The Memory Illusion
- alicepailhes
- Apr 6
- 3 min read
Have you ever had an argument with someone… only to realize you both remember the same event completely differently?
Or stumbled upon an old photo and thought, “Wait, I don’t remember it like that at all”?
That’s not bad memory. That’s just memory.Because memory isn’t a recording. It’s a reconstruction — and every time we access it, we risk changing it.
🧠 Your Brain, the Storyteller
We like to think of our memories as facts stored in a mental filing cabinet. But in reality, memory is more like a story your brain rewrites each time you tell it. A flexible, adaptive narrative that shifts subtly with emotion, suggestion, repetition, and time.
This is what psychologists call memory malleability — the idea that our memories are not fixed snapshots, but living documents. And this isn’t just about forgetting dates or misremembering outfits. We’re talking about inserting entire details, changing people’s words, and sometimes even remembering events that never happened at all.
In one now-famous study, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus and her colleagues demonstrated just how fragile — and persuadable — memory can be.
They asked participants to recall several childhood events provided by a trusted family member. Unbeknownst to the participants, one of those events was completely fabricated: a story about getting lost in a shopping mall at around age 5, crying, being rescued by an elderly stranger, and being reunited with their family.
At first, most participants said they didn’t remember this ever happening. But after some gentle prompting — “Try to remember… do you see the mall? Do you remember the man who helped you?” — something remarkable happened.
❗About 25% of participants came to believe the event had actually happened.
Some even began to add new details: what the stranger looked like, what store they were in, how they felt at the time. In essence, their brain began to construct a memory — not from experience, but from suggestion.
It was one of the first studies to show how easily false memories can be implanted… and how real they can feel once they take root.
As someone who studies the psychology of magic, I’ve seen this play out on stage and in labs alike. Magicians carefully misdirect your attention in the moment — and then rely on memory distortion to cement the illusion.
But here’s the real twist: our minds do this to us every day.We’re constantly editing and revising the stories we tell about our past — and ourselves. Sometimes, this is protective. Sometimes, it holds us back. And sometimes, it gives us just the illusion of knowing who we are.
✨ Why This Matters
Memory malleability isn’t just a cognitive quirk. It’s at the root of how we form beliefs, assign blame, experience relationships, and construct identity.
When you understand how malleable your memory is, something incredible happens: You become a little less certain — and a lot more curious.
You stop chasing truth as a fixed thing, and start exploring it as something crafted, fluid, and surprisingly creative.
📘 A Sneak Peek into my next book
This is one of the ideas I explore in a chapter of my upcoming book Everyday Magic (working title)— where I look at how illusions shape not just what we see, but what we remember, believe, and become.
In a world overflowing with information, distraction, and emotion, knowing how your mind edits reality might just be the most powerful kind of magic there is.
✨ Let’s keep pulling on the threads.Subscribe to the newsletter to be the first to read about the next chapter!
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