Parallel Experiences
I have always believed that two people in the same situation at the same time experience (and remember) it differently. People perceive things differently, interpret things differently, and remember the pieces that are important to them, good or bad. No two people have the same experience.
A strange thing happened to me the other day that confirmed this for me. I got home after lunch with a friend and realized that I had missed a call on my cell phone. There was a message. I listened to the message and could hear strange background noises. Curiosity kept me from skipping and erasing it. I heard my friend’s voice – the one who I had been with for lunch. I heard her placing her order at the restaurant and realized that she must have called me accidentally while we were out.
I listened to that message for 3 minutes and nothing, not one thing, sounded even vaguely similar to the lunch I remembered sharing with my friend. It was surreal. I even heard my own voice and didn’t recall saying what I heard.
What her phone ‘heard’ and mine recorded was vastly different than the experience I remembered having only moments before – and that doesn’t even take into account the perceptions, interpretations, and assumptions that people make.
The whole thing was just surreal. She and I had parallel experiences that, at the time, we thought we were sharing.
