[exe34]

Memory is an interesting thing. I once claimed to somebody I was seeing that I had done/said something humorous, fully believing that it was my own experience. It was only when he mentioned hearing that joke from a famous standup comedian that it really hit me - I think what really happened was that I watched a clip a long time ago, and thought hey that's the kind of thing I'd have done - and then proceeded to record the memory as mine, even going as far as attaching it to a specific shop from the same chain in the story.

[m_sahaf]

Once famous incident of this effect is reported by Oliver Sacks, where he confidently narrated a story that presumably happened to him during the war until his brother corrected him:

https://www.wired.com/2015/08/fully-immersive-mind-oliver-sa...

[naikrovek]

i remember reading a study that showed conclusively that verbalizing your memories changes them permanently, every time. at some point, if you talk about a memory enough, you wind up remembering the words you've used to describe the memory far more than you remember the memory itself.

depending on the words you choose to describe the memory, and how much you talk about it, you can dramatically change what you think you saw or heard or experienced, to the point where you're telling something that is based on memory, but is now effectively 100% fiction.

human memory is very, very flawed.

[exe34]

Ian Banks wrote something about how if you live long enough and reminisce enough, your worst memory becomes indistinguishable from your best memory.