Every memory is a "story" you re-tell yourself each time you "remember" it.

There's no meaningful difference on how you experience it as "real" even if its just a "re-enaction" of such reality, but it might help explain why so many humans remember things from their past slightly differently than they actually happened.

This can also serve as a trauma-recovery mechanism, allowing one to not remember stuff too traumatizing etc, the brain blocks it out or rewrites it as a dream, or whatever