So, we’ve all been in this situation before, your with a group of friends and sharing stories about days gone by and someone tells a story that you were a part of. The only problem is you don’t quite remember it the same way the person who’s telling the story does, you stop them and interject details you feel were missed or important. Your friend says “that’s not how I remember it!” and goes on. They weren’t being a jerk, and neither were you, you are both victims of Malleable Memory.
Now, this does not mean what you remember didn’t happen. Just that it may not have happened exactly the way you remember, or the way others remember it happening for that matter. See, our memories can be subjective most of the time. Details about events can be diminished or exaggerated based off of predispositions, how preoccupied you were at the time, and even our emotional state during the events were trying to remember. When I was in High School one of my classes took part in a national project called “The 9/11 Project”. Our teachers had us write a detailed summery of where we were, what we were doing, and what happened the morning the towers fell. Then 2 years later we were asked to write our memories of that day and compare details. Everyone in my class had written slightly different transcripts of the events according to their own memories. It wasn’t that we were lying about the events, we just couldn’t connect all the dots immediately so our brains did it for us. No one is safe from this, it happens to everyone because our memories are constantly being stored away and recalled in a cycle that, over time, causes those memories to degrade. It even ca
uses us to mismatch people, events, and places in those memories and each time this happens the memory is cataloged away in our brains as “authentic”.
So at this point your probably asking yourself “why is this article posted to a Paranormal/Cryptozoological page?”. I’m glad you asked, in the study of such sensitive topics we have to do our absolute best to maintain the integrity of every finding, experience, and encounter to our upmost ability. That means that we need to document as much information possible as quickly as possible. Often times were found investigating incidents that can be decades old and being recalled from memory alone. This presents all of the issues that were addressed earlier because our memories are time sensitive and malleable, field investigators can often be lead in various wrong directions because of this at no fault of the witness. So If you have had an encounter with anything Wild & Weird go write it down in a journal, send it in an email, make any kind of physical copy you can to preserve the integrity of that event.
Stay Wild & Weird- Joe Perdue
If you’ve had a sighting or encounter you want preserved and recorded you can also follow this link https://wildandweirdwv.com/sightings-and-reports or contact us a wildandweird@gmail.com.