I have a terrible memory. I forget things everywhere, I forget I’ve told people things and I forget what day it is constantly! So, imagine my surprise to discover that some people feel the exact opposite.
Some of these stories are about people remembering things a different way, some are about remembering things that didn’t happen and some are about things that should have been impossible. But all of them are very weird.
Source at the end of the article
I distinctly remember driving into the city with my parents when I was very young and seeing someone jump off a building, then my mother saying “don’t look over there”.
I asked her about it recently and she said it never happened. I’m positive she’s right but it’s a friggin weird false memory to have.
septic_tongue
Seeing a deleted scene in Dumbo where Dumbo pooped in a diaper. As a 5-year-old, I was absolutely convinced I had seen this, but it was probably a dream.
jurassicbond
When I was about 7, my two sisters and I were sleeping in the same room. A bunk bed and another single bed.
I awoke one night to my sister on the bed, crying. She told me “the doll was alive”. I remember coming down on to the floor to see the rainbow bright doll run under the bed. I don’t remember anything else except that I was really freaked out the next day. I assumed it was a dream but I didn’t mention it to anyone. I eventually threw the doll in a fire my dad had going out back one day.
About 8 years later I mentioned it to my family when talking about the really creepy stuff that happens in their house (a lot of inexplicable things happen in the house to this day). When I mentioned it, my older sister said: “Oh my god, I had the same dream!!” She even knew which doll it was.
danarexasaurus
I remember being about eight or nine and swimming in the pool in the back yard. As I swam, I suddenly realized I had figured out how to breathe under water. If I inhaled through my nose in this special way, I could get oxygen without sucking in water, and I could stay under as long as I liked.
I know it must have been a dream, but the memory is so vivid, it feels like it really happened.
captainmagictrousers
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I once had a dream that I was given a pink and green football as a present. It looked like the old Adidas Telstars, with a base layer of green, and pink as the secondary color. It was beautiful. I was going to be the envy of the playground.
When morning came, I spent a half hour trying to find it, before gradually realizing that it must have been a figment of my imagination. Some 25 years later, that memory feels as real as any of the actual physical gifts that I received at the same age.
It’s as if it’s a genuine piece of history, except that it never actually happened to anyone, even to me.
CourageOfOthers
I had a very vivid dream about a Transformers NES cartridge that you could play but was also itself a transformer. I was distraught when I realized I’d just been dreaming.
simowilkins
For probably all my life (since I was 4) I have carried with me this memory of a picture that looks like an Egyptian painting with some sort of Lion looking creature and the sun with a face. Never knew why the memory was there and it has always been with me.
d**khead200
I once had a dream about forgetting my motorcycle at my old apartment complex. I moved from that apartment 4 years ago. And I’ve never ridden a motorcycle.
When I woke up, I started planning on how I would get it back. For days afterward, I couldn’t completely convince myself I didn’t have a secret bike.
theseekerofbacon
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There’s quite a rare alternative version of The Hobbit (the book, not movie), where Gollum willingly gives Bilbo the ring. Once Tolkien conceived Lord of the Rings he backtracked on that and made it so Bilbo stole the ring instead (considering it’s pretty powerful, there’s no way Gollum would have given it up). So it was reprinted with the change, and Tolkien covered his tracks by saying Bilbo was originally lying, of course.
I think there are some editions of the original still floating around in the world. I was read The Hobbit in primary school (UK schooling age 4-11) and I am CONVINCED we were read the original version. I have such a strong memory of it.
This could be a fake memory, or it might be that we learned about the alternative version in school and I just fused the memories, but it really feels real. Chances are it’s a fake memory. If it is real, I need to hunt down that edition in that primary school from 17 years ago as dang, that book is probably worth a lot.
actually_im_53
I remember doing a front flip with amazing fluidity when I was a kid, but I think I just fell on my face in real life, people around me were laughing and I thought they were celebrating.
BeefHellington
I remember an exercise bike we had before I was even born. I have a very vivid memory of it, exactly where it was placed in the workout room.
Only, the problem is my parents got rid of it months before I was born. I’ve searched the house for pictures to see if that is what caused it but our workout room also used to house my fathers gun collection so he didn’t allow any photos. I showed my parents exactly where it used to be and they couldn’t believe it. Shout out to the mysterious lime green workout bike!
jdrobins
I’m 99% certain that I was just hallucinating, during the two week period that I went to the ER after nearly dying from pneumonia. I was hopping through different dimensions from my hospital bed, and the nurses were plotting to kill me over the money I was going to get from my life story being made into a movie.
If I wasn’t hallucinating, then this reality has been kinda boring so far and I wish the next reality shift would hurry up and get here.
JDAlvey
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When I was a kid, I complained to my Aunt (who was babysitting) that my older sister had bitten me. In response, my Aunt made me bite her back.
My sister remembers it the exact opposite way (i.e. I bit her first) and my Aunt, who cackled as she recalled this story, backed up my sister’s version of events. Nevertheless, it’s so clear in my mind!
wild_cannon
My sister and I have this memory that happened around 15 years ago. We were collecting Pokemon cards for some sort of an album and we were missing only one. I vividly remember trading with the neighbor’s kid and giving him all of our cards just for that one, then running home to tell her.
BlushingArcana
I have this weird memory of like a human type creature holding a big glowing orb with its hand hovering over it and sometimes it sings. No idea where this vision comes from but it pops up in my mind quite often, usually when I’m daydreaming.
SWEnglandAddick
I have a memory of watching my Dad shaking hands with my Grandfather and then the two of them standing there talking and laughing for a while. My Grandfather died unexpectedly of a heart attack 2 months before I was born but my sister says that she and my parents would often go see him.
She does remember them going to visit while our Mom was pregnant with me. I’m in my 40s now and it still feels like a memory and not something I would have made up as a kid.
FloatingWoman
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I have a pretty vivid memory from when I was like, 3, of me biting the finger off of another kid at daycare. He didn’t show up for like a month and after that, it turns out he was on vacation and still had a finger. But then I learned that if little kids lose their fingers before the first knuckle they can grow back, so while I still probably didn’t do it, it felt real.
Qwerty_Resident
I have several memories of my childhood in which I was walking through the living room, but instead of walking around the couch fully, I would cheat and pull my legs up and float over the armrests. I clearly remember once floating over the coffee table as well.
These memories feel vivid and real, but of course, I can’t float. Right? Or maybe I can!
Nah.
Zadien22
A friend of mine was being stalked by a creepy man. She showed me an email she’d received as a death threat. When I saw it, I was filled with this horrifying memory of having sent the email myself when I was drunk a week or two before. I blanched but she thought I was just reacting in sympathy with her. This would be totally out of character for me and the whole thing felt fake, like an implanted memory. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was responsible for her fear.
The stalker was real and was eventually caught, (and it was not me), but whether I had sent the email or not I will never know.
Bayoris
I know it’s fake, but I have a memory of my lower arm bone showing up on an x-ray as a perfect bow. I had weird and super realistic dreams as a kid apparently.
justalurkermovealong
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I have a college friend who I met in a particular history class. I have a very vivid memory of sitting across the room admiring the unusual lacing on their shoes. Years afterward I saw one of the course books on their shelf while I was visiting and started reminiscing about how great the class was.
“Yeah, I heard it was good, but I never took the class. [other friend] gave those to me.”
“What are you talking about? You totally took that class – that’s how I know you! You sat across from me!”
They swore up and down that they’d never taken that class. I was so confused that I actually looked at my transcript to see if maybe I had another class in that room, or if I had audited something, but nope. So I have no idea where that memory comes from (or where I actually met this person).
runbrooklynb
I absolutely 100% remember diving for golf balls in my Uncle’s backyard pool (this is a true and fun game that I used to play with my cousins). I also absolutely 100% remember being able to sit at the bottom of that pool for half an hour at a time because I could breathe the water in it with no external help (this is, AFAIK, physically impossible).
TheWhite2086
Kindergarten, a tornado comes in while it’s nap time. Apparently, we’re napping under a roof but still exposed to the outside (no walls on all sides).
That’s my earliest “memory”, but it’s most likely fake.
-Anyar-
I have (and have had as long as I can remember) a very vivid recollection of sitting at my babysitter’s kitchen table, eating a PB&J with her son when we were both about 4 years old. In the memory, I remember the sensation of time slowing down for everyone but me.
The event was coupled with a rumbling sound, and I could move around/act at normal speed, but everyone else was moving so slowly that their movement was almost imperceptible.
I remember being scared, but continuing to eat my sandwich, and then, after a while, time resuming and being asked where my sandwich had gone.
EarhornJones