My personal Mandela Effect

Hello my readers,

I want to take a moment to say, yes, I have done a blog about this in the past. However, I have several personal examples that conflict with many people's recollection about some of the big topics. This is actually an incredible phenomenon no matter if you believe if it's is true or it is not. If it's not, then it's something I think we need to study to see why people have such altered memories of the actual facts. There has to be a very good reason for it and it should be examined. If it's true, then we have more questions than answers to contend with and that also deserves to be studied. I am going to make of list of some of the most popular theories out there and comment on how I remember them even though many disagree.

The very thing that caused the Mandela effect was disagreement if Nelson Mandela died in prison, or if he died years later. Some people have the memory of Nelson Mandela passing away while in prison while others never heard of that story before. For me, I personally recall sitting at my Grandparent's house and reading how Nelson Mandela died in prison. My Grandpa was sitting across from me, and my Grandma was making eggs and bacon on the stove. It was morning, and a very bright day. I think it was a Saturday or a Sunday. It was in the newspaper and I read it, and then my Grandpa did. We all talked about how sad it was for him to die. I remember asking Grandpa what he did to be in prison, and he told me his was a political prisoner.Until then, I hadn't heard that term before so I remember it! From that day on, I assumed that he was dead, because he was. When Morgan Freeman played him in the movie years later, I literally assumed that it was because they were telling the story of Mandela's life and death. However, he hadn't died. I had to look it up. I was so confused!! I know with every single fiber of being that I not only heard about him passing away in prison, but read it in the newspaper and discussed the event with my Grandparents. I would ask them, but they are both gone now. But I am sure they would back me up on this.

As a child, I loved books. I would fall into the world of the written world and loved it so much that I have dedicated my life to it. I knew books, especially children's books because I didn't have many friends growing up. I read the Berstein Bear's books as a child and that's how it was spelled. It was not pronounced that way, however. It was pronounce Berstain. At some point, the stein changed into stain and I truly thought at one point I heard that it was a publishing error. However, I really don't know. I thought it was stein. I remember this change happening around the time I was in middle school. Another publishing error is Interview with a Vampire,and Interview with the Vampire. Would you believe that you are both right and it has nothing to do with the Mandela effect but a publishing error? I am a huge Anne Rice fan and have read many of her interviews. The book she wrote is called Interview with a Vampire, because Louise is the one being interviewed. At first, this was a short story published that was vastly different and that was called, Interview with the Vampire. When the "real" book was published, it was titled the same using "the" instead of "with a" which is not want Anne Rice wanted. There are copies out there that have both titles. The movie ran into some issues with rights so at first, it was titled, "the" instead of "with a."  That's how I recall it anyway.

I also had a great love of music that really began to form in middle school. I was branching out and discovering all sorts of music, including Queen. I remember buying their greatest hits on cassette tape, because I'm old, but not that old! I played "We are the Champions," and clearly recalling that at the end of the song it says, "we are the champions," and then the music cuts off. I remember thinking, "Wow, this really sounds like it just stops. It sounds like it should continue with, "of the world," but it doesn't. I think this is simply a thing that the mind heard it so much in the song itself that it was expecting to hear the entire phrase sung out at the end, but it wasn't. That abrupt stop was confusing, but that's how I remember hearing it. I know that there are live versions of this song where the entire phrase is sung out at the end. I can't give that any merit because people change their songs live all of the time. I will admit that I was surprised that day when I was in middle school, to find that the song just cut off because up until that point I had also thought the whole phrase was sung out. I thought it was an odd choice because it just stopped. I really can chalk this up to my mind wanting to hear the whole phrase and that's why it was a shock.

I also watch a lot of TV, so naturally Sex and the City comes up...or is it Sex in the City. For the record, I hated this show but it was everywhere and this is one thing I literally don't know what is right or not because I actually thought they changed the title of this show. When it first came out, I watched the first episode called Sex and the City. I stopped watching it soon after but I saw lots of ads and the show was now called Sex in the City. That made more sense to me, and I thought it was just a marketing thing. But then I actually saw and heard it both ways. I didn't know what the actual title was anymore because "in the" and "and the" were interchanged so often in both print and media. Years later when I worked in a perfumer, Sex and the City perfume came out. However, there were some boxes that said Sex and the City, and others that said Sex in the City depending on the shipment. Everyone I worked with was confused. I literally have no idea what the real title is anymore!

Speaking of perfume, I have worked with perfumes for years. I have studied them, tested on them, got certifications in sales of certain perfumes including Chanel. Chanel No. 5 packaging is not the way I remember, or the way I studied it. Today, if you look at the package of Chanel No. 5, you see a big N and a small o with no period following. This is making me crazy, because the packaging I have worked with, have studied, and have used had a period following the small o. It doesn't look right! I look at the packages and I get confused because it's not the same! Before you ask, no, I am not just expecting to see the period because that is normally what you see after the abbreviation. I was certified to sell Chanel No. 5 with the period appearing on the packaging. It had been there since the beginning of the product and now it's gone! Could it be a marketing thing, yes, but why can't I locate what the packaging looked like only a few years ago? What about everything that I studied. I saw that logo daily for years, trust me, I knew it. I know the mind can do some strange things like create memories that weren't there. I'm not above saying that I could be mistaken on this, or anything here, but this one is so personally hard for me because I saw something different for years and now it's like it never existed.

I have seen many examples of logo changes that people are claiming that are the Mandela effect. While it could very well be, most of the time I think it's just a simple logo change. I know that my perfume claim above is considered a logo, and could have change. True, but I can't find any evidence saying that their has been a  logo change. What is strange is when a company all of a sudden changes something very big and important about their company name, such as the spelling. For example, the Jif/Jiffy peanut butter debate. I seriously think that there was a peanut butter called Jiffy. My Grandparents kept two kinds of peanut butter in the house. One was Peter Pan which was Grandpa's favorite, and Jiffy that Grandma got for the kids. There could be a mix up because there was a jingle about Jif peanut butter that sang about Jiffy or said Jiffy. Or it could be two separate products. I don't know for sure anymore but I really thought that there was once a peanut butter called Jiffy.

I know all of this seems random and it truly could be a mistake in memory. However, why do so many people have a shared memory. It is hard to wrap your mind around it, especially when we know almost nothing about the human mind or body. We only have people who practice medicine. We don't have a cure for the common cold. We can map out parts of the body and have a good idea how things work but there is still so much unknown and unpredictable. We have many mentally ill people that get misdiagnosed all of the time. We don't really have a good grasp of being a human so this all could be due to something in our brains that are making us think one thing when the truth is completely different. I'm willing to admit that this could be the case, but if it is, we really need to put some serious study into the Mandela effect and why people have these shared memories.

I am also open to the option that this could be an alternative universe, or something else. I watch Doctor Who and read comics. I think we are extremely vain if we believe that there is nothing in this universe outside of us. I think that this option needs to be looked at time. Once you eliminate the impossible all your are left with is the probable. It is hard to believe that we are all sharing the same illusion. I have read 1984 and I know that things have been changed just like in the book, including history. Why would someone choose to change something as small a the name of a peanut butter, or a song lyric? What is the point in that? Changing history has been done forever and we are uncovering a truer version of the story every day. Why would one bother spending time altering a children's book or a logo? Things just aren't making sense. That's what this whole thing is about and it is very confusing. I hope someday we will find answers but until then, I'm open to the possibility that it could be a collective mistake, or it's something deeper. I know that more needs to be look into this and not dismissed, because something strange is going on here.
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