Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast, the
best place for improving your listening and learning skills
with English. And today I am very excited.
Why? Because this episode is going to
be special. It's going to be a little bit
different. So in all of my episodes, so
everyone apart from this one, I speak at a level which is aims
and designed for lower and mid intermediate levels.
So around that A2 up to about higher B1 to B2 the level.
But as I've mentioned before on the Patreon, I have more
advanced episodes, so aimed to bring you up to B2 Plus with
your listening and vocabulary. And today I am going to give you
one of those episodes completely for free and just to listen.
So this episode is a sample of our Patreon exclusive advanced
level episodes. So there we dive into more
deeper, more thought provoking topics.
Thought provoking means something that makes you think
more deeply and question things all in natural fluent English.
So if you love more complicated topics about language,
psychology and culture and you want to challenge yourself with
more complex vocabulary and ideas, you will love the content
over there. The link is in the description
below. If you like this episode to go
and subscribe and support the Patreon and take your English
learning to the next level. But let's get started with
today's episode. I'm going to be talking faster
and using more complicated vocabulary than usual.
So if you're new, don't worry, just listen to another episode
and I will speak a little bit slower and with easier words.
OK, so let's get started. Remember, I'm going to be
talking faster. So in today's episode we're
talking about the Mandela Effect.
And this is a strange phenomenon.
That's a hard word to say, even for me, phenomenon.
And a phenomenon means something that happens in the world,
especially something unusual or difficult to explain.
And this Mandela Effect is what it's called, and it is where
large groups of people misremember events, words and
facts in the same way. It's almost as if our collective
memory. So the way that we as a group of
people remember something has changed, but how and why is very
fascinating. So we're going to get into it.
So what is the Mandela Effect? Have you ever been absolutely
certain, 100% sure that something has happened, only to
find out that you were completely wrong?
Maybe you misremembered it so you remembered it incorrectly,
like a famous movie quote or something historical that
happened. Maybe that you thought that a
logo of a company looked a certain way and then you saw the
real version. Or perhaps you and all of your
friends remember the same false, incorrect memory.
That's the Mandela Effect, and this Mandela Effect title comes
from Nelson Mandela. So people term it because many
people distinctly so that means very clearly remember that he
died in prison in the 1980s, but he didn't.
He was actually released from prison in 1990 and became
president. The strangest part?
Thousands of people who had never met all share the same
memory. And it's not just one case,
there are dozens. So dozens means a large number,
usually more than 12. There are dozens of examples of
people misremembering these things in this exact same way,
so I'm going to give you a couple of famous examples.
The 1st is a famous quote from Star Wars, and a lot of people
remember this quote as Luke. I am your father.
So it's what Darth Vader says to Luke Skywalker.
So many people remember this quote as Luke I am your father,
but the real quote is no, I am your father.
So why didn't so many millions of people remember it the wrong
way? And if we go to Monopoly, the
game Monopoly, many people are sure that the Monopoly board
game mascot so that the character of the game wears a
monocle. A monocle is like a small piece
of glass, a round piece of glass that some rich people used to
wear over one eye to help them see.
But he doesn't. We associate these monocles with
rich old fashioned characters. So perhaps our brain fills the
gap with something that wasn't actually there.
So why does this happen? Why do millions of people
misremember these same details? And there are a few
psychological explanations for this, psychological means
related to the mind and how it works.
And the first of these is very interesting.
It's called the power of association.
Our brains love patterns, and patterns are repeated designs or
structures. This is when something fits into
an expected pattern. We believe that it's true even
if it's not. For example, with the Star Wars
quote, Look, I am your father sounds more dramatic than no, I
am your father. So our brain possibly changes
it. It changes it to make it sound
better or what we expect. The second theory for why this
happens is called memory reconstruction, or recreation.
We could say memories are not like video recordings.
Every time you remember something, your brain rebuilds,
so it recreates it, puts it together again.
This memory. And during this process, all of
these little details can change, especially if you've heard a
changed version of it before, like that Star Wars quote.
If you've heard someone else say it before incorrectly, your
brain might remember the incorrect version, the wrong
version. The next is the misinformation
effect. And this ties into that last
point. When we hear incorrect
information repeatedly, our brain will start to believe that
it's true. And this can happen with all
sorts of stuff like propaganda and even simple things like
these movie quotes. If people keep saying the same
incorrect thing, we start to think about it as the correct
thing. I believe there's a quote, you
know, if you say something enough or as many times or many
times, it becomes true or people start to believe it.
The final theory is a little bit crazy.
And the one which is quite associated with this Mandela
Effect, and this is parallel universe theories.
And some people believe that the Mandela Effect is proof of
alternate realities. The idea is that we remember
details from a different version of reality.
And while this sounds like science fiction, so science
fiction is a type of story about the future or imaginary science.
So while this sounds like science fiction, the concept of
multiple realities does exist in theoretical physics.
So maybe there is some possible truth in this.
So what does this all mean? Are our memories unreliable?
So unreliable means not always correct or trustworthy.
Well, sometimes, yes. The Mandela Effect teaches us
that memory is flexible, it can change, and cultural memory is
shaped, It's changed by storytelling.
And this is the the way a group of people remember history.
And if we're all telling the incorrect version of the story,
it starts to become our collective memory.
What we all remember, the way that we remember words or sorry.
The final point is, the way that we remember words, phrases, and
events is also often based on how we expect them to be.
So the next time you're sure about something, ask yourself,
is it real? Or is it just what I've always
believed? If you enjoyed this episode and
you want more advanced discussions, check out our
Patreon exclusive podcast series.
And there I am, covering on Patreon deeper language
insights, some fascinating psychological, political and
scientific topics, and more real natural English at an advanced
level. This main podcast will always
stay free and accessible for everyone, and I will continue to
make podcasts at a level that are inclusive for lots of
different language learners. But if you want to take the next
step and take your English up to that more advanced listening and
understanding, go to the Patreon link that's in the description.
And of course, this helps support this project and it lets
me make more content for you guys.
I really appreciate it. I couldn't do this show and I
couldn't do this project without you.
So thank you so much for listening.
I hope you check it out and I will see you in the next episode
of the Easy English Podcast. Have an amazing rest of your
day, goodbye.