I've been there. Wait. No I haven't.
A certain kind of perfume never fails to remind me of a girlfriend I had in middle school (much to the dismay of my fiancé). It brings me right back to that late-afternoon science class every time I smell it. It’s entirely normal for sensory input to trigger random flashbacks. For some people it might be that fresh-baked bread reminds them of their grandmother’s house, or chlorine brings back those awful swimming lessons at the municipal swimming pool. What might be a little strange, however, is when I find myself flashing back to a memory that never really happened.
No, I don’t have dissociative identity disorder, at least as far as I’m aware — I just identify quite deeply with some of the experiences I’ve had as a gamer, whether they were virtual or not. We all have our own favorite gaming memories. Some of mine, like my dad buying me my first Game Boy and a copy of Pokémon or my Nintendo 64, happened in real life. Just like people remember exactly where they were during certain national tragedies, I remember how my younger brother and I were playing Kirby Super Star for the SNES when we learned that our parents had decided to be married no longer.
As significant as they might be, I’m not interested in those memories. They actually happened; they do not perplex me. Why, though, when I hear old music that my grandparents might've listened to when they were young, do I not appreciate it for its sound, but rather find my mind wandering through the future wastelands of our nation’s capital or sloshing through the underwater corridors of Rapture?
Do you think they'd let me climb the Colosseum if I told them I owned it?
When I see green fields or mountains I’m reminded of the varied landscape of the island of Vvardenfel. And I’ve never been to Rome, but should I find myself there someday I may not think of the rich history of the people, the art, or the architecture, but instead of all the dead city guards and Templars that I’m responsible for. I can’t be the only one who experiences these things.
Take a moment to think about how deeply you identify with the entertainment you busy yourself with. When you’re recounting some of these stories to your friends, pay particularly close attention to the pronouns you use. When I’m describing a sequence of events from an episode of a TV show or a comic book, I speak in the third person. Indiana Jones thwarts the Nazis. Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star.
When I tell my friends about the ridiculous aerial assassination I performed in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood last night or the fantastic twist at the end of Bioshock, my choice of words is meaningfully different. Master Chief doesn’t stop the Covenant. Commander Shepard doesn’t beat back the reapers. I do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a game with a preset character with a strong personality, the ever-present silent protagonist, or even a multiplayer match. You describe it on your own terms, and I think that’s pretty telling about the way we interact with games.
I know this town just as well as the one I grew up in.
That’s why I think it’s perfectly acceptable, albeit slightly strange, to have flashbacks to things that didn’t really happen — because they did happen. I remember the grasslands of Morrowind just as much as I remember the chair and room I found myself in while I was playing it. Chances are a lot of you remember it, too. So some of these memories are actually shared among us. Maybe someone else out there hears Frank Sinatra and looks over his shoulder to make sure there’s not a seven-foot Deathclaw rapidly closing the distance between them.
It kind of forms a bond — a collective memory exclusive to gamers — because we can have a shared experience from an event happening simultaneously in different places at different times. It’s not strange at all; it’s something new and exciting that will continue to evolve along with our games and ourselves. I’ll try to remember that the next time my spine stiffens at the sound of those classic oldies.