Warning: You Can’t Trust Your Memory — Here’s the Science That Proves It
Much of what you remember is made up and never happened.
“I know what I saw.”
No, you don’t.
“YES. I DO!”
No, you don’t!
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!? I remember it as if it was yesterday!”
Look, I’m sorry to tell you, but just because you have a vivid picture in your mind — just because you can close your eyes and experience it all over again — that doesn’t make it true. You don’t have a video recorder installed in your cranium. The human brain just doesn’t work like that.
“But… But… It feels so real…”
I know. I know. And I’m not saying nothing happened. All I’m saying is that your memory could be distorted. There might be some grain of truth in there, or a mountain of truth, but without external corroborating evidence we can’t know. You can’t trust your memory. And you can’t trust other people’s memories either.
If you don’t believe me, don’t take it from me. Take it from Elizabeth Loftus, the most influential female psychology researcher of the twentieth century¹ and a world renowned expert in how lousy human memory is. This is what she said in her TED talk:
