#Glitch effect drawing free#

But after discovering that many others shared the same memory, she decided it was instead a glitch in the matrix – a sign consistent with the many-worlds theory of quantum physics that there was a parallel universe in which Mandela had, indeed, died in prison in the 1980s. “Recall is a more active and effortful process than mere recognition.”īroome would have been willing to chalk it up to a glitch in her memory.

#Glitch effect drawing free#

“I thought I remembered it clearly, complete with news clips of his funeral, the mourning in, some riots in cities and the heartfelt speech by his widow,” she wrote on her website, in a post since removed.Īs history records, Mandela died aged 95 – a free man and revered former South African president – in 2013. This was the scenario confronting Fiona Broome in 2009 when she shared her memory online, then subsequently learnt that Nelson Mandela was still alive.īroome, a paranormal researcher, had a distinct memory of the human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner dying in prison in the 1980s. Imagine learning about a famous person’s death, watching footage of the funeral, and listening to the eulogies – then, decades later, finding out that this person had been alive all along.

Denise Cullen investigates this odd, and little-understood, phenomenon. How is it possible to think you’re sure about something, only to learn that your memory’s let you down, and you were wrong all along? False memories can be so convincing that we never think to question their veracity.