Let’s get something straight. I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a kook. I’ve never been looney or crazy, but I’ve always been interested in conspiracy theories. I’m not sure if it’s the possibility of it being true or if I just like to hear the incredible concepts that some people think up, but I’ve always been fascinated by conspiracies. Rarely do I ever come across a conspiracy that I legitimately can believe in, but I was introduced to a conspiracy theory that is making me question everything. It’s called the Mandela effect.

The basic premise of this conspiracy theory is that at some point within the past 50 years or so, our universe has shifted and our timelines of human history have split. This all sounds pretty complicated at first, and it is if you really look into it, but let me try to explain it better. It’s really just the idea that two groups of people will remember events happening differently, because at some point, our universe and our reality shifted and created an alternate reality. That probably wasn’t any clearer, but I’ll give some examples which should clear it up a little.

Example 1: "The Berenstein Bears" vs. "The Berenstain Bears"

As a child I watched a lot of children shows on channels like Playhouse Disney, Nickelodeon, and PBS Kids, so it’s no shocker that I’ve watched my fair share of the "Berenstein Bears." At my daycare, I enjoyed reading the stories about the family of bears that lived in a treehouse. But my biggest problem with the "Berenstein Bears" while growing up was that I never knew how to pronounce their last name. Was it pronounced “een” as in the word protein or if it was pronounced “ine” as in Frankenstein. I eventually just accepted the pronunciation as Berenst(EEN).

However, when you look up anything about the "Berenstein Bears," it is all spelled as Berenstain, like a stain on your shirt. Seriously, go Google it. You’ll find absolutely no evidence of Berenstein ever being spelled that way. Instead, it’s all Berenstain.

At first I thought to myself, well maybe I just read it wrong all of these years and no one corrected me. But when I asked my roommates they both responded that the last name of the bears was “Berenstein” or even “Berensteen.” Neither of them thought that it was Berenstain. So I asked my parents as well, and we all agree, it was spelled Berenstein. I was pretty good at spelling and sounding things out when I was younger, and I would have clearly known the difference between STAIN and STEIN. And we aren’t the only ones who believed this. A large portion of the population remembers the bears as BERENSTEIN rather than BERENSTAIN.

Example 2: "Snow White"

Many children grew up with the original Disney VHS tapes, and watched them endlessly. I for one watched a lot of princess VHS tapes like the original "Mulan," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," and "Snow White." One of the most memorable lines from Snow White is “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” For years, that was what I believed the line was. But apparently, the real line is “Magic Mirror on the wall.” MAGIC MIRROR.

Yet when you look up “Mirror, Mirror on the wall,” there are hundreds of text posts that say Mirror Mirror rather than Magic Mirror. But, it Magic Mirror has been the line all this time, than why are so many people used to saying Mirror Mirror? It’s crazy. So many people remember certain events happening one way, but when we recall them later, it’s no longer the way we remember it.

Example 3: "Sex In The City"

I was never a huge fan of the series or the movies, but I’ve always remembered that when talking about Carrie Bradshaw, she was a character from "Sex IN The City." However, now when I look up the series or even just what Sarah Jessica Parker has been in, it’s all Sex AND The City. Either I’ve been wrong my entire life, (which is a likely possibility), or something crazy is happening to our reality.

I’ll leave it up to you for your interpretation of this, but it’s pretty crazy in my opinion. Maybe as we’ve aged our memories just become more blurry overtime, or we assume things happened the way we remember them. But maybe, there really has been a shift in our reality. It’s just incredible to me that mass amounts of people all remember something as one thing, while others have no recollection of it ever being something else.

If you want to learn more about this conspiracy theory or the Mandela Effect, feel free to click this link. But when your mind just explodes, don't say I didn't warn you.