Once, as a child, I recall waking-up and running to the cupboard expecting to find it recently replenished with food, only to discover it was bare. My mom was still out shopping. I realized that I had only dreamt about her returning home with groceries.

It's probably not applicable in the Berenstein/stain case, but I've long suspected that a lot of false memories originate in dreams that I've forgotten about having. The contents of the dream lives on, along side legitimate memories, while the fact that it was a dream fades away.

The empty cupboard experience was unique because the dream was recent enough for me to recognize the false memory as a dream I had just had.