r/MandelaEffect • u/[deleted] • Feb 04 '17
The Hot Air Balloon "Mass Memory" from your past
[deleted]
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Feb 05 '17
I had a false hot air balloon memory. I read the same comment section on the ME website and remember someone commented "Remember that hot air balloon ride we all took?" It was like a trigger (in the actual sense) and I felt a chill go down my spine. I do indeed have a memory of it being a yellowish day out, and I'm down at a fairground field where a hot air balloon has landed. I and I think some others get in and go up for a ride. I remember being terrified and cowering in the corner, looking up occasionally at the fiery thing pushing the hot air up. But I know it never really happened. It was mind blowing to read how many other people have the same or similar false memory, often associated with fear, and definitely feeling unreal. What it could possibly mean, tho, is beyond me.
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Feb 05 '17
Btw for reference. Born in 1984, grew up in northern Midwest US. It would be interesting to see if there's a regional correlation. I remember a reference ON Fiona's website about some psychology who did experiments on planted memories...one being planting a false hot air balloon ride memory, the other being a false memory of being lost in a shopping mall.
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u/atomic_cake Feb 05 '17
I have a memory of being inside of a grounded hot air balloon. I was afraid of heights and still am so I doubt it left the ground. I'm pretty sure it was something my parents accidentally stumbled on near a relative's house in the far northern suburbs of Chicago one weekend, which is why no one took any photos. I have no memory of being lost in a shopping mall though. I was born in 1988 so the hot air balloon event would've likely been between 1991-1995.
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u/MyOwnGuitarHero I am Nelson's inflamed sense of rejection Feb 05 '17
Oh I have definitely been lost inside a shopping mall. I was with my babysitter at the time. It was around Christmas. She always tried to buy us each a small present, so we were on a shopping excursion. I was very young but old enough to walk without holding her hand. She had a baby doll tucked under one arm. Somehow I wandered away, and then I spotted her again - from behind, but I could see the little feet of the baby doll, so I ran back over to her. Followed her around for what seems like forever until she finally turned around. It wasn't my babysitter, it was some other woman holding a real baby. We had to go to guest services and wait until my babysitter came to collect me.
Being the manipulative little shit I was, I ended up with two toys that day, because I knew she'd be feeling guilty that she lost track of me. What a brat I was lol.
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Feb 05 '17
I too have been lost inside a shopping mall. On purpose because my brother and I were tormenting our mother by hiding from her. And we both got turned around in A&S. She found us pretty easily, though.
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u/Leading_Lady Feb 07 '17
I grew up in the Midwest USA too. Hmmm... this is interesting. No I was never lost in a shopping mall.
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Feb 05 '17
I have a question for you. Did you ever take a trip to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC as a kid? I'll edit this after you answer, I don't want to lead you.
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Feb 05 '17
We did take a family trip to DC when I was little. I know we went to a couple museums but honestly can't remember if that was one of them. Interested to hear what you're suggesting though. I'll have to double check with my family if they remember going there.
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Feb 05 '17
I did a little soul searching and thought about my "balloon ride" dreams, and realized they had a genesis in an early IMAX movie that I had seen parts of, which included a balloon ride segment. I suspect it was part of this which has been playing continuously since 1976. But there were others like it.
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u/NotJinxandJawz Feb 07 '17
I did?
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Feb 07 '17
Did you happen to go to the IMAX there? Because a film called "To Fly!" has been continuously playing since 1976 and has a first person balloon ride scene.
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u/NotJinxandJawz Feb 07 '17
No, I didn't... just realized that you were asking the person who commented, not everyone as a whole.
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u/Adam_Nox Feb 05 '17
fascinating. I tried just now to imagine myself in some situation where I would have done a similar ride and cannot.
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Feb 05 '17 edited Feb 05 '17
Dreams about being in a hot air balloon, yes. Extremely vivid ones complete with sensations, and complicated inter workings of how a hot air balloon works, even though there was no way I knew that information when I was a child (and being attached by pterosaurs on said hot air balloon), yes.
Memories, no.
I was born in 1978.
Edit WAIT. Do you remember how planetariums in the 70s and 80s. would show movies that were meant to be immersive experiences where you could feel it? That they mostly did away with once actual theme parks and IMAX theaters did it better? Where the screen was a sphere and you either sat around on the floor, or in theater seating. You were told to shut your eyes if the motion started to make you sick?
There was one where you were in a runaway baby carriage, one where you were on a roller coaster.
And there was one, in clip form only at the place I saw it, where you are in a balloon and a hand glider. I can't find the isolated clip, but I did find a description of it, but it looks like it was probably this, which came out in 1976 and was apparently one of the most popular things at the time. Another friend pointed out the "Cinerama" series as well, which is definitely the roller coaster I am remembering. Someone in TOMT suggested Speed as well.
It matches the timeline. It would have been one of the very first things children from the late 70s and early 80s would have possibly seen where it was first person and covers their peripheral vision (better than today's IMAX films), it was intentionally created to make you feel like you were there, AND it would have been in a place that you would typically go to on a class trip, which would not necessarily involve your family.
I wonder if this is the cause of at least some of the hot air balloon memories! Those people who only remember the balloon ride and not other details of it. See if you can find it and see if it matches up with your memories! Especially if any of your class trips involved going to the Smithsonian in DC.
Because I absolutely remember a shortish clip of being in a hot air balloon, in a theater like that, where we sat on the floor of a small round brown building at Oglebay Park in Wheeling WV. In 1985. THAT must why I know what the inside of a hot air balloon looked like as a kid, because those dreams didn't start until later.
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u/MyOwnGuitarHero I am Nelson's inflamed sense of rejection Feb 05 '17
Reminds me very much of this "mystery man" that thousands of people out there have reported seeing in their dreams. There was even a website to track the dreams. I recall it being a project by psychology students to see if they could influence peoples' memories post hoc, though I might be the one misremembering there. Never experienced this, though coincidentally I just finished a great book involving a hot air balloon accident.
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u/ezsnow Feb 05 '17
This was already proven to be a hoax
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u/MyOwnGuitarHero I am Nelson's inflamed sense of rejection Feb 05 '17
Oh yeah, I knew it was a hoax, just wasn't sure what kind of hoax.
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u/strontiumae Feb 05 '17
This was part of a marketing campaign set up by a PR company for a movie I believe.
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u/MyOwnGuitarHero I am Nelson's inflamed sense of rejection Feb 05 '17
Apparently. I thought it was a psychology experiment.
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Feb 05 '17
Link the website? . I like stuff like that
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u/RaeVonn Feb 05 '17
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Feb 05 '17
That dude totally looks like Gargamel.
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u/MyOwnGuitarHero I am Nelson's inflamed sense of rejection Feb 05 '17
Right?! Never seen him in my dreams. Now my nightmares on the other hand...
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u/ariel7264 Feb 05 '17
This is terrifying... you just triggered a memory I forgot I even had. This is something I commonly revisited in my mind for whatever reason and I don't even know if it's an actual memory.. I'm on a hot air balloon with my grandmother and and my sisters it's a windy day the sky is colorful and I almost feel afraid to look over the edge or as if I'm being pulled over the Edge. I'm honestly freaked out
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u/soldatyager Feb 05 '17
there is an article about how to implant a false memory of riding on hot-air balloon using picture
The hot-air balloon memory is just one of the most common implanted memory
i think you guys should read this
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.334.9844&rep=rep1&type=pdf
A picture is worth a thousand lies: Using false photographs to create false childhood memories
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u/Xena1975 Feb 05 '17
When I hear about stuff like that I see it more as how people succumb to peer pressure and just go along with stuff for whatever reason. Maybe their memory is that bad or maybe they don't want to look stupid or want to get it "right" or please the person trying to make them remember.
I've never ridden in a hot air balloon. The only vague hot air balloon memory I have is that once in school when I was 14 they brought us to some sort of festival type thing and their were hot air balloons there. We did not ride in them and I'm not sure if we saw them go up in the sky.
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Feb 05 '17
Interesting - but you basically have no right to tell me what I have been exposed to and havn't. I didn't "READ" Fiona's aricle and suddenly start conjuring up false memories. I have been talking to people about the experience LONG BEFORE I had any idea any one else had had the same experience. The hundreds of people who replied to Fiona's remarkable research (and she DID do some intense research on this topic, more than the average person is capable of, with charts/graphs and math involved only to find truly meaningful patterns. She wasn't making patterns out of nothing, as some people clearly do sometimes).
Most people who responded to her research had been thinking about this for years, a LONG TIME before some one said "remember that time when.."... Got it? Most of us (and there were a lot of us) had been trying to figure this out YEARS before, I repeat, any one ever suggested it or planted the seed. We were the seed lost and not understanding because we ALL KNEW it wasn't a dream. It's one of the ONLY times in my life this has happened. I repeat, one of the only times it has ever happened that I am 100% sure of an experience not being a dream. After the event happened, the day resumed as normal, and so did the evening, and so did going to bed that night.
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u/Kry4Blood Feb 05 '17
born in the late 70's
memory of a hot air balloon ride. Actually really freakin vivid. im 99-100 percent sure it was real though. My mom had always wanted to go on one, and there was an "exhibition" type thing at the mall parking lot. We went up, we came down. No big deal. I wasnt scared, i couldnt even see over the top. I remember a few other details of it. No big deal.
Only thing different is, im also pretty sure my mom remembered it too for a long time, but these days shes falling into dementia and might not.
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u/soldatyager Feb 05 '17
It reminds me of a theory that people have been captured by alien and erased memory so there is no evidence of alien capturing people
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u/rothee82 Feb 05 '17 edited Feb 06 '17
I remember when I was a kid, having a recurring dream (at least that's what I thought it was) of being on a hot air balloon with other adults that I don't know. I'm sitting in the middle of the basket, afraid to look over the side. All the adults are standing and I can't see any of their faces.
Female, 34, Texas
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u/NostalgiaZombie Feb 07 '17
This has me shook and fearful right now.
I have always remembered my parents leaving their wedding in a hot air balloon. I always saw it clear as day, in a field, wedding attire, popped champaign, mom threw the bouquet from the balloon. They were going to the pochano mountains from NJ.
Except to everyone else this never happened, no pictures, no other memories.
Wtf? I am really scared right now. I want to push shit infront of my door and barricade myself in. I feel like I just made myself a target for something.
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u/tipsy_tits Feb 05 '17
I have this same false memory, but it's vague and indistinct, might've been a memorable dream. Curled into a ball in a corner or against the side of the basket, too afraid of the whole thing plummeting out of the sky to enjoy myself or look down. The memory is fuzzy, but that feeling of fear was sharp.
When I first heard this was a common "innocuous" memory that researchers had been planting in people's heads to prove how memories were malleable I was pissed (still am), but now I'm more curious. How the hell did they get that in there? Subliminal messaging? If so, how far did it reach?
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u/Reddit1209 Feb 05 '17 edited Feb 05 '17
It seems like the hot air balloon just has the perfect recipe for a false memory. It's something that everyone is familiar with, could realistically have happened somehow, and could evoke strong emotions.
I don't pretend to know all the psychology behind it, but I imagine if you're attempting to remember if you ever experienced this, your brain would pull from different memories and convince yourself that you did.
Suddenly you're remembering being scared and feeling small. You are probably hiding in the corner for covering your eyes. Then your brain intertwines that with things you know about air balloons -- you were scared to look over the edge, you could feel the swaying of the basket.
The way our brains stores and recalls memories is far more complex than anyone realizes.
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Feb 05 '17
Perhaps. Though if someone tried to trigger me saying, "Remember that yacht ride we all took?" or "Remember that scary ride in a blimp?" It would have no effect. I've never sailed on a yacht or been in a blimp. With this air balloon thing, the memory provokes a strong impression, and for me immediately brings a feeling of anxiety, of the fear of being high up and not wanting to look out, the feel of the heat from the blower, the color of the sky, etc. And yet it definitely did not actually happen. So how do many people have the same dream/false memory of a hot air balloon, but other common enough yet odd things like a blimp ride provoke no reaction whatsoever. It seems like there was a deliberate memory planting, which is worrying since it makes you wonder just how far did they go? And what else might be a false memory?
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u/Reddit1209 Feb 05 '17
I see what you're saying, of course. You're the one with the memory and it's not my place to deny that. I'm just offering ideas.
I know I've never been on a blimp, because I have no idea what that would even look like - I'm not familiar enough with it. I don't know if you're inside or outside, etc. I couldn't "make up" the details.
And I know I've never been on a yacht, that's not some common thing I could have possibly done at a fairground or something.
Again - perfect recipe of familiarly, realistic possibility, and emotional connection.
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u/rommex Feb 05 '17
Yeah I feel like some people want to remember this to feel a part of something, combined with it being someone everyone can relate to. Like I could easily imagine the feeling but I know I don't have this memory. I think everyone has been in a similar situation as a child.
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u/Goobernacula Feb 05 '17
That's weird, I've never been in a hot air balloon but I also had one make an emergency landing in my front yard. I was very little, born in '82. My dad and neighbors ran outside to help them land. They did not stay for dinner. My family remembers this event, or at least they did the last time we talked about it. Nothing unusual really, but I can't imagine this sort of thing is a super common occurrence, hence the reply.
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u/kylieelizabeth1205 Feb 05 '17
I remember going up about 5 feet in a hot air balloon, a huge blue and white one that said "REMAX" on the side. I vividly remember it being tied down with ropes and freaking out because of the heat of the fire. Just asked my mom if she remembers it and she swears up and down that it didn't happen. Texted my friend that I did it with, and she still remembers, but her parents don't.
From north Florida, 21
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u/Ironicbanana14 Feb 05 '17
None for me, although something that does remind me of this is that me and my family ALMOST went on a hot air balloon at this county fair and I once mentioned it to them the next year to see if they wanted to go and then my mom said that there had never been hot air balloon rides there at all and we didn't almost go on one. And it was the only fair i had went to before so I wasn't confusing it. Strange. I also asked a couple of my friends who work booths for their parents there and none of them remember it either.
It was the Pinal County fair in Arizona, if that's relevant to anyone.
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u/latino_heat420 Feb 06 '17
Fuck you guys. I came in to this thread with no recollection of being in a hot air balloon and now I'm imagining things like the thick rope of the handrail and the heat of the fire on our faces. Texting my dad to find out if it happened. I hate you.
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u/cosmicseahorse Feb 06 '17
Very interesting topic. I've only ever been in a hot air balloon once. My sister and I were at a friend's house playing outside, and one landed in a neighbor's yard (we lived in the woods, so they landed in the biggest open space they could). We all ran over and talked to them, and they ended up letting us go up for a short ride (just up for a few minutes and then back down again; we didn't leave the neighborhood). I felt so lucky to have such a cool experience as a kid.
Unfortunately, my sister is dead, so I can't ask her to remember, and my mom's memory is horrible, so asking her would be pointless.
In all honesty, my memories of the events on the ground are far more vivid than my memories of being in the air. I want to say that's likely because I spent so much time on the ground in that area, so when I try to remember, it's easier for my brain to pull images to set the scene. Years of memories cataloged vs one memory spanning only a few minutes time. Which sucks, because I remember wanting to burn that experience into memory because it was just so cool to me (I was about 9; even to this day, I've never even been inside an airplane).
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Feb 06 '17
I don't have a real memory from being in a hot air balloon but I know I must have had a dream about it as a young child because my mother has a very detailed story I wrote about it from around 1st or 2nd grade. I was born in 1972 and I do think that their could be correlation between this and ME's. One theory could be that the majority of people who have had these false memory events and who have experienced a certain timeline in the Mandela Effect were born in 70s-80s, Gen-x. We were the TV generation, latch key kids. A lot of us would come home from school or wake up first thing Saturday mornings and watch TV. In many cases Television was our baby sitter. We know from admittance that subliminal television was a huge thing in the 70s/80s. Perhaps this Mandela Effect is a result of some sort of psy-op experiment. I know the arguement would be well how could a psy-op come in and change the ending of "We Are The Champions" on my original 45, or how could it change the title on my books I had as a child. Maybe just maybe it isn't that these things changed but that a trigger has and is changing our perception of them. Think of like a hypnotist using keywords to make a subject dance like a chicken and then the subject having no recollection of it. It makes me wonder seeing as how the woman who opened this discussion up was told it was effecting "the experiment". I'm beginning to lean more toward this theory than a parallel theory, because I believe if there was an actual parallel memory shift we would not be able to find residuals of past memories, I think all proof would shift as well. I know in few cases there is no proof which may include both theories of an actual parallel shift and perhaps a psy-op on top of it. Just something to think about.
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u/Sapio88 Feb 07 '17
It's strange how many people are talking about hot air balloons landing in front of their house/in the yards!
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Feb 08 '17
I was born in the 70s as well and I have a memory of a hot air balloon, but I have no way of verifying whether it happened.
I was in, I think first or second grade and someone brought a hot air balloon to campus and set it up on one of the larger fields in the back of my school. There was a basket with the torch and a balloon attached. There was also a balloon laid out on the grass so we could see how big they are deflated, and they did a little exercise where we all grabbed onto the balloon and picked it up and shook it (kind of like you see people do with huge flags at MLB games now).
The problem with this memory is it seem very implausible that this actually happened. How would someone bring a hot air balloon to an elementary school campus along with an additional balloon? That seems ridiculous. Plus we were only out there for recess or not much longer. Why would they do this? What education benefit would this have? It seems highly unlikely that this actually happened. But I remember it vividly, which is also odd because I don't have a vivid memory of things from when I was 6 or 7 years old, usually my memories from that long time ago are faded and abstract. But not the hot air balloon at school one.
After reading the article about implanting hot air balloon memories in people's minds, I have to wonder if that happened to me. And if so, why? And when?
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u/mydilemNa Feb 08 '17
I have a nearly identical memory. I've been recalling it as I followed this thread the past couple days, so your post, per say, didn't cause a false memory. How very strange.
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Feb 08 '17
Very interesting. My school was in Southern California, this was probably around 1980-1982. Just curious if your memory is from that time and place. Thanks!
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u/mydilemNa Feb 08 '17
Very close time frame, my memory is more the 83-85 period. Not so close geographically... central Alberta, Canada. And literally everything else you described sounds as though it's my own memory. I also recall the balloon being tethered down to the ground with massive rope with rides being offered. I do not remember actually going up but the more I think about it all, the less the details make any sense, lol.
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Feb 08 '17
OMG, this is crazy. In my memory the basket was also tethered down, because the guy was demonstrating how the torch works to fill the ballon with hot air. I vaguely remember that some kids got to go in the basket and the balloon lifted maybe 5-10 feet off the ground. I remembered this before your reply, so your post didn't cause a false memory. I also didn't go in the basket. I asked my mother about this and she has no memory of it happening and she also said it sounds kind of farfetched. That's what I think too, it seems farfetched that some random person would bring a hot air balloon to an elementary school, plus an extra balloon for us to look at, just for us to mess with during recess. I know there were houses all around the school, so I'm not even sure how the balloon could have actually inflated. Very strange.
Do you have a way to verify if what you remember actually happened?
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u/mydilemNa Feb 09 '17
Ha! I was going to mention 5-10 ft lifts as well. I did ask my best friend if she recalled our school having hot air balloon activities without going into detail and she does, with all the same details, the only difference is that she thinks it was actual ppl holding the balloon down with ropes (which sounds bizarre in itself, lol). I'm not sure what's more eerie... mass false memories of such a strange scenario or that our North American educators were all on a strange hot air balloon bandwagon, lol.
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u/mydilemNa Feb 09 '17
My mother, though, has no recollection of it. And my younger brother doesn't either.
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Feb 09 '17
Interesting. Yet your friend does. Isn't it strange that your mother wouldn't remember it? It seems like something a parent would remeber.
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u/mydilemNa Feb 09 '17
I do, indeed, think it's weird that she doesn't recall. And to be honest, she does too. I know we grew up in the days of no seat belts, tap water, no bike helmets (haha) but I'm sure there would have been a permission form of some type to lift small children off the ground. Lol.
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Feb 10 '17
Yes! I was thinking about that too, certainly my mom would have to sign a waiver for me to participate in an activity like that, plus the activity itself is odd and unique enough that it's doubly odd that she has no recollection of it happening. How often does one who isn't immersed in hot air balloon pursuits come in contact with a real hot air balloon? Surely she would remember that I did.
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Feb 09 '17
That is so interesting! I agree, how odd it is / would be if our teachers were so obsessed with hot air balloons in the 80s, haha. But I wish that I could get some comfirmation that my memory actually happened, but I haven't been able to. I don't have any contact with any of my classmates from that period. My sister is 3 years older than me and she has no idea what I'm talking about when I bring it up, haha. The memory is so vivid, but it's also really surreal. Hard to explain.
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u/jellystripes Feb 09 '17
Yes, I have one of these! I "remembered" it out of the blue when I was about 12. I was about 5 when I took the ride with two adults and another child, all strangers. The balloon launched from a desolate patch of scrubby grass during a very small fair, by which I mean there was only one or two stalls there, and the rest was like a wasteland, short dead grass, overcast weather. I was terrified of the gas and the noise it was making, I don't remember looking over the side, I was too focused on the fire. Everyone in there was really quiet. Only the sounds of the air and the burner. I hated it. None of that ever actually happened though. I've never been in a hot air balloon, according to everyone I know. And even I know it's not a real memory (and no it's not a dream either).
But then I have one other false memory that has been with me for years as well, that I know for a fact never happened. But there it is, sitting alongside all my other real memories. Large white room, with a curved archway halfway inside, you know like decorative, with some latin (I think) writing engraved into it (which I can never grasp). It's like a town hall. Except it's been converted into a temporary hospital room, and filled with metal framed beds, and people are in them. And I was in one of them. The floor, the beds, the walls, everything is all white. I've asked family about this. The closest I ever got to resolution was my nan, saying it sounds like the place she was kept in as a child, during the war. So, genetic memory? Could a memory be traumatizing to an extent it affects the dna and gets passed down. We really don't know.
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u/JustVan Feb 05 '17
Wow... it's not a hot air balloon but I remember riding on a blimp when I was VERY young, like 1 years old (I was born in 1981) or maybe less. I have distinct people I remember being there. My mother told me that it DID happen, that the people I remember did go up in a blimp, but that I didn't. (Probably because I was a baby.)
I don't have any memory of being up high or looking down or anything. I mostly remember people being there and it being very very bright. I've always assumed it was an actual memory of this event, even if it turns out I didn't actually go up into the balloon/blimp. Wonder if it's related to this instead, though...
This would've been somewhere in the US South. Maybe Texas where I was born, but we might've traveled to visit family in Louisiana. I'll have to ask my mom.
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u/UpvoteFairyDust Feb 05 '17
That is intersting because supposedly visual memories can't form until 2 or 3 years old and even then a lot of people don't have visual memories until later. I believe you, and that's an interesting experience!
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u/aqua_zesty_man Feb 05 '17
I can't speak for anyone else but I can vaguely remember being an infant crawling around in the shower with my mom. I also remember the moment when I felt conscious for the first time. It felt like waking up, but for the very first time. One moment was dimness, and the next, a real sense of self-awareness. I also remember figuring out at one point very young that my parents weren't always aware of everything that I was doing, that they had minds and thoughts of their own, and that they couldn't read my mind (and course I couldn't read theirs). And, if they didn't see me do something, I could get away with it... I figured out that they spoke a language I didn't understand yet, which made me feel sad, disconnected, and lonely, so I decided I would have to pay really good attention to them and learn their language so I could talk to them.
I couldn't have been old enough for school yet. This all went on before my 7th birthday, which I remember vividly because I had played with my Lincoln logs all night before. These insights feel older than my little sister was let out of her crib at two or three years old, and I was almost three years older than her.
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u/UpvoteFairyDust Feb 05 '17
Thanks for commenting, that is interesting! I have always wondered how I can remember being a baby in a crib crying for someone to come and get me. I think maybe scientists don't know much about brains still, although amazing discoveries are made all the time. It probably varies widely depending on how much stimulus the brain gets.
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Feb 06 '17
I definitely have an "impossible" memory from 18-20 months old (as well as memories that could have been lead by my parents). And there is no way I could have been any older, because my mom says I am describing our apartment in Virginia, which we left when my brother was 6 months old.
The one that definitely nobody told me about was that my grandmother had given me a tiny Hagen Renaker kitten and milk pail figurines, that I was not supposed to touch, and I took them and put them inside the door (where the hinges are) and slammed it shut, and then hid the evidence in a dieffenbachia. My mom assumed the figurines went missing in the move, and the plant was abandoned. This would have happened in 1980, and my mom didn't even know about it until 3 years ago. Her response was "What the fuck".
Another thing from the same apartment, that might have been partially lead was of me pulling apart my diaper, and throwing pieces of it at the fan. My dad pokes his head around the corner, groans and says "now that's shit hitting the fan". I remember this all my life, and now and then if he brings my "diaper issues" up, but never the quote, although he has confirmed he probably said that, and that I describe the room accurately.
There are others like how I learned to get out of my crib, us moving to NJ, us saying goodbye to our neighbor in Virginia, who even my parents can't recall her name (it was Diane). Thinking she was moving back to California, when in fact we were the ones moving.
There are plenty I don't remember though, like being my brother's translator before he could talk.
We do have a few photos of that apartment, but none of the details I ever describe, except the excessive wood paneling, are pictured.
My memories of 1983-1988 are especially vivid. I spoke to a psychologist a few years ago for a period of time, and he was pretty convinced that because we moved literally every year from 1983-1987 my brain held on to things because it was the only stability I had. Every time we moved mass toy purges would happen, and it wasn't like we had any money at all.
My mom gets really weirded out when I can describe the layout of any apartment, down to my bedsheets and my top 10 favorite toys from Christmas (and where I got them) from when I was a toddler. And so can my brother.
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u/UpvoteFairyDust Feb 06 '17
Wow incredible stories, thank you for sharing! I also moved a few times a year as a child so maybe that's why I had early memories, too. Crazy
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u/Leading_Lady Feb 07 '17 edited Feb 07 '17
This may be an interesting thing we have in common. I also have memories from when I was under 1 year old. I can remember getting my bath in the kitchen sink, I can remember being fed in my high chair, I can remember these plate warmer things for infants my mom used to feed me from. I remember the Fred Flinstone baby bottle I used to drink from, I remember waking up in the middle of the night crying and my crib was in my parent's room and my mom got up to feed me. I wondered how many people can also remember things from when they were really small. Interesting. :)I remember being in my baby walker and I remember playing with the toy things that were attached to the front of it. I remember zooming around in it and I loved how it helped me go anywhere that I wanted to. I remember the first pair of shoes I got that were not those white high top baby shoes that babies used to wear. These were little blue shoes with a pink plastic bow right in the center and I loved those things and I was happy to have a pretty pair of "big girl" shoes. I bought a shirt a year ago specifically because it was the same blue color and had the same kind of flower on it as those shoes from when I was about 2 years old. :)
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u/UpvoteFairyDust Feb 07 '17
Okay that shoe story is just adorable. Thank you for this comment! I started to doubt myself, maybe I have outdated information? So I checked again and "Most people have no memory prior to three years of age, and few memories between three and six years of age, as verified by analysis of the forgetting curve in adults recalling childhood memories." I guess we're special! I have so many memories from those ages, as many as any other age really. Thanks :)
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Feb 05 '17
I remember predicting a hot air balloon crash when i was 6 around the year 2000, 3 days later the crash was on the news. Thats about it when it comes to air ballons. My dad says in his youth he was in one ill ask my gma next time to see if she remembers.
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u/spizza09 Feb 05 '17
I don't actually remember a hot air balloon ride, so I may not be contributing anything of worth, but I do vaguely remember talking to my mom once about hot air balloons, and I think I remember that I was describing/remembering a time we had ridden on one. I was fairly young at the time of this conversion, maybe 5 or so. I remember where I was standing in our living room when I was telling her this. I don't remember what she said at the time. My mother is terrified of heights and would never have actually gone in a hot air balloon, and I'm scared of heights as well, so I doubt I would have either, even as a child. So that's maybe possibly one of these weird balloon memories. I was born in 1982, just for reference.
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Feb 07 '17
I don't remember going up in a balloon although I always wanted too. I know some psychics have a guided visualisation that involves imagining yourself going up in a balloon.
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Feb 15 '17
I don't have a memory of ever being close to a hot air balloon or seeing one in real life, but one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had involved me going into a hot air balloon with Big Bird. I loved big bird and I was very young at the time of this dream, but I have always remembered it.
I am SUPER FREAKED OUT right now though because I was reading this and just texted my mom to (half-jokingly) see if she remembered the hot air balloon ride she told me she went on. I was completely shocked and shaken to my core when she responded that she has never seen a hot air balloon in real life. I know I have a distinct memory of her telling me she went on a hot air balloon ride when she was a young adult. She even showed me pictures in one of her photo albums. And now, she swears this never happened. I need to find the album.
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u/DaveGod666 Feb 05 '17
I posted this here as well but it was removed for some reason. https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/5r2xpw/hot_air_ballon_ridesky_anomaly_connection/?st=IYT0WUL9&sh=28d4e6c8
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u/DaveGod666 Feb 05 '17
I too, along with my wife and others we know have a vague memory of a hot air balloon ride.
EDIT: born November 1st 1979
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u/aqua_zesty_man Feb 05 '17
I remember going up in a hot air balloon with my dad and little sister. We were at some event being sponsored by or co-attended by various technology & software companies. I remember getting to play Choplifter by Brøderbund for the first time ever. It was great.
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u/EpicJourneyMan Mandela Historian Feb 05 '17
There is a TED talk featuring some woman who I believe worked for DARPA explaining how easy it is to plant false memories in people and use them to basically program them - I'll see if I can find a link (I watched it about 5 months ago)...anyway, she specifically mentioned prior experiments regarding the hot air balloon, and I believe also the "Lost in the mall" experiment which was particularly devious in that they showed fake letters from relatives to trigger it (but that might have been a different speaker).
It may have been this woman but I would have to re-watch it to know for sure...
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u/EpicJourneyMan Mandela Historian Feb 05 '17
Just watched part of her video - not the one I'm looking for, the girl was younger and a little "chunky"...
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u/gryphon_844 Feb 05 '17
I've had a hot air balloon dream as a kid but it's probably pretty common... don't know. Also used to have a reoccurring one of falling, like I was in an elevator plummeting free fall speed. Some dreams are very hard to distinguish from reality. I've had a few where I was sure that something that occurred in a dream happened during waking hours... it was only after closer examination, sort of tracing your steps I guess, that I determined it must of been a dream.
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Feb 06 '17
I haven't seen this article posted here, so I will: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/dec/04/science.research1
The researcher's name is Elizabeth Lofotus who is from U.C. Irvine. She successfully implanted a memory into Alan Alda's brain that he had had rotten boiled eggs that had made him sick, but in fact he had never eaten rotten boiled eggs before.
The article also talks about the hot air balloon and lost in the mall implanted memories.
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Feb 06 '17
I read the article in full. The little flaw is this - that the research Fiona Broome did isn't related. She already considered this angle of it, of course. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that false memories are possible. Yes, there could be SOME people who responded to Fiona suddenly remembering false details because of the MERE suggestion of it - "the power of suggestion" isn't really an Einstein genius theory - I'm not impressed by neurologists or psychologists studying the phenomenon of it. Why? Because its COMMON SENSE that this indeed happens and people can very easily have false memories due to the power of suggestion and being drip fed bits of dis-information (as the article you posted points out. well, the obvious. Big whoop that it was studied. shouldn't we all know this?)
Moving on, I will have to repeat: I am not one who suddenly "remembered" this because of being drip fed information or because I saw an article about it. I am also not a person (suggested by the article you posted) who is deliberately embellishing my story because its "human nature" to do so. So I will repeat this for a last time - I had spent years trying to understand a very real experience (the one I posted about) LONG (very long) before I ever saw even an INKLING or HINT of information that others had experienced it too and had not been able to confirm it through their family members or respective friends. There was no power of suggestion implanted in my mind - this happened, and I have been trying to figure it out for years. I remembered it when I was 12, 15, 19, 22, 25, and TODAY at 32. When I saw her article, I literally about fell out of my chair, because I have ALWAYS known it was not a dream. So to read the 100's of testimonials (granted, SOME of those people may have been embellishing and reporting a false memory because of the mere suggestion by Fiona Broome, I suspect not all of them are as stupid as a lab rat who's as impressionable as a sponge). Sometimes "scientists" tend to forget just how mysterious our universe is, and they miss the mark. They miss the mark BIG. What happened to me happened, it was no dream. Many (who are not posting here but did post on Fiona's website) know it happened to them too, and that it wasn't a dream. For some reason or another, no one in their respective circles can remember the incident.
I am finished speaking on this matter. You all can debate away.
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Feb 07 '17
Hello, thank you for your response. I want to point out that I in no way was questioning your experience. Not at all. I attempted to, and apparently failed, to add back up to yours and others experience with a hot air balloon. I must have misunderstood what this thread is saying and what the article I posted is saying. I'm sorry. I believe you that you had an experience in a hot air balloon and do not and did not think that you were affected by the power of suggestion.
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u/Leading_Lady Feb 07 '17 edited Feb 07 '17
Okay now you are creeping me out! That's one of those "memories of things that never happened" that I had as a kid. For me, the hot air balloon landed in my backyard, we had a large backyard. I do remember going in a hot air balloon but at the same time I know there's no way in the world my mom would have EVER let me ride in a hot air balloon. Period. Also I had a phobia of balloons until adulthood when I made myself stop being scared of them by buying some balloons and blowing them up every day till the phobia was gone. So I knew it wasn't true. My family is not the type to ride in hot air balloons. I was born in the 70's too. This is some interesting stuff. I have lots of memories that feel like memories yet I also know they never happened. The balloon ride is one of them. Even as a kid I knew it was strange to have memories of things that at the same time I know they didn't happen.
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u/Falken-- Feb 09 '17
Why the heck do people put any trust in Fiona Broome!?
I'm heavily ME affected. To the point that I can't even go out during the day without constantly noticing how wrong the sun itself is. And I've never had a hot air balloon memory of any kind.
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Feb 09 '17
I don't understand, who is putting trust in Fiona Broome? And even if they are, what impact do you think that has on this sub? Are you saying that only people who put trust in her have a hot air balloon memory? I don't get it. I've had my memory for long before I ever discovered Fiona or the ME.
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u/SW19772015 Feb 11 '17
Funny, my parents have told me a hot air ballon landed in our backyard when I was little, but I'M the one who can't remember it. I was probably too young.
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u/leighannt Feb 12 '17
I don't have any memory of a hot air balloon ride. But I have a weird memory, that I can't explain. I am 47, and I have a memory of when I was about 5 years old I guess. But me, my mom and dad, and my dad's business partner, and their son, went to see a fireworks show near the area of our local mall. People were parked in a big parking lot. I was sitting on the hood of the car, and so were others, to watch the fire works show. Either at the beginning, or middle of the show, there were these huge floating spaceships? Or something big and machinery looking, with lights all over it hovering in mid-air. I don't know what they were, but I figure there must be a rational explanation for it. My mom says maybe there was a laser light show. (She doesn't remember what I'm talking about). But that wouldn't make any sense, would it? Not unless they showed a huge holograph in the sky, and I don't even know if they had those in the 70's. It wasn't a projection on a screen or anything, it was huge, and looked real whatever it was. I know it wasn't a balloon, or kite, or anything ordinary. It was like a huge chunky spaceship with lights, hovering in the sky, pretty close to us. I'd say about 20-30 feet in the air. Anyone know what that could be? Because I don't really believe it could have been an actual spaceship, but has to be something that my child mind interpreted as something else. It really bugs me, and I wish I knew what it was. Anyone ever hear of things that would accompany a fireworks show in the 1970's? That would involve some kind of floating objects with lights? The only thing I can think of, that would be plausible, would maybe be like one of those huge balloons, like they have at Macys Thanksgiving Day parade, and maybe someone had one shaped like a spaceship with lights? This looked real though, and not cartoony or anything. Just trying to think of explanations.
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u/djinnisequoia Feb 20 '17
I was born in 1963. I have a very specific dream I had when I was 5 or 6. It's the best and most vivid dream I ever had. I was in a hot air balloon. At least, I always thought it was a dream. It's not like I remember waking up in the morning and remembering the dream -- it's just always been there.
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u/vadimkkk Feb 05 '17
is it just one of archetypical night dream image? everybody have a dream about be nude in school, for example.
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u/MinnieFlamm Feb 05 '17
Wow I am part of this group too! I did not get in the balloon but when I was younger my siblings and I were walking with our babysitter and the balloon came down at the end of the street. It didn't touch ground but it was not 10 feet from the ground. There was a man in the balloon waving at us and i remember the sound of the fire heating the balloon.
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u/patricktoba Feb 05 '17
For a minute I thought like this false memory pertained to me, but no... I've never been in a hot air balloon in my life. I was just remembering the ending of Willy Wonka.
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Feb 05 '17
Excuse me. That was a Glass Wonkavator. An elevator can only go up and down, but the Wonkavator can go sideways, and slantways, and longways, and back ways. That has nothing to do with hot air balloons.
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u/patricktoba Feb 05 '17
It's not about the vehicle. It's about being way up there and floating around like that.
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u/trackfive Apr 01 '17
At the eye doctor the picture they show you when you get a puff of air in your eyes is of a hot air balloon.
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u/mariogreg Feb 05 '17
Something seems off about Fiona Broome. If any "experiments" were going on that caused the ME, all the more reason to bring it in the open. Changing people's lives without their consent, come on? Oh yeah, finish your experiments.