very interesting, and I also remember bringing up things to my parents that I "thought" I remembered from my childhood. As children we have such large imaginations, which probably leads to this false memories of different experiences.

I had the same experience as well. I remember clearly when I was five I jumped on top of my dad's belly as a way to work out. I even could tell my dad was smiling and looked so not comfortable at the same time. Growing up with this memory I have had been feeling so sorry for my dad until one day of my high school years I officially apologized to him and thanked him for being a so patient dad. Surprisingly, he told me that never happened at all and he reminded me how a normal person could bear a 5-year subject jumping hard on top of the stomach.
It is still a mysterious memory to me right now, though I am so happy it never happened. At the same time, I am still curious if this kind of false believe has something to do with the person's life and affection towards the important people around him or her, as my dad is the one of the few people who spoiled me quite a lot. I could not believe such a " false believe" can happen to my mom because she has been a bit more demanding with more rules on my school work and I did sometimes feel kind of uncomfortable for being so close to her and share my secret with her.