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Are there stories where people have conflicting memories after time travel?



I've noticed that over time there have been different rules for time travel. For example, originally the grandfather paradox was dealt with by the grandson either disappearing from the timeline or some other paradox set up. Now days, it seems more and more stories are using alternate timelines (like in Terra Nova). (And in the grandfather paradox stories, I don't think I ever saw one where, after the grandson disappeared, he wasn't there to cause the paradox, so he re-appeared only to disappear, then reappear in a loop.)


While every author or movie or TV show may have different rules, some seem to be standardized.


I've noticed one of these rules is conflicting memories. For example, when Marty McFly goes back in time and changes his present, he comes back, but remembers things as they were before he left -- he does not have memories of the changed events everyone else experienced. And, of course, those who didn't go back have only the memories of the new path and don't remember what Marty remembers. (I have yet to see Back to the Future II so I hope I'm not omitting anything.)


In Star Trek, with multiple time travel stories, people either remember the changed timeline or the original, but not both.


Is this rule ever broken? Are there stories where people have conflicting memories of an original and a changed timeline at the same time?



Answer



The main character in the movie The Butterfly Effect receives the new set of memories on top of his original ones each time he completes a time jump. The accumulated knowledge leads to nosebleeds and eventually brain damage.


Likewise in the movie Frequency, the main character retains both sets of memories, but there is no apparent damage to his mind (beyond extreme confusion when it first happens).



Edit for Star Trek additions:


TNG 3x15, Yesterday's Enterprise - Guinan can sense when the timeline is wrong, to the point of being sure one of the Enterprise crew was supposed to be dead. Not actual memories, however.


TNG 7x25/26, All Good Things... - Picard was catapulted between three time periods in an alternate timeline by Q, and retained his memory of the events.


DS9 3x17, Visionary - Miles O'Brien experiences multiple jumps into the near future, seeing disasters that eventually get averted due to knowledge gained in these jumps. He would have remembered all these alternate futures, had he not died and sent a future version of himself (that didn't experience the jumps) back in time to complete the mission.


DS9 4x03, The Visitor - Benjamin Sisko experiences pieces of the far future, before being slingshot back to his correct time. He retains memories of that future, since he knew what to do to not get temporally displaced again.


VOY 3x21, Before and After - Kes is sent backwards through time from her death, and remembers the future, and warns the captain about the Krenim.


ENT 2x16, Future Tense - Trip, Reed, and Archer experience time loops, except they do retain their memories of each loop.


Examples filtered from Memory Alpha's list of time travel episodes.


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