Conflicting memories

[Miss Chicken]

Do you have some event in your family that there conflicting memories of? Some family remembers something occurring, while others say it did not?

My sisters and I were recalling an event that occurred when we were children and we can't agree on what occurred.

I was 8 years 11 months old, my sister Jane was 10 years 4 months old, my sister Mary 11 years 5 months old. It was the afternoon of the 1967 Tasmanian Bushfires. Our school was without water or electricity and I don't think the headmaster realised that the fires were occuring in the suburbs of Hobart. He decided to dismiss the older children (grade 3-6) and allow them to go home.

My sisters and I start to walk home. We had to walk up a big hill called Lynton Avenue. We got about 1/4 a way up and realised that a house further up was on fire. The house was surrounded by long grass.

My bossy eldest sister (Mary) ordered us, and several other children, to turn around and return to the school. She said it was unsafe.

Years later Jane and I were talking about this. I said that Mary told us to turn back because of the fire. Jane said 'No, she told us to turn around because of the snakes."

All of a sudden I had a clear recall of the snakes which I had forgotten for years. I also remembered saying to Mary that the snakes wouldn't harm us, they were just trying to run away from the fire. Mary told me "All snakes are dangerous".

About 6 months later Mary was visiting from Adelaide and the topic came up again. Mary told us there were no snakes, that she only told us there might be snakes. Both me and Jane were certain about seeing real snakes, but Mary was adamant that there had been none.

I now remember the snakes moving quickly down the road. I no longer know for sure if my memories are real or not. If the memories are real why did I forget for so long? Could it be because more traumatic things occurred later on? Or because snakes didn't frighten me?

 

[shivkala]

This was the conflict on a recent Judge John Hodgman podcast. The conflict was that a woman remembers there being a grey house next door to her growing up. Her mother disagrees and believes that there was no grey house there. The family, after years of this debate, decided there was a "grey house universe" and a "non-grey house universe."

More personally, my mother swears she remembers the garbage men picking up the trash in horsedrawn carriages (or maybe it's the milkman bringing milk in horse drawn carriages, I'm having a personal family conflict now between myself of which one it is). Her brother, who is eight years older than she is, does not recall this, at all.

 

[Miss Chicken]

That was very interesting. Unfortunately for my family there is no 'grey house universe' or anything similar.

I once went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe at the cinema and then went to spend a few days looking after my mother at her place (she had broken her hip and my sister and I were taking turns looking after her). When I arrived I mentioned I had been to the cinema and Mum asked me what I saw. I told her adding that the book was my favourite as a child. My Mum than insisted that I never owned the book. I said I did and she said she knew I didn't.

Now which is easier to believe

1) A mother remembers every single book her child owned or didn't own (we had a house full of books).

2) A child remembers owning a particular book which was her favourite.

In this case I am 100% certain I was right but let it drop because you could never argue with my mother (she had to be right about everything)>

 

[sojourner]

^Maybe you got it from the library as a child?

 

[Miss Chicken]

Nope. I had a copy that I reread again and again. I remember writing my name and grade (4) on the inside of it. I think I gave it away to a friend's daughter when I was about 30 (not 100% sure about this).

 

[TrickyDickie]

I have experienced that a lot over the years. One example: I remember that when I was young, Milk Duds were malted milk balls. At the time, I hated the darn things. Today, people tell me that Milk Duds have always been chocolate-covered caramel. I have always liked that. I can remember being offered the malted milk balls from the Milk Duds box and even the sound when the person chewed them. I swear that at that time they were NOT caramel!

This kind of thing reminds me of Jack Finney's books 'Time And Again' and 'From Time To Time.'

 

[thestrangequark]

Given the imperfect nature of human memory, all of you have an equal likelihood of being wrong or right about what happened.

There is a phenomenon called stolen memories which is common among siblings, and I experienced it myself. I have a very clear memory of being at my dad's house with my younger sister on a very hot summer's day. Our dad was out and we were alone. It was so hot that a bottle of liquor in one of his kitchen cupboards exploded. I remember the boom and the shattering of glass, I remember the alcohol dripping down the cupboards, and the reek of it. The thing was, I wasn't there. I was out with my dad. I "stole" that memory from my sister, who had been home alone when it happened. It took a lot of time for them to convince me that I wasn't actually there because my memory of the experience is so real and clear, but it was a false memory.

Our memories aren't anywhere near as accurate as they seem, and it is very easy to create false memories that seem just as real as real memories.

 

[Aragorn]

When I was little, there was an auto accident on the freeway that caused a delay.

I believe I saw an idiot driver try to blow past everyone in the other lane only to collide with the accident and make it a bigger mess.

My parents say that vehicle was already there.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Given the imperfect nature of human memory, all of you have an equal likelihood of being wrong or right about what happened.

There is a phenomenon called stolen memories which is common among siblings, and I experienced it myself. I have a very clear memory of being at my dad's house with my younger sister on a very hot summer's day. Our dad was out and we were alone. It was so hot that a bottle of liquor in one of his kitchen cupboards exploded. I remember the boom and the shattering of glass, I remember the alcohol dripping down the cupboards, and the reek of it. The thing was, I wasn't there. I was out with my dad. I "stole" that memory from my sister, who had been home alone when it happened. It took a lot of time for them to convince me that I wasn't actually there because my memory of the experience is so real and clear, but it was a false memory.

Our memories aren't anywhere near as accurate as they seem, and it is very easy to create false memories that seem just as real as real memories.

Very interesting. At least you have accepted your memory as false.

I don't think that my sisters and me will be ever able to tell whether the snakes were real or not. One sister says there were snakes, one says there wasn't any. Both strongly believe their version is correct. I sit between uncertain about my memories and swing between snake-belief and nonsnake-belief. The memory of the snakes moving down the road is strong for me, but the same memory was absent from the age of about 9 years old until I was over 50.

Maybe my sisters and I need a 'snake universe' and a 'no snake universe' and I can belong to both, or else create for myself a third universe where snakes can both exist and not exist at the same time.

 

[thestrangequark]

^For that you just need to put them in a box and not peek inside.


They might disturb the cat, though.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Schrodinger's snakes.

It seems that for 40 years I kept those snakes inside the box without peeking until one sister forced the box open for me. Now I can't put the snakes back in.

I am rather surprised how much I am annoyed by this memory/non-memory. I don't like being so uncertain about the truth.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Concerning the Gray House Universe -

I just read that the grand-daughter Rebekah has researched the situation (by researching the address of the house that Gloria and Denise lived in, and the area surrounding it) and knows the answer as to whether the gray house existed or not.
However because Judge John Hodgman ordered that she cannot reveal the answer everyone Rebekah has to remain silent and keep the answer to herself.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ I was gonna say, maybe you put the snakes into the memory because of the discussion about them.

It's also possible that you're mad......quite mad

 

[Miss Chicken]

They wasn't much of a discussion before I remembered the snakes.

I said - Mary told us to turn back because of the fire"

Jane said 'No, she told us to turn around because of the snakes."

At that point the memory of the snakes flooded back. I clearly remember them slithering down the road towards us, Mary telling us to turn back because of them, myself stating that we didn't had to be afraid because the snakes were only trying to escape the fire, Mary telling us that they were dangerous. I remember seeing three snakes. None of these memories (beyond the snakes being there) were discussed with Jane. I did mention them to my best friend.

I haven't even discuss my these memories with Jane and Mary beyond stating that I think there were snakes. It is my sisters who debated about the existence of the snakes. Only after hearing Mary's version did I doubt the existence of the snakes and now that doubt is strong.

One of my sisters has to be right but I don't know which one and my memories aren't helping me decide.

 

[chardman]

A slightly different kind of conflict...

I remember being very confused by the death of singer Ella Fitzgerald in 1996, because I remember an event that placed her death fully 20 years earlier.

Simply, I remember Saturday Night Live taking a huge amount of flack over a joke they made about Ms Fitzgerald, mere days after her death, that resulted in such a frenzy of viewer complaints, that they were compelled to issue a public apology on the very next week's show.

The "joke" was a parody of the Memorex ads that Ella had become famous for, but they'd changed the tag-line of the ad from, "Is it live, or is it Momorex?" to "Is it live, or is it Ella?". Basically, it's a joke that only works if Ella had actually died sometime prior to the "ad" being aired.

I can place the date at around 1976, because I remember the apology being given by Executive Producer Lorne Michaels, and head Writter/performer Chevy Chase, who actually wrote the bit, and who was only involved with the show up to the end of the 1976-77 season. Thus the incident, and Ella's death, had to have preceded that date.

Curiouser and curiouser.