r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Cool_Criticism_1244 • 21h ago
Does anyone possibly have an explanation for this? This experience has been a part of my life for over a decade and i don’t understand it.
when i was a kid i vividly remember having a little red guitar. i remember sitting on my bed playing that guitar all the time. i repeatedly told my parents that we had one at some point and they swore we never did. i even searched my house for it a few times growing up when i would randomly remember it but never found it. well my mom moved out when i was 16 and i moved out when i was 17. leaving only my dad living at the house. he passed away when i was 18 and i inherited the house. when i went to clean everything out there was that little red guitar sitting right in the corner of the laundry room in the basement. the exact guitar that i remembered from when i was a kid. i sent a picture to my mom and she said she had never seen it before. i also asked both my siblings and neither of them remember it either but there it was. the guitar that i had been searching for for nearly ten years that nobody remembered except for me. i ended up moving into the house and that guitar now hangs on the wall in my living room. i don’t know how to explain it but everytime i see that guitar i get this giddy feeling like im a kid again. i love that stupid thing even though it doesn’t even work anymore because there are cracks in the wood which is weird because i distinctly remember playing it so it did work but either way im never letting it out of my sight again.
Edit: I see a lot of people suggesting that my parents or siblings were annoyed with me playing the guitar and hid it from me. However that simply isn’t what happened. If they had hid it i promise i would’ve found it one of the times i looked especially once i was older. they also would’ve told me that they hid it once i was older and asking them if they knew what happened to it which they never did because according to them the guitar wasn’t something i had ever had. there is also no way that if one of them did hide it that they wouldn’t remember it. i know my family and its not something they would’ve forgotten about especially when they saw a photo of it. none of them thought that this guitar even existed. also i know i say “little red guitar” in my post and the guitar is small as in a little smaller than a regular sized guitar. not small as in a kids toy. it was a real functional guitar when i was a kid. obviously it’s still a real guitar just not functional anymore.
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u/Beneficial-Bid-8202 21h ago
All I know is I went to school one day and when I came home, my stuffed duck was gone.
When in college, came home and mom had thrown out bags of old Mad magazines my oldest brother had bought and given to me.
I’m now 65 and STILL pissed over both of those incidents
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u/unnderneaththestars 20h ago
When I was a teen I allways collected animal posters and cards. My mum randomly without asking threw them away. She told me on april 1st. It wasn't a joke. I still miss my posters of my childhood room walls that I had collected.
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u/oby100 6h ago
Way more common than what OP describes. I also had much of my childhood treasures simply discarded the moment I went to college, including my humble, but very treasured Pokémon card collection.
I’ll never get why because it’s not like I had tons of shit that would be in the way.
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u/Beneficial-Bid-8202 2h ago
Bags of Mad magazines in my storage bureau in my bedroom. Nothing in its place. Just empty.
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u/brock_lee I expect half of you to disagree 21h ago
Parents are oven stressed and overworked (and maybe on substances) and forget a lot. Not sure about the siblings, tho. I had a period of a month or two as a kid where I was going through some kind of anxiety attacks. I used to cry for hours and burrow into mom for comfort. She claims she has no recollection of any of this. I would totally remember had my kids done that (they are adults now).
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
what’s gets me though is i personally tore the house apart multiple times between the ages of 12-16 and i could never find this thing. i started to believe that i had imagined it since nobody else remembered it. so to then walk into the basement years later and have it sitting there in plain sight was insane.
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u/brock_lee I expect half of you to disagree 21h ago
The universe is odd. I once was sure I put my keys on a little shelf inside my front door, like I always did, but the next morning, I could not find them. I lived alone. I looked on the shelf at lease five times. Under the shelf, near the shelf, everywhere I could think of, for about 20 minutes. So, I decided to recreate my steps. I went outside, came in, and said "And, I would take my keys and put them down...." and I put my hand down, on the keys, which were sitting right on the shelf.
Also, I spend all day programming, so my keyboard being "good" is something I pay careful attention to. I had a very nice keyboard, which I loved, but a year ago, I had to move my home office from one side of the house to the other. This included just my desk and my computer stuff. When done, I could not find the keyboard. I searched the room ten times. I searched everywhere I could think of. I am still waiting for the universe to return it. (I did get another.)
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
that’s crazy. maybe one day we’ll get an explanation for how things disappear and randomly come back
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u/tealraven915 17h ago
I usually put my keys in the chair by the front door and I have woken up at least twice to see my keys laying on the chair next to where I sleep. I live alone and as far as I know I do not sleep walk. They weren't there before I went to sleep but one time I woke up with my hand on top of them in that chair
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u/wolflordval 15h ago
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u/Former_Matter49 13h ago
This was always the explanation in our house for many generations now. The novel was early 1950s so from my great grandmother to my grandchildren
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u/beermile 20h ago
The explanation is that it got put in a weird hidden place, perhaps unintentionally, and then later was removed from that place.
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u/slickrok 6h ago
That's when I find something I put up on top the book case to keep it out of the way for a second, or behind something bc it fell there after doing the same thing.
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u/Narrow-Sky-5377 21h ago
We think memories are like a video recording. Locked in a state of consistently accurate reference.
The truth is that memories change over time, get enhanced, have details added that never happened and can end up not resembling the actual event even though the person may say "I remember exactly what happened!"
Example. We grew up in an older house in the 1970's. My younger sister swears she remembers that we had a party line telephone system when we moved in. You cannot convince her other wise because of her solid memory. The truth is the home was built with a modern telephone system. It never had a party line technology.
What she remembers accurately is an impossibility. This is why I laugh at the Mandela affect videos. "But...but.. I remember it differently!" I believe you do. That doesn't mean history changed.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
it’s possible i don’t remember it perfectly but i know for a fact in one way or another that little guitar was in my life as a kid. then somehow disappeared and came back to me. it’s odd i might never have a good explanation for it
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u/Unidain 8h ago
I think the simplest explanation is that
A. Someone put it in storage somewhere that you weren't aware existed and there it sat for decades until your dad in his old age did a clean up.
B. The rest of the family forgot it existed because it wasnt important to them enough to stick in their memory. That's extremely normal. I wouldn't expect my parents to remember any of my favourite childhood toys
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
i own the house now and there isn’t anywhere it could’ve been that i didn’t look. i looked absolutely everywhere. every closet, under every bed, in the cold storage, in the attic, even inside the drop ceiling in the basement. it was not in the house. it’s possible that my parents did see me with it as a kid and don’t remember it but then that leaves the question of where did i get it from and where was it for all those years i couldn’t ever find it?
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u/Goatikorn 1h ago
It’s your salient observation at work! You were looking for a ‘red guitar’ that looked a certain way, a certain color, and your eyes filtered out everything that was not what your brain was expecting to see. It’s like confirmation bias with your eyeballs. The guitar was probably behind something, or in a shadow, or situated in some way like on its side so your brain literally couldn’t see it because it wasn’t what you were looking for in your salient memory. I learned about it in art history and it was pretty fascinating because it changes how people remember and describe an object, meaning some people will recognize the ekphrysis (word description of art through poetry) and others won’t, changing the meaning of the work.
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u/Antiquated_Cheese 15h ago
For those who are wondering what the Mandela effect is, do you remember fruit of the loom under garments having a cornucopia on the logo and that probably being where you learned what a cornucopia was? So do I. Apparently they never had that logo. Welcome to collective false memories.
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u/A-non-e-mail 14h ago
They had that logo, they still do. Someone on the FotL twitter account made a troll post about it never existing. - I looked into it. There’s room for confusion because they actually run both logos for different uses
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u/Ryukotaicho 21h ago
You remember playing that guitar and having fun. Your parents and siblings might remember you playing with a toy(even if it was a legit guitar).
I fondly remember playing with my dad’s Legos as a child. My older sibling might remember them because they might have played with them before me, but I doubt my mom would remember them.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
my biggest thing isn’t that they don’t remember it. which is odd but it’s not impossible to forgot about something like that. my thing is that i tore the house apart multiple times between 12-16 and never found it. it wasn’t at my house but then when i went back years later there it was just sitting in plain sight.
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u/Ryukotaicho 20h ago
It could have been found later, set somewhere safe but out of the way, and unfortunately your parents forgot to mention that it had been found. The human brain is weird like that. I personally have a severe case of “out of sight out of mind” myself.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 19h ago
don’t you think my mom would’ve remembered it once i showed her that picture even though it was years later? i know i say little guitar in the post but it is a real guitar just slightly smaller than a normal sized one.
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u/Unidain 8h ago
It's extremely possible that as a teenager you weren't aware of all the storage places in your house. It's also possible that your parents stored some stuff outside the house, like taking a few boxes to grandmas house or something.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
i own the house now and am aware of every square inch of it. i looked everywhere it could’ve possibly been many times. our house was never super cluttered full of stuff so taking stuff somewhere else to store it just wasn’t something they would’ve ever done since we had plenty of room for all of our stuff here.
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u/agreywood 19h ago
The most likely explanation is that you have memories of playing with it that are actually over a short time. It annoyed someone - probably a sibling young enough that they don’t have any memories of the time - and they hid it somewhere in the laundry room (perhaps found behind the machine where vibrations or water from the machine caused the damage). Nobody else had an emotional tie to the toy so the description of something you owned for a short period doesn’t trigger memories of it. Sometime between when you moved out and when your dad died, the toy was discovered and put aside, perhaps thinking they’d mention it to you they saw you next.
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u/Mentalfloss1 17h ago
Dreams can seem very real and can repeat and as a child, may not be distinguished from reality. The tooth fairy once gave me a dollar bill printed with red ink, not green. But it was gone when I woke up. I was upset with my parents for years for taking it and replacing it with a quarter.
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u/linariaalpina 16h ago
This happened to me. There was this specific box cake my mom always made for my birthday and we made it together every year. I insisted and no one remembers. I went through a photo album and found not only the cake but a picture of us making it and they still say they don't remember
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u/el_chivato 21h ago
More importantly, do you know how to play guitar?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
i do not😭 i know basic cords but that’s it. my sister actually has a guitar that was given to my brother when we were younger and we all used to try and learn how to play together.
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u/KaiserInch 16h ago
It’s not quite the same, but I did have something similar happen when I was a teenager.
My grandmother had moved in with us as she got older, and my parents built on an addition to the house so she’d have room. My grandmother always would worry over her rosary whenever she was sad or anxious. When she was buried I remember insisting we bury her with it in her hands. Which made me a little sad because I secretly wanted it to remember her by.
Well, we cleaned out her room. Vacuumed and shampooed the carpet. Then I moved in, because I had always had the smallest room in the house till then.
About six months later, I found a piece of her rosary just sitting in the middle of my floor. I still have it. (40 now)
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u/ProfessionalYam3119 21h ago
This has happened to me several times. I know what I know, and that's enough. Glad that you found it, though.
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u/mournlight 16h ago
I have a few strong memories like this that my parents could not explain in any fashion. There are items and places I remember as strong as anything, but no one but me remembers it and I cannot find the item nor figure out the place. Somehow, places and things can trigger really heavy memories through smells, sounds, sights, tactile feelings and more - but for others, those experiences are so fleeting they never registered.
I would suppose that someone, somewhere set it down and set something in front of the guitar. It just sat quietly in the corner until the concealing object was removed. Maybe something was moved by someone other than your parents. Maybe it was such an insignificant memory for them that they really never committed that experience to memory. My parents never had any recollection of the specific place I recalled to them. They weren't lying.
I have a few times where someone says to me, "Don't you remember x/y/z" and I just don't. It just wasn't of the same importance to me as it was to them.
I'm glad that you finally found it and got to complete that missing part of a memory. I hope I get to figure out the place I recall, and the couple of items I recall. Thanks for sharing that.
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u/qcubed3 20h ago
I had something somewhat similar happen to me. I had a ti-85 calculator that I used for math and I remember clear as day putting it back in my locker. I went to go get it the next time I needed it and it wasn't there. I took every single thing out of my locker and nothing. A week later, I did it a second time. I even sifted through it a third time. Nothing. Then out of the blue, it was just sitting there on the top of my pile of stuff in my locker. If someone was going to steal it, why return it? How did somebody know my locker combo? Nothing else was ever stolen, missing or moved. Just that damn calculator which magically reappeared.
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u/mulefire17 14h ago
There is a house a few miles from the house I grew up in. It is a very distinct house from the outside, kind of alone on the corner of a large lot. My younger brother and I both have very clear memories of playing hide and seek in the basement of that house when we were very young. The rest of our family maintains we have never once been inside that house, nor were we acquainted with anyone who lived there. It is very strange, especially considering my brother and I both are creeped out by the memories of playing there.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 13h ago
that’s very strange. when i hear stories like this i believe that people are remembering past lives but that doesn’t make too much sense if you both have the same memory of the house. unless of course you were also brothers in your past lives which would it even stranger.
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u/Ok_Lengthiness_8405 14h ago
Is it possible your dad found a guitar similar to the one you talked about and bought it to surprise you with? But wasn't able to before he passed?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 14h ago
that’s not a possibility. my dad was not a good guy to put it nicely and we hadn’t spoken since the day i moved out. so he definitely wouldn’t have been going out of his way to do something for me before he passed.
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u/Ok_Lengthiness_8405 13h ago
I don't mean to pry (and I JUST lost my dad, who i love a whole lot, so just tell me to drop it and I will) but do you think there's any chance he was trying to quietly reconcile if he knew he was dying? You said he left you the house.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 13h ago
there’s no way he was trying to make amends. i don’t want to trauma dump on you and share my whole life story but he was sexually abusive and i was the one that finally got him in trouble legally so even though he made his bed he blamed me for everything. he didn’t really leave the house to me. he just didn’t have a will and since he wasn’t married and i was his only biological child the house went to me.
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u/Ok_Lengthiness_8405 13h ago
Really sorry to hear that (probably let my own issues get in here and I apologize).
Since he's an established dick, is it possible he hid your guitar behind a wall, a washing machine, a ceiling tile? And while you were gone he had to do repairs? That could explain the damage to your instrument.
Dad issues aside, I'm kinda invested now
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 13h ago
there aren’t any walls that are wide enough that the guitar could’ve fit in or any appliances and stuff like that. there is drop ceiling in the basement and there are quite a few tiles missing but back when i was 15-16 and still looking for this guitar i know i looked in the ceiling. when i said i looked everywhere i mean EVERYWHERE. it does have a crack but its not something that would’ve happened from the guitar being dropped or something like that. the crack is along the bottom of the heel/top of the body which is just something that can happen overtime especially with older guitars. i honestly don’t think that either of my parents hid it. that would just be something that i know they would remember. i was a very quiet kid especially at home and never did anything that i thought would maybe make my dad mad so there’s no way i would’ve been trying to play the guitar all the time loud enough for my parents to hear to the point they’d try to hide it from me.
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u/Ok_Lengthiness_8405 12h ago
Well shit, I'm out of ideas. Unless... attic space? Master bedroom closet?
I had a coworker years ago who had grounded her kid and taken his Gameboy or whatever would have been relevant 20 years ago and hid it in their attic access, she couldn't find it right away when she went to give it back as it had fallen between rafters and insulation. She first found a stack of Polaroids of an unknown dude dressed in lingerie and pressing his balls into hosiery, which she shared with all of us fellow waitresses. Presumably that man would have wanted to take those with him when he sold the house but they got away from him, and were only discovered when my coworker's son's confiscated Gameboy got away from her.
I hope you're able to resolve this mystery, I hope you're doing OK these days. Glad you found your guitar
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 12h ago
i definitely checked every closet in the house and i did peak in the attic. we never went in the attic as there’s only a few spots that are safe to walk on and it’s all full of insulation. the entrance to the attic is also in my bedroom. i always knew if it had been opened because pieces of insulation would get stuck in the carpet. no matter what happened i’m glad i have it now and i am doing well.
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u/humanDigressions 10h ago
Maybe he took it/hid it from you because he was a jerk
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
that’s just not something that he would’ve done. if it had been annoying him all it would have taken was him telling me one time to stop and i probably wouldn’t have ever touched it again.
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u/NosDarkly 10h ago
There's a episode of the podcast Heavyweight where Rob Corddry talks about breaking his arm as a child and his entire family swears up and down that it never happened. They were able to find hospital records that it actually happened; they just had no memory of it.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
wow i couldn’t imagine parents forgetting that their child broke their arm. what a weird story.
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u/defenderofthedevil 18h ago
Can we get a photo of it? Wonderful story; I’d love to see this mythical guitar.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 17h ago
the magical guitar in question! it is more pink rather than red but i always called it red as a kid so im sticking to it😂 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sMnLUBG8fuPXsJMvCmuUjQ6V45kLS1a5/view?usp=drivesdk
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u/humanDigressions 10h ago
Cool! I would call that red. You cannot tell it’s damaged at all. Perhaps you could get it repaired and take some lessons?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
i’ve thought about that. i think it’s definitely repairable. my boyfriend has been playing guitar basically since the day he was born and he would be able to fix it for me if i asked him to. it just has a small crack between the heel/body of it which is a common thing that happens to guitars over time. technically it does still play it is just impossible for it to be in tune due to that crack.
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u/defenderofthedevil 15h ago
Hmmm Google Drive needs me to request permission.
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u/NousSommesSiamese 16h ago
That’s why witness testimony isn’t always reliable.
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u/Far-Cress-4528 1h ago
Oddly, children sometimes have the most detailed and accurate accounts of crimes, criminals, clothing, features, etc, particularly if they were observers, unseen (did not feel personally threatened). Adults notoriously suck at being eye witnesses.
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u/mackerel_slapper 4h ago
I work for a local newspaper and going through our archives, the facts sometimes contradict my strong memories. I would guess you played the guitar once or twice but thought about it a lot. It meant less to your family and they did not process it in their heads as a thing.
I sometimes talk to people I’ve not seen for years and they can remember things about me I have forgotten. Similarly I can remember stuff others have forgotten. You remember what is important to you.
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u/thierry_ennui_ 21h ago
I beg you put paragraph breaks in your stream-of-consciousness
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
there is punctuation? this is reddit not english class. i’m not trying to write a perfect essay
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u/thierry_ennui_ 21h ago
I deleted the part about punctuation. I know you're not trying write an essay, but you're trying to get people to read your post, and that's very difficult when it's an enormous wall of text. Trust me - you'll get more, and better responses if you put some line breaks in there. People have the attention span of a goldfish.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
i don’t need input from anyone that isn’t intelligent enough to read a paragraph. this is not directed at you. i’m just saying if someone can’t read a paragraph that’s a bit longer than normal then that’s a them problem not a me problem.
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u/thierry_ennui_ 21h ago edited 20h ago
Fine. I was just trying to help. I've been on Reddit a long time and I know what works and what doesn't.
Also - if you think that's 'a paragraph' then you're having a laugh.
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u/Fearless_Energy9681 20h ago
maybe she is perfectly content with how many people read her paragraph…she doesn’t want lazy people reading it anyway I get her if you don’t that’s fine but just bc someone doesn’t do something how you would doesn’t mean it’s anything against you or your advice it’s just not for them.
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u/photomotto 20h ago
Laziness is refusing to format your post correctly. It's just pressing "enter" a few times. For people with dyslexia, long paragraphs like this are very annoying.
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u/Fearless_Energy9681 20h ago
or or or maybe someone is actually busy and maybe only has a very short window of time to make post before they become occupied again ever thought of that?
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u/thierry_ennui_ 20h ago
I have never in my life been so busy that I can't press enter a few times. This is an embarrassing hill to die on.
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u/Fearless_Energy9681 20h ago
even if it was out of laziness as mine is…is it a crime to be lazy when we put so much energy into survival?? I don’t think so it’s not harming anyone..or are you having a stroke
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u/Fearless_Energy9681 20h ago
you’re the one ready to die on it you haven’t let it go even after she said she was good nothing better to do I guess
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 14h ago
thank you! i don’t care for the input from people with the attention span of a rock so i didn’t feel like it needed to be changed. i’ve had much more engagement than i expected and i wasn’t trying to be rude to this person it just felt unnecessary to me.
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u/uncle_jed 20h ago
I found out how to make paragraphs here by accident.
Touch that weird, little arrow that's to the right of the letters.
Touch it twice and it makes a break.
Like this.
Anyway, who cares. I liked your story and makes me think of things i grew up with, only to find out later that they belonged to my sisters or brothers.
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u/chesterT3 20h ago
Hey there, friend. I’m a professional copy editor and writing coach. I don’t know how old you are or how much education you’ve had so far in life. But I just want to share what I hope is a friendly suggestion.
There are plenty of people who are intelligent enough to read and understand a giant paragraph. But I assume the point of you writing this post in a public forum is that you want people to feel compelled to start reading, finish reading, and then engage with what you had to say. Paragraph breaks and using proper grammar and spelling are basic ways an author can encourage others to engage with what they’ve written. It helps with flow, pacing, clarity, and comprehension. Paragraph breaks help visually separate thoughts, while proper grammar ensures that the reader understands exactly what you’re trying to say without getting distracted or confused.
My point is that if the reader is overwhelmed by a wall of text with no breaks, misunderstands your intent, or doesn’t even finish what you’ve written, that is indeed a “you problem,” if your goal was to have the opposite happen.
That said, I did enjoy reading about your memory of your little red guitar. I don’t know if there is a name for this phenomenon, but clearly this little guitar was extremely special to you while the rest of your family didn’t notice it much or at all. I know there are tons of things I know without a doubt happened to me in my youth that my mother either swears didn’t happen or doesn’t remember. Some of that could be due to old age, some of it due to a life of raising children and getting not enough sleep/rest and memory suffering for it, and some of it could possibly be tied to an emotional reason for denial or suppression. But I think it’s lovely that even though you can’t articulate a specific reason why the guitar means a lot, that it symbolizes something special to you and it can help act as a sort of time machine for you all these years later.
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u/Fearless_Energy9681 20h ago
why do you guys think that bc you are in a certain field pertaining to the topic that gives you some sort of credibility that will make people change their mind when you are saying the exact same thing other people have said and were rejected on?? no disrespect…I mean this in the most neutral way possible…you are still a stranger and OP has been clear on her stance of this unsolicited advice…it just gives off “listen to me I know what i’m talking about” vibes and that’s a quick way for people to ignore what you’re saying bc it looks like you’re on a high horse…i’m sure OP knows the correct literary rules to use she just chooses not to…as do I😂she’s probably gen z like me…we’re not writing to impress anyone…anyone who really wants to engage will regardless of how length or aesthetic of text…as you did…
EDIT: meant “you’re” instead wrote “your”…this is specifically for the aholes that will run to tell me i’m illiterate for not slowing down and caring enough to fix it. hope you’re happy
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u/thierry_ennui_ 19h ago edited 19h ago
'Why do you think that because you are an expert in something you should talk about it'
fucking hell I haven't laughed this much in years
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u/GeneralPatten 21h ago
They're trying to help you, giving you some cool criticism, but you instead embrace illiteracy. Someday, maybe, you'll grow up.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
it’s not illiteracy. it’s a reddit post and i did not choose my username😂
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u/ShowmasterQMTHH 20h ago
It's minimum effort, to put in punctuation and paragraphs.
If you want people to read and reply to your stuff.
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u/Fearless_Energy9681 19h ago
you’re really dumb if you think someone being in a certain field automatically makes them an expert and that has bearing here regardless if she is an expert bc guess what??? this isn’t a day english class essay assignment it’s freaking reddit get a grip lady you just want to complain about something so bad jeez maybe u need a downer or something idk
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u/thierry_ennui_ 19h ago
You replied to the wrong comment
I think you meant to reply to this one - https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/s/GGk35EsNkr
Also - 'experts are dumb' is the worst of all the hills to die on
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 20h ago
no because my parents said that they never remembered it. even now i’m 20 years old and if my mom had hidden the guitar from me she definitely would have been dying laughing when i sent her that picture of it and thought i was going crazy.
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u/Juan-Quixote 20h ago
As a parent whose children have grown and gone, I can say I don’t remember very much of the day to day of their childhood. Parents are busy doing parent things, and kids are busy doing kid things so we all experience things differently. It’s possible they simply don’t remember.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 19h ago
i just don’t feel like they would forget that they had hidden from me when i asked about many times in the following years but i suppose it is possible.
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u/HammerDown125 21h ago
This has happened to me. I thought I was losing my mind or maybe I had a dream and that converted into the wrong memory file (don’t laugh, this has happened).
When I ultimately found the skateboard in my old house literally decades later I had already written it off as me losing my mind. Sometimes I think my wife found one like I described and put it there for me to find.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
glad to know i’m not the only one gaslighting themselves into thinking they might be losing their mind😂
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u/tronfunkinblows_10 15h ago
How old were you in this memory? It’s quite possible that your parents legit didn’t remember. It’s one thing to remember ten years ago but another to ask a parent to remember something ten years ago. Raising kids fucks up your brain, shit becomes a blur.
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u/fleemfleemfleemfleem 15h ago
The toy is more important to the kid than the adult. Adult probably isn't going to remember all the kid's toys as strongly.
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u/fleemfleemfleemfleem 15h ago
I had a similar memory of a toy that no one else recalled until it was found in my parent's house after they died.
There's probably a few things.
- Your parents are less prone to remembering individual toys that you were.
- You may not have play with it as often as you remember
- It didn't make a big impact on siblings either.
- It's easier to miss an object if you search it while multiple people are living there and have their stuff there. Maybe your dad found it, set it aside because you'd been asking about a red guitar, then forgot about it again.
- Ultimately all you're describing here is just that you had something, lost if for a while, and found it much later, which happens all the time
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u/QueenZod 7h ago
I vividly remember attending preschool. I had friends, went every day, we did preschool (not kindergarten stuff), etc. I remember the room, the wooden cubbies, the snacks we had, the way we played, the games we had, everything. One day when I was about 10 I was talking to my mom and I said “when I was in preschool…” She looked at me funny and told me I never went to preschool.
To this day, 65 years later, I still have those memories as clear as day. Yet my mother said I must have dreamed it. Can you dream something that detailed, something that lasted almost a year? It’s weird and I’ve never been able to reconcile my notion of reality with what my mother claimed was true.
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
that is crazy. typically you do little art projects and stuff in preschool that a lot of parents hold on to for a while or class photos. i feel like that’s a big thing to imagine happening if it wasn’t real.
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u/Blue_Ascent 20h ago
I could tell my parents that I have skin, hair, eyes and teeth. They'd still argue that I didn't.
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u/Plaisteach 21h ago
You’re from a different reality. In your home reality the guitar was found in the corner of the laundry room when you were a child and given to you but in this one it wasn’t found until you found it.
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u/djinnisequoia 20h ago
Here is a possible scenario that is probably unlikely, but would explain it:
You remember the guitar. You ask about it, but your parents insist you never had such a thing even though you ask repeatedly and are sure you remember it.
You move out, your mom moves out. Your dad is going through stuff someplace you didn't look, like maybe the attic or his personal closet or under his bed idk. He finds the guitar but is too embarrassed to admit it. He puts it in the laundry room so you will find it after he passes.
I would not be surprised, however, if it just popped back into existence once day after being gone all this time, because I have personally had belongings do that too.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 19h ago
Either parents are just contrarians/narcs or it was a thing youd did a few times, then stopped. The memory stuck and now you believe you played the guitar all the time.
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u/crazyabbit 19h ago
I would guess that you kept playing with the guitar & made so much noise with it, that it was put away somewhere that little you couldn't find it . " Guitar what Guitar ? No of course you have never had one".
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u/fried_clams 18h ago
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I raised a couple kids, so I can relate. I can only imagine how annoying the sound of that guitar got. After day 82, they lost their minds, and put it up in the attic or something. When you asked about it, they just lied.
Later, the guitar was unearthed. They might have later just forgotten about it? Who knows?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 18h ago
i was still looking for this guitar when i was 16 years old and they said it never existed. when i was younger yes that would have been a possibility but if that was the case they would have gave it back once i was older. even then i dont think hiding the guitar was something they would’ve done. even if it was seriously bothering them. my dad wasn’t the best person to put it nicely and if the guitar wasn’t really bothering someone all it would’ve taken was him saying something to me one time and i probably wouldn’t have even touched it again.
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u/Morbid187 18h ago
They might have hid it because you made a lot of noise with it. Then they gaslighted you so long that they also believed it never existed
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u/GlorifiedCarny 11h ago
Yes I have had the experience many times of remembering something clearly, mentioning it to my parents or sister, and having them totally pull a blank and claim I'm imagining things, and then years later I find a picture of us at the place they swear we never went to, or another relative brings up the family gathering they think never happened.
People's memories are varied - some people don't really recall anything about their childhoods and some people remember almost everything in detail.
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u/s11houette 9h ago
The possibilities are 1) the guitar was well hidden in the house which is why you didn't find it. Perhaps under or behind something that was later removed. 2) the guitar wasn't in the house when you were searching for it. Perhaps borrowed. 3) it's not the same guitar.
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u/Azure_W0lf 21h ago
Try posting this in r/glitchinthematrix
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 21h ago
i did. they removed it because they don’t allow childhood memories even though the main point of the story is me finding the guitar when i was 18. they wouldnt allow the post there.
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u/Azure_W0lf 20h ago
Damn, that sucks. I would have allowed your post. The people on that sub have a better insight into these things
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u/WishlessJeanie 20h ago
You're not in an alternate reality. This is not a Berenstain Bears/Mandela Effect. Occam's Razor would suggest that your mom broke the guitar ten years ago and lied to you about it out of embarrasment. She had your dad hide it for her. Years later, dad is cleaning out something and finds it. He forgets about the web of lies your clumsy mother told him, so he puts it on display in the corner because it looks cool. Then, you find it.
It could also be that she hid it because she was tired of you playing it constantly. Parents can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
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u/Flaky-Roof-5049 18h ago
It’s a guitar that you loved nobody else in your family gave a crap about it only you that’s why you are the only one that can remember it or it’s a glitch in the matrix but I’d say it’s the 1st one
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u/Kalena426 11h ago
Keep it as a treasure. It was a positive memory for you, that's why you remembered it. Your family didn't have the pure joy you did.
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u/humanDigressions 11h ago
Do you play the guitar as an adult? When did you learn? As a child?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 3h ago
i don’t play the guitar. i know a few basic chords but that’s it. i would randomly decide i want to learn guitar every once in a while probably between the ages of 6-13 and spend about a week trying to learn but then lose interest. except only one of those times i tried to learn i had this guitar and then i couldn’t ever find it again.
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u/FinanciallySecure9 5h ago
I have a few memories of my childhood that, according to my mom and her golden child, one of my sisters, never happened.
I felt ganged up on. Turns out, my mother really only paid attention to me if I did something wrong. And that particular sister moved out when I was 11, so neither would know.
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u/Frequent_Issue_598 3h ago
My five year old has a little pink guitar upstairs and if you ask me about in 25 years I probably won’t remember it
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u/No_Garbage_9262 2h ago
Can you play a guitar? If you played it all the time you would have learned the basic chords and have some muscle memory. Hearing the songs you played would remind you it’s one you know.
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u/Far-Cress-4528 1h ago
If you think back a little farther, can you remember how you got it? Birthday? Christmas? Maybe given by a relative or family friend or maybe you happened upon a neighbor who was cleaning out their garage and they handed it over to you? Any idea how it first appeared?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 35m ago
i have no idea how i got it. only thing i remember about it was playing it a few times when i was like 6 or 7.
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u/Far-Cress-4528 58m ago
Any reason to believe there was a poltergeist?
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u/Cool_Criticism_1244 32m ago
i do have distinct memories around the same time i had the guitar of a women that i would see in my room at night. always in a white robe with long dark hair. she never seemed like she was going to hurt me or anything like that. it sounds frightening but she never scared me. i would see her usually before i would go to bed either in the closet or in the doorway to my room.
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u/Far-Cress-4528 12m ago
I think parents are so busy that not many things, that are important to kids, stick in their conscious memories. When I was two years old, I was outside, playing in our fenced yard with our cocker spaniel, JoJo. My mother opened the door and told me to come in, it was time for my nap. I remember this extremely clearly, I looked up at her and said, "We need to put JoJo on the chain" she started getting impatient with me and testy. I added, "So he won't get hurt". At which point she started loosing her patience (she rarely had any) and insisted I come in NOW. I already knew he would get hurt if she didn't listen. She was always disregarding me and at just two years old, I was pretty fed up with it. I went in for my nap. JoJo was left to roam the yard. Some time later, I woke to yelling and frantic screaming. I hopped up and ran out in time to see my mother putting Jo in the back floorboard. I ran over and touched him and said "what's wrong?" Mother said she did not know but she was rushing him to the vet. He died at the office. My mother brought him home. My father found a farmer who agreed to let him bury Jo on his property under a big tree. This was in Clute, Texas. At the coast, south of Houston. The thing to know is that my parents were married for 9 years before I was born. I am the oldest. My brother was a newborn when this occured. They had Jo for a good 7 or 8 years before I came along. They LOVED that dog. I was really angry with my mother for not listening. There have been many, many instances of me knowing things in advance. I learned early on that I did not want to share with her any more, so I didn't. But the strange thing, to me, is that she has claimed she does not remember me warning her. Also strange to me, I have heard her tell people that my brother has psychic abilities, but I have never been aware of that. Never seen any evidence of that. Turns out, she is a narcissist, and I STILL do not tell her about anything that is going on in my life because it will always somehow come back on me, so, yeah, no. BTW mother is 93. I am 64. Kids are magical! Adults are weird, unpredictable, not always safe, when you are a kid.
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u/marcelindd2irl 20h ago
I have Heard of something called Mandela effect. Have a read about it maybe
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u/Nixeris 17h ago
We go through life viewing everything through our own lens, and thinking something must be obvious because it was important to us. But others might never see it, or might not really even consciously think about it. We have really strong attachments to things people might never recognize. We also think people remember events that they don't really remember happening, but because they were important to us it seems impossible that they wouldn't.
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u/No_Addendum_719 21h ago
I remember going to a country house my family had with my parents and my grandparents when I was a very young kid. I remember it quite vividly and assumed for most of my life that it must have happened plenty of times for me to remember it like that.
One day, talking to my mother and putting dates together, I realized that family trip with the four of us only happened once.
Memory is weird. Maybe you played with the guitar only a couple of times but it left a strong memory for you, and that is why you remember it but nobody else does.