Memory is not a recording. It's a reconstruction — influenced by subsequent experience, emotional state, the stories you've been told, what you needed to believe. False memories are not lies. They're the natural result of the mind's editing process. The past you remember is real to you. It may not match anyone else's version.

Anonymous thoughts about false memory posted here are from people who have confronted the gap between what they remember and what appears to have happened — the honest account of a past that isn't entirely reliable.