# Remembering things that didn't happen **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768 "2009-01-04T02:07:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/101 "2009-09-25T21:30:16Z")
For years, I thought I was psychic until I read about deja vu. What happens is that your memories will re-arrange themselves to reflect the reality. For example, I dreamed about a high ceilinged room combined with a sunny day. The next day, I visit a church with large windows (a sunny room with high ceilings,) and my memory confuses the memory with the reality, giving me the sense that I had been there before even though I had never been there before. In all the examples cited, it’s pretty easy to see that someone saw something similar, and then later attributed it to a famous event. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/102 "2009-09-25T21:41:05Z")
I am sure many people remember the famous video footage of a few years ago showing Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees diving into the stands to catch a foul ball and emerging triumphantly with a bloody face and the ball in his glove. It was shown countless times on tv. And yet people who watched it over and over again still won’t believe it didn’t happen! He did not dive into the stands to catch the ball. He lunged for it, caught it, and then his momentum carried him into the stands. Still a great catch, but not what almost everyone says they saw. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/103 "2009-09-25T22:16:24Z")
> [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#): > > I am sure many people remember the famous video footage of a few years ago showing Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees diving into the stands to catch a foul ball and emerging triumphantly with a bloody face and the ball in his glove. It was shown countless times on tv. And yet people who watched it over and over again still won’t believe it didn’t happen! He did not dive into the stands to catch the ball. He lunged for it, caught it, and then his momentum carried him into the stands. Still a great catch, but not what almost everyone says they saw. I think this is a different effect. There’s a famous experiment where two groups were shown footage of a car accident. Then, they were asked a question. The question was different between the two groups: Group A: Did you see any **broken** glass? Group B: Did you see any **shattered** glass? Group B reported more broken glass (there was none in the film.) By hearing “dive” over and over, they assumed they saw a dive. ---
**Author:** ![TurboNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@TurboNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TurboNuke)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/104 "2009-09-25T23:32:05Z")
I just read a book or an article on memory formation. Basically your memory is chemicals stored in your brain. When you remember something your brain manipulates those chemicals. The chemicals can be changed by remembering something. Thus your memories can be changed by remembering. ---
**Author:** ![Wildwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/db5fbb/32.png) [@Wildwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildwood)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/105 "2009-09-26T18:33:02Z")
> [@aokocher](#): > > A study by Elizabeth Loftus demonstrates how false memories can be planted in research subjects. It was conducted in 1997, at a time when lots of “therapists” hypnotized patients and led them to believe they were abused–sometimes in outlandish satanic rituals–when they were children. You might remember hearing about some of the crazier ones on shows like 20/20. In the study, subjects were given stories to read about their own childhoods, three of which were true (as told by the subject’s parents or other close relative or friend) and one made-up scenario in which the subject got lost in the mall (which also was verified to have NOT happened by the parent or relative). A surprising number of people reported remembering this fictive stressful situation. To read further: [http://cogprints.org/597/0/199802007.html](http://cogprints.org/597/0/199802007.html) > Also, I believe that later studies have correlated susceptibility to forming false memories with high fantasy-proneness, but as I can’t think of a source offhand, I won’t say it’s for sure. Makes sense, though. For a fascinatiing introduction to the FMSF, try here: [http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122&highlight=False+Memory+Foundation](http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122&highlight=False+Memory+Foundation) Even spookier than one might suppose! ---
**Author:** ![Wildwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/db5fbb/32.png) [@Wildwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildwood)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/106 "2009-09-26T18:49:13Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > The Milwaukee Journal has confused the 8mm film taken by Marie Muchmore with the Zapruder film. UPI purchased the Muchmore film, LIFE magazine purchased all rights to the Zapruder film. (Yes, I have read the link.) A retrospective fiction, Walloon, or else a surprising number of Americans were hallucinating simultaneously to identical effect. For the benefit of those who a) haven’t followed the suggested link, and b) prefer contemporaneous evidence to mere assertion, here’s Mark Lane on the subject: > [@](#): > > ”A motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and **demonstrated on television** showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was fired. **A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show** show exactly the same situation.” [http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The\_critics/Lane/Natl-Guardian/Natl\_Guardian.html](http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/Lane/Natl-Guardian/Natl_Guardian.html) And here’s UPI’s own press release describing the film shown on New York’s WNEW-TV, among other places, in the first hour after midnight on the morning of Tuesday, 26 November 1963. Note that no known version of the Muchmore film contains footage of the presidential limo turning from Houston on to Elm: > [@](#): > > \*\*The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5 > > Film Showing Assassination Is Released\*\* > > NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy. > > The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station. > > The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade. > > The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car. > > The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications. > > Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world. By contrast, the earliest descriptions of the Zapruder film reveal that the presidential limousine’s left turn from Houston onto Elm was present: > [@](#): > > Dan Rather, CBS radio, 25 November 1963, as interviewed by Hughes Rudd and Richard C. Hotelett: > > “Well let me tell you then, give you a word picture of the motion picture that we have just seen. The President’s automobile which was proceeded by only one other car containing Secret Service Agents…the President’s open black Lincoln limousine…made a turn, a left turn off of Houston Street in Dallas onto Elm Street, this was right on the fringe area of the downtown area. This left turn was made right below the window from which the shot was fired." ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/107 "2009-09-26T20:14:44Z")
> [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > Well, for the longest time I clearly remembered having never watched “The Maltese Falcon”, but clearly watching the last scene on the telly. > > And I clearly remembered Humprey dropping the statue on the floor, the statue shattering and it being filled with diamonds. > > Imagine my surprise years later when I actually watched the whole movie and it ends with the Maltese Falcon completely intact. Where did **my** ending came from, that’s what I want to know. Hm, there was more than one version of The Maltese Falcon, could it have been one of those? Another option is an odd one, the same author also wrote a book called The Dain Curse, that involved diamonds, could it have been that? The funky thing is now I am thinking that your diamonds in a statue scene is ringing a bell… but I don’t think it is a false memory suggested by your mention… ---
**Author:** ![Shig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Shig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shig)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/108 "2009-09-26T21:34:38Z")
OK, what’s thins Thunderbird picture that people keep mentioning?? ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/109 "2009-09-26T21:53:42Z")
> [@Shig](#): > > OK, what’s thins Thunderbird picture that people keep mentioning?? Read the linked article. There is no picture. The photo is supposed to be a pterodactyl shot by people and photographed with them. It was named the Thunderbird photo because some tribes had legends of a large bird called the Thunderbird that flew away with people. There are Thunderbird glyphs in the Americas. There are pictures that have been faked up now, but they all showed up after this false memory was already known about. The picture was supposed to be in a published book. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768.md?page=5)