# Mismemories **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 4, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737 "2023-03-04T22:45:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/21 "2023-03-05T22:55:33Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > But the child wasn’t my younger brother. It was me. I even made them show me the medical records because I didn’t believe it was true. Displacement of memory is real. Wow. That’s a real displacement! When my mom was still in the hospital after my brother was born, my dad was making pancakes for my sisters and me. I stretched on tiptoe to see the bubbles form on the pancakes. And rested my chin on the griddle. And I know if was me, for sure. I had the scar for years and it shows in pictures. Did you not have any physical scars, or were you too young to remember? ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/22 "2023-03-05T23:19:21Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Did you not have any physical scars, or were you too young to remember? No long term scars. It was the palm of my hand. I don’t even remember getting the hand wrapped up. But I’m sure they knocked me out. I do remember being held in my mom’s arms as Dad drove to the hospital, but that could been an asthma attack or the time I kneeled in broken glass. Now that scar, I still have. I remember it covered my whole knee, but now it is tiny. ---
**Author:** ![fordgt100](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@fordgt100](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fordgt100)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/23 "2023-03-05T23:23:35Z")
I surely do, but can’t remember them :\>) When we look at how the brain works, it makes sense that this happens. The brain will shuffle some memories into short tern memory, others make it into long term memory. They’re even stored in different parts of the brain. Nothing gets written over like w/ computers, but there are sometimes errors when strong emotions are involved, just as there are times when what we were experiencing wasn’t actually happening. We just perceived it to be happening. Of course, recreational drugs play a big part in this. I pay a lot of attention to all this at age 71. The irritating thing is how the mind and brain are often at odds. I have zero use of remembering the part number for a 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit side window crank. But a lot of time spent at their parts counter decades ago means I will probably take 321 837 581 O1C to my grave. We sold a lot of those. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/24 "2023-03-06T02:05:07Z")
I have a possible explanation… I remember renting the Blues Brothers on VHS and it was on two cassettes because of the length. Is it possible the “part 2” you remember was actually the second tape, i.e. the last 15-20 minutes of the movie? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/25 "2023-03-06T02:22:48Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I have a possible explanation… I remember renting the Blues Brothers on VHS and it was on two cassettes because of the length. But are you _sure_ you remember this? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/26 "2023-03-06T03:16:31Z")
Hmm, that is possible. However I’ve never seen any indication the original vhs release was ever on two tapes. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/27 "2023-03-06T03:22:15Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > I spent a long time being sure I had seen _Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones_ with my father. That particular made-for-TV movie aired for the first time in mid-April 1980, several weeks after my father died. > > My best guess is that I saw a different movie about the same event with my father, and managed to confuse the two works. Obviously, the lead actors would have looked quite similar, since they were playing the same real-life person. I do remember my father paying close attention to news coverage about Jonestown as well. There was another Jonestown movie that came out about the same time. [Guyana: Cult of the Damned](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080833). ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/28 "2023-03-06T15:11:48Z")
IIRC (although maybe not, that’s the whole point of the thread, right? 😛) the first tape ended around the scene with Carrie Fisher in the sewer, and the second tape was the police car chase into downtown Chicago to the Cook County Assessor’s office. Wikipedia doesn’t specifically say the VHS release was two tapes, but it shows the running time at 132 minutes. VHS cassettes were generally 2 hr capacity at Standard Play speed, and I remember plenty of movies that were significantly over two hours that had to go on two tapes. On the other hand, if you remember seeing the entire movie on one tape then I have no idea what the second one would have been. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/29 "2023-03-06T15:28:53Z")
At this moment I can’t think of an actual memory like that, but I know there are some. Something similar is things you remember doing as a kid and in your memory it’s something you did all the time, but find out it only happened once. An example would be, I was talking to my mom and said remember when you would always decorate my birthday cake with purple polka dots? She says, I only did that once. Remember when we’d have a picnic at the zoo every summer? Apparently, we only did that once too. 😕 In my mind it was a regular occurrence. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/30 "2023-03-06T15:45:24Z")
When I saw the movie “Rocky” there was a part where Rocky’s eye is swollen shut. He asks Micky, his trainer, to cut his eyelid so he can see. The line “cut me, Mick” made me remember something that happened when I was four years old and my mom cut my forehead for some reason. It really shook me up. When I confronted my mom about this horrible abuse, she told me I was running in the house and ran into a wall. As an egg formed on my forehead, my mom got a butter knife she kept in the freezer and held it against the area of swelling. She didn’t cut me after all. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/31 "2023-03-06T16:54:46Z")
Although I’m not religious, there was a bible passage I remember reading about Jesus and the Pharisee. The Pharisee had invited Jesus to dinner, but didn’t provide him a cloth to wipe his face, and then chided Jesus for having bad table manners, Jesus retorted that the Pharisee’s adherence to form over function was distancing him from God’s love. Only this never happened. I googled Jesus and the Pharisee and found nothing like this. What the heck did I read? ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/32 "2023-03-06T17:05:43Z")
I have a fairly useless example from my childhood of “finding” 12 to 15 golfballs on the spillway of a golf course water hazard dam. It had apparently overflowed and carried the golfballs down in the current. I have never seen a water hazard with a dam. My parents do not play golf. I don’t care for the game. \* I think it is false memory from a vivid dream, though I should ask my head why it was thinking about golf, of all things, in the night. I wonder how many “memories” are not real, just vivid dreams? \* I took my kids to a put-put course, recently - well after the dream - and my oldest (age 7) managed a hole in one on hole 1 - her first ever attempt at “golf”. She was super pleased, but her younger brother need a LOT of supportive attention to get over his jealousy. I managed about par 7, which propably puts me in the ranks of the worst golfers. But I digress ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/33 "2023-03-06T17:37:21Z")
I remember swimming at a local lake in the mid 1960s, especially 1966, and The Immigrant Song playing over and over on the radio. It came out in 1970. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/34 "2023-03-06T17:59:53Z")
Actually it did happen, but you’re missing an important element. > **[Luke 7 | Parable of the Two Debtors (7:36-50)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_7#Parable_of_the_Two_Debtors_(7:36-50))** > > A Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to eat in his house but fails to show him the usual marks of hospitality offered to visitors - a greeting kiss (v. 45), water to wash his feet (v. 44), or oil for his head (v. 46). A "sinful woman" comes into his house during the meal and anoints Jesus' feet with perfume, wiping them dry with her hair. Simon is inwardly critical of Jesus, who, if he were a prophet, "would know what kind of sinful life she lives". > Jesus then uses the story of two debtors to ex... The “poor table manners” was Jesus allowing a “sinful woman” to anoint His feet (or touch Him at all), even though the host had neglected the customary greetings and acts of welcome to an honored guest. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/35 "2023-03-07T15:24:58Z")
Something similar has been happening to me, although it involves personal events rather than cultural landmarks - I had to actually write out when I was in different grades because I had a memory of Event A and Event B both happening in the summer between 11 and 12 grades but it was impossible for them both to be the same summer. Unfortunately, I’m still not sure if they happened in two different summers or different seasons of the same year. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/36 "2023-03-07T17:59:48Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > There was another Jonestown movie that came out about the same time. [Guyana: Cult of the Damned](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080833). At this point, I’m thinking that’s probably the one I watched with my father. The release date of January 1980 makes it possible (that one came out about two months prior to his death), and at age 10, I doubt I took much notice of character names being changed from the names of the actual people being portrayed. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737/37 "2023-03-10T06:57:49Z")
My wife and I were watching a television show about Johnny Cash, and I mentioned to her that I was glad that we were able to see him in concert. She didn’t say anything. Later, I looked up when Johnny played in my town, and it was in 1997. Four years before I met my wife. So while I certainly did see Johnny Cash, it was with another woman. Oops. But my memory is definitely seeing the show with my wife. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mismemories/980737.md?page=1)