sjsprWriting

Once, there was a husband and a wife who were walking through New York City in the sidewalk next to Central Park. As he was watching the trees and the beauty of Central Park, he called for his wife to look at the trees, but she was looking the other way towards a building that was across the avenue. She was waiving her hand slightly towards a person. He soon realized this person was a famous actress, Sandra Bullock. As he noticed it was Sandra Bullock, he also noticed she was began waiting back to his wife. "I didn't know he personally new her?" he thought to himself, and he wondered why she had never mentioned it to him. Sandra Bullock began moving her hands faster until it turned into a sure and secure wave, with her hands extended, as if she got so excited she saw his wife. She looked like two people do after they haven't seen each other for a long time. His wife began to wave back, and he could tell she was excited to have finally seen her long time friend he did not know she had. All of a sudden, a cab approaches and stops in front of Sandra, she gets in the cab, and leaves. Turns out, Sandra had been waiving for a cab, and had never really seen his wife. He laughed uncontrollably at his wife, and told this story to multiple friends at a family dinner.

When they leave the family dinner, his wife tells him "Hey, what are you doing? Why are you lying to them. We both know that is my story and you were never there. I told you this when it happened in a phone call."

The husband says "No way, that is impossible, I was there..."

"No you weren't... When I was walking alone during my time in New York City five years ago when I had that job interview, I went by myself. And I remember that when it happened, I was walking alone, and a crowd of people saw the incident and laughed histerically at me. I remember it was the most embarrassing moment of my life."

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As the husband tells me his story, I immediatly said " Robert, how did you describe what she was wearing again?" 

"I remember it perfectly. She was wearing a tight blue dress, and it had an intercalated black lace passing through the entire left side of her dress." 

"You do realize there was no way you could have seen such detail from the distance you were standing right?" I said

He laughed admittingly and said to me "I know, I know. Now I realize it, my wife must have through I was crazy" 

I think it was so funny that he wasn't there and thought he was. This just proves that memories can be all just fragments and parts of a reality that mostly constitutes of our imagination. The wife must have told it so perfectly that he almost felt he ws there with her. How did he picture such details in her dress? It is all part of his preconception of what Sandra Bullock would have been wearing if he ever spotted her in New York. It was all just part  of his imagination that he turned into a reality in his head. 

This is quite astonishing and scary to me. How do we know for sure that our memories of the past are true or if they are just part of our brain's creativity? 

This has actually happned to me before. I've had many memories from my childhood that I have shared with my mom and she tells me: "Ummmm.... No? That never happened sweety." And I have had to fight or it. The scary thing is that as she tells me the true version, my previous memory of that moment becomes altered and adjusted to what she tells me. I think that is how you can know whether a memory is a true one or not. When you question it all the time and then hear someone else's version of it, and it alters your version, that is when you know it was never real. Your brain adjusts it, and it is almost telling you "whoops, sorry I lied, let me adjust it" or "whoops, technical difficulties. Let me fix that."