Weird, unexplained memory?

I for some reason have this memory that I could've sworn was real, but actually isn't.

When I was much younger, my father used to smoke cigarettes. I have this vivid memory of my father one day relaxing in the house, smoking a cigarette. I remember him wearing a green tank top and some shorts as he was smoking.

When I try to explain this to the rest of my family, they all say that it was impossible, because in reality, I wasn't even born yet, and that it was actually my older brother who remembers that, which makes me extremely confused.

If I wasn't even alive yet, then how come I remember that event happening so clearly as if it actually had happened?

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ForeverOnMyGuard · 22-25, F

Memory is very unreliable. Everyone has memories as a child they swear were real, but were actually created after hearing a story or being guided into believing it happened. Your brother may have said something about what he saw, you stored the information into long term memory, and then at retrieval, remembered it differently (meaning that instead of his memory, it became yours).

Omg I will come back with a picture of an example I have to get my psychology book. We just did the chapter on memory so I'm getting all of this directly from a psychology textbook

ForeverOnMyGuard · 22-25, F

Alice · 51-55, F

Mandela Effect?

MegaManX97 · 26-30, M

That's what I was kind of thinking after doing a bit of research on it. Crazy to think about.

hami1091 · 41-45, F

Perhaps he wore similar clothes or even the same ones during a point in both yours and your brothers early years. :/

MegaManX97 · 26-30, M

I don't know. Everyone is saying that by the time I was born, my father had already quit smoking.

hami1091 · 41-45, F

@MegaManX97: Oh I see. Well perhaps he was sneaking one and you saw him.

MegaManX97 · 26-30, M

I had that thought too, but I have doubts about it. Considering at the time, we lived in a small apartment, and we were all very small and young, and my mother at the time wasn't even working, it would've been obvious if he was smoking to everyone else.

Mondayschild · F

Since babies can hear while they are still in the woman, I having nothing to prove this but, I think it would be clear, that a woman caring for the baby would almost understand thought from Mother to child.

SStarfish ·

idk maybe you saw a photo of it?

MegaManX97 · 26-30, M

It wasn't a photo. I remember physically being there.

SStarfish ·

idk

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