The "Mandela Effect"- Has my Bible changed? Or do I just have a bad memory like most people?

[shijing]

There IS an important point here, but it's not about "timelines", it's about just how much we project onto our environment and how little of what is ACTUALLY happening, of what ACTUALLY IS, we miss.

Yes, it's quite fascinating -- and the Mandela Effect video provides both visual and audio examples, so it's interesting to compare the two, and to look for possible explanations for these really salient memory differences as you did with the Sex in/and the City example above in regular versus articulated speech. So here's another example that hasn't been mentioned yet: The Berenstein Bears vs The Berenstain Bears. I strongly reject the second spelling when I see it, but that's supposed to be the correct one. Does anyone have an explanation for this one?

 

[Joe]

There IS an important point here, but it's not about "timelines", it's about just how much we project onto our environment and how little of what is ACTUALLY happening, of what ACTUALLY IS, we miss.

Yes, it's quite fascinating -- and the Mandela Effect video provides both visual and audio examples, so it's interesting to compare the two, and to look for possible explanations for these really salient memory differences as you did with the Sex in/and the City example above in regular versus articulated speech. So here's another example that hasn't been mentioned yet: The Berenstein Bears vs The Berenstain Bears. I strongly reject the second spelling when I see it, but that's supposed to be the correct one. Does anyone have an explanation for this one?

Pretty simple I think "stein" is the latter syllable of a fairly common and well-known type of surname. The word "stain" is not, in fact, it's a word on its own in English. The mind will seek to replace incongruous things it sees with what it is used to seeing or expects to see. Once that happens and you change in your mind the "stain" to "stein", that's what you'll see from then on. Our brains don't read each letter of a word individually but the word as a whole.

There are many examples of optical illusions etc. that show pretty clearly how our minds tend to gloss over things and fill in the blanks, or that we have trouble seeing things that are actually there, especially when we are focused on something else, or dissociated. Windmill knight's reference to the video with the gorilla among the basketball players is a good example.

Here's something fun. What do you see in the image below?

 

[Laura]

Also, if a timeline HAD indeed changed for some reason, wouldn't that mean that every memory that anyone has of events from that moment on would also automatically change and be basically "updated" or propagated to the present ?

Theoretically, yes. Perhaps only those who are paying close attention would notice the glitch as in the "black cat walking by twice" of the Matrix.

And I'm not saying that we are dealing with that in this discussion. For the most part, what we are seeing is a bunch of clueless people who are NOT paying attention to reality and who are then subject to being taken in by fantastical claims that are based, really, on common tricks of the human brain.

It's rather similar to the "Flat Earth" nonsense. It seems that a lot of people have 2D brains.

I'm not saying I think timeline changes can't happen, but that having a memory of something that turns out false or skewed is much more a product of how people think, how their brains work and how culture can distort perception and memory and not indicative (in my mind) of a memory somehow surviving an entire timeline shift.

Exactly. And if it does happen, it is most likely as you describe above: MOST people wouldn't notice it. And it would also be related to something very significant. The miniscule changes in the Bible text which can be easily solved with a little knowledge and awareness are simply not worth the attention that is being given to them. It's like the Flat Earth business: a complete waste of people's time, a distraction, a sort of "Pokemon Go" for the conspiracy crowd.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

Here's something fun. What do you see in the image below?

Well, I don't see anything, just 2-dimensional geometric shapes. Is there any hidden word? Or maybe those are parts of the puzzle?

 

[1984]

Here's something fun. What do you see in the image below?

Well, I don't see anything, just 2-dimensional geometric shapes. Is there any hidden word? Or maybe those are parts of the puzzle?

I see the word 'lift'.

 

[Ðekel]

Here's something fun. What do you see in the image below?

Well, I don't see anything, just 2-dimensional geometric shapes. Is there any hidden word? Or maybe those are parts of the puzzle?

Try focusing on the white ''gaps'' rather than the black blocks..
Or look at it from afar.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

I see the word 'lift'.

Try focusing on the white ''gaps'' rather than the black blocks..
Or look at it from afar.

Yeah, it's true!

 

[Joe]

I see the word 'lift'.

Try focusing on the white ''gaps'' rather than the black blocks..
Or look at it from afar.

Yeah, it's true!

Just a small example. You can extrapolate to other things that we might "read the wrong way" or see one thing when someone else sees another and then remembers it differently. That's the "mandela effect". That's why stress on this forum the need for networking in order to come to a closer approximation of what the truth about something is. There's the analogy about four blind men around an elephant giving their description of what they feel. Only when their perceptions are combined do they apprehend an elephant.

 

[Scottie]

The bible has indeed changed!

 

[shijing]

Pretty simple I think "stein" is the latter syllable of a fairly common and well-known type of surname. The word "stain" is not, in fact, it's a word on its own in English. The mind will seek to replace incongruous things it sees with what it is used to seeing or expects to see. Once that happens and you change in your mind the "stain" to "stein", that's what you'll see from then on. Our brains don't read each letter of a word individually but the word as a whole.

When I was young and people read this series of books out loud, they would pronounce the last syllable of the name as though it rhymed with 'codeine', which indicates that they were seeing the word as 'Berenstein', not as 'Berenstain'. So following your argument above (and it's true that our brains register words as whole units rather than processing them atomistically), would you say that the simplest explanation is that everyone was making this error collectively, and that the erroneous pronunciation may have even been reinforced because people heard others around them making the same mistake?

More generally, though, I appreciate the points that Scottie made in his above post:

In the past, there have been "reality shift" events like this where two people - or two groups of people - remember two different pasts. As I mentioned in another post (somewhere!), during one event I actually remembered both sets of events.

Thing is, that was related to a specific series of rather traumatic events that had great significance for everyone here. It wasn't the reality changes that were important; it was what was actually occurring in real life, on the ground, in realtime, and it was affecting almost all of us negatively. The shifts were not the point. The shifts were simply a marker, a clue that something was amiss.

This reminds me of a much earlier incident where, if I remember correctly (which has probably become a loaded phrase at this point!), Laura had worked on a lengthy manuscript which disappeared from her computer. At the time of the disappearance, she noticed that a toothbrush was not where it was supposed to be -- after spending some time looking for it, she suddenly found it exactly where she thought it had been. The important event would of course been the loss of the manuscript, but the toothbrush glitch was a marker indicating that something out of the ordinary had occurred.

 

[Laura]

This reminds me of a much earlier incident where, if I remember correctly (which has probably become a loaded phrase at this point!), Laura had worked on a lengthy manuscript which disappeared from her computer. At the time of the disappearance, she noticed that a toothbrush was not where it was supposed to be -- after spending some time looking for it, she suddenly found it exactly where she thought it had been. The important event would of course been the loss of the manuscript, but the toothbrush glitch was a marker indicating that something out of the ordinary had occurred.

What you have written above is a classic example of the problem: you have conflated two stories.

1) The disappearance of the toothpaste was right after publishing a chapter of The Wave. Nothing was lost from my computer.

2) A file disappeared from my file cabinet. I searched everywhere and could not find it. After a great deal of trouble tracking down a replacement, it suddenly was there. HOWEVER, the article I had filed had been highlighted and had notes written in the margins (I do this all the time and it was, in fact, the notes I had written that I wished to recover) and the article I then found was pristine - not a highlight or not anywhere.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

I see the word 'lift'.

Try focusing on the white ''gaps'' rather than the black blocks..
Or look at it from afar.

Yeah, it's true!

Just a small example. You can extrapolate to other things that we might "read the wrong way" or see one thing when someone else sees another and then remembers it differently. That's the "mandela effect". That's why stress on this forum the need for networking in order to come to a closer approximation of what the truth about something is. There's the analogy about four blind men around an elephant giving their description of what they feel. Only when their perceptions are combined do they apprehend an elephant.

Wise words.

 

[shijing]

What you have written above is a classic example of the problem: you have conflated two stories.

1) The disappearance of the toothpaste was right after publishing a chapter of The Wave. Nothing was lost from my computer.

2) A file disappeared from my file cabinet. I searched everywhere and could not find it. After a great deal of trouble tracking down a replacement, it suddenly was there. HOWEVER, the article I had filed had been highlighted and had notes written in the margins (I do this all the time and it was, in fact, the notes I had written that I wished to recover) and the article I then found was pristine - not a highlight or not anywhere.

OK -- thanks for clarifying and separating the two events, Laura. That is indeed a good example of the problem!

 

[JEEP]

I actually brought up the whole Sex IN the city vs Sex AND the city in another past transcript thread and whether 'splitting realities' might be involved.

If you listen to one of the actors saying the name of the show, it isn't really discernible if she is saying sex and the city or sex in the city. Try saying it yourself. Both "in" and "and" sound almost identical unless you speak slowly and enunciate very clearly.

On TV they do a lot of processing on voices to make them legible, and it can alter the perceived pronunciation of phrases. For instance 'and' often sounds like 'in'. People who remember it by ear rather than by sight may always think "sex in the city" even if the other way is true. That's how I rationalized it to myself anyway. But that is a powerful suggestion to retroactively change the DVD covers in my past memory.

In regards to the other oddities, what came to mind was the children's game Telephone in which a line of children is formed and a child at one end is given a whispered phrase that is passed on to the next child, also in whisper, until the end of the line when the last child speaks the phrase out loud. Inevitably, the phrase has changed from the original, usually quite remarkably! Maybe something similar is what's occuring for a lot of the word associations such as Sex IN the city as opposed to Sex AND the city, etc.

So yes, the consensus on this thread (as well as the one previously mentioned re splitting realities) is just as you've said - nothing bizarre involved, just a word misheard and then erroneously repeated until it gets stuck in the memory as being the correct, original word.

And I think this is one of the big takeaways from this discussion - that many started out thinking these contradictions were really odd, that so many had a recollection markedly different from others or from the actual reality - that, in fact, really isn't odd at all as pointed out by Data:

Remember that our 'lower' or 'older' brains do not expend a lot of energy and work fast at the cost of accuracy. That just confirms what books like Strangers to Ourselves, Thinking Fast and Slow, You Are Not So Smart, The Polyvagal Theory have to say about our different brain layers.

Add in what Laura said:

For the most part, what we are seeing is a bunch of clueless people who are NOT paying attention to reality and who are then subject to being taken in by fantastical claims that are based, really, on common tricks of the human brain.

It's like the Flat Earth business: a complete waste of people's time, a distraction, a sort of "Pokemon Go" for the conspiracy crowd.

I think we can safely chalk up another win for networking vs those fiends who've found another very clever way to dupe, distract, and waste people's time w/ seemingly plausible hokem. The JFK bit really should have been a dead giveaway, but then I imagine a lot of forum members weren't even born then, so their memories are really second hand. If you lived thru JFKs/RFKs/MLKs assassinations, they made indelible impressions.

I don't have the quote handy, but remember what the Cs said about how humanity would again be taken over by their computers. This Mandela effect crapola I think is a good example.

Of course, with all the above being said, how do I reconcile the Mirror, mirror on the wall vs Magic mirror on the wall . . .
Yeah, I'm going w/ Keel's cosmic jokers messin' w/ my head, it doesn't really matter (thanx Scottie), and the Zoroastrianism thread is waay more interesting and a much better use of my time and energy. :D

 

[Joe]

When I was young and people read this series of books out loud, they would pronounce the last syllable of the name as though it rhymed with 'codeine', which indicates that they were seeing the word as 'Berenstein', not as 'Berenstain'. So following your argument above (and it's true that our brains register words as whole units rather than processing them atomistically), would you say that the simplest explanation is that everyone was making this error collectively, and that the erroneous pronunciation may have even been reinforced because people heard others around them making the same mistake?

Yes. Not only did people probably convert it in their minds to "stein" because that is part of a commonly known surname (and it is a Bear family surname we are talking about here), but people would then have commonly spoken it as "stein"

Then of course there is the problem of the pronunciation. I think a lot of people pronounce "stein" as "steen" in English speaking countries like the USA. But it is also pronounced "stine" as is the original German pronunciation, as in Einstein. Personally I would always pronounce the surname "Goldstein" (for example) as "Goldsteen" rather than "Goldstine".

All of which leads me to conclude that what we are dealing with here in this "mandela effect" (not to mention the children's books about a Bear family) is a Jewish conspiracy of unfeasible proportions!