Opinions Writer 

Imagine waking up and your brother is no longer in existence. Your parents ask you what you are talking about, and state that you have never had a brother named John. 

“Are you okay, honey?” they ask you with very concerned expressions on their faces. 

This has happened to normal people like you and me who are experiencing a shift in reality that is described using the term Mandela Effect. Most Mandela Effect examples are small and do not have huge implications and effects on our day-to-day lives. Some people, however, have experienced extreme examples such as a now nonexistent family memory or a spouse who is completely different from the person they were married to yesterday. 

You could attribute these anomalies to a mental illness, but there are plenty of people out there experiencing this phenomena that are normal people just like you and me. Can you imagine waking up and your mother no longer has curly hair, or your dad now drives a Jeep when you know for certain he drove a Honda yesterday? 

YouTuber thettruthergirls made a video about how her father’s entire life story changed, and another Youtuber perrrfection claims that her husband is no longer the same person. Another YouTuber, Cheyenna Joy, says that her name has changed. 

These are all things that are pretty difficult to just not remember correctly, but you are welcome to watch their videos and decide for yourself. 

Rather than focus on the more extreme examples, I want to highlight some of the more common examples for those of you who are new to this phenomenon. Do you remember the book series you read as a child about the family of bears who taught us all important life lessons and manners? What were they called? The Beren____ Bears. You fill in the gap. For those of you who filled it in with STAIN, you either have a more accurate memory than I do, or you are from this timeline and/or dimension. I remember it as many others do as Berenstein Bears.

There are other examples, such as the death of Nelson Mandela, the example that gave the Mandela Effect its name. When do you remember him dying? Do you remember him dying in prison? Well, if you do, you are a sufferer of the Mandela Effect because he actually died Dec. 5 in 2013. 

Or how about the popular cleaner Ox_clean? Is it spelled with a “y” or is it spelled with an “i”? There is a popular YouTuber who claims that he had a picture of himself with a container of Oxiclean (Yes, it is spelled with “i”) before, when it was still a y. One day he looked at this photo and it changed from being an i one morning to being a y the next! This individual could very well be insane or just having a lapse in memory, but he is not alone. 

I would encourage those of you who are new to this phenomenon to delve into and decide for yourself what you think. Ask yourself along your journey whether it makes sense for so many people to have the EXACT same alternate memories. Could that really be a defect in memory or confabulation? Are humans able to somehow by means of a collective conscious remember the exact same incorrect memory by the hundreds of thousands? That seems unlikely to me. 

If it is all true, is it a cause for concern, or should we just be vigilant and keep our eyes open to new changes so that we may better assess how to proceed with our lives in the future? Maybe human beings are ascending this plain of existence. Maybe we are jumping to a new dimension. Maybe someone has traveled back in time and it has screwed up or merged our timelines.

I agree, it’s best to be happy in the face of any dilemma to the best of your ability, because fear or anger won’t solve the problem. I worry, though, that the next generation may not be as concerned about what is going on in the world around them as they should be, and one day they will be the ones to rule it. I hope that articles like this will spark people’s awareness and instigate enough curiosity to push them to investigating matters like this on their own.