Memory Tricks

Ever since last night, I've been finding fully formed memories in my mind with absolutely no source, which create some effect (as in leading me to speak of them) and then vanish. I'm not saying this is paranormal or anything, though I'm open to the idea and rather hopeful that it could be, but fully suspect a mundane explanation to occur. When it began I was drinking, but I've never had such a memory-creating experience while doing so...

Examples: Last night I was drinking and watching my roommate play Okami. The main character of that video game is called Amaterasu. She was saying something about the main character, and I responded "C'mon, Amaterasu is so dumb she once drowned trying to save a little girl who had already been saved." I stopped and said "Where did that come from? That never happened!"

I continued on to claim that my roommate had made some assertion about Gods and Musicals which I can't even remember the content of, even though I knew she hadn't but also knew she had.

The most frightening was this morning when I woke up; eight lines of a fairly solid and quality poem came through my head. it vaguely resembled Ozymandias in theme and topic but most certainly was not that poem. It came through, reciting itself quite clearly in my head, and then I forgot it completely.

Does anyone have any explanation for this?

Memories that are not real are called false memories. This can be induced through a lot of things like 'suggestion'-Someone hinting ideas to you, dreams, and other such things. False memories are s powerful that people believe them to have happened withouta doubt in their mind. The brain is capable of tricking us and it is a studied phenomenon among psychology profressions. The most common people will hear about is th efalse memory concerning abuse or satanic rituals that never actually occured.

en.wikipedia.org...


:"Human memory is created and highly suggestible, and a wide variety of innocuous, embarrassing and frightening memories can be falsely created through the use of different techniques, including guided imagery, hypnosis and suggestion by others. Though not all individuals who are exposed to these techniques will develop memories, experiments suggest a significant number of people will and will actively defend the existence of the events, even if told they were false and deliberately implanted. The questions about the possibility of false memories created an explosion of interest in suggestibility of human memory and resulted in an enormous increase in the knowledge about how memories are encoded, stored and recalled, producing pioneering experiments such as the lost in the mall technique.[14]"

Originally posted by Solasis
Examples: Last night I was drinking and watching my roommate

There ya go!

Do you often have these "false" memories while drinking or after a night of drinking?

You could run a little control test here. Keep a log of EVERY false memory you have. Here is the test:

Stop drinking for an entire week. Keep a log

Have one drink a day for an entire week. Keep a log

Have a few drinks a day for an entire week. Keep a log

Get plowed everyday for an entire week. Keep a log

Let us know the results - I bet you find a pattern.

Dorian Soran

The good doctor

reply to post by Dorian Soran


Actually, this was the first time it had ever happened -- at least, in any notable fashion.

reply to post by Zerra


Thank you so much! Even if I am kind of disappointed that it's got a fully mundane (if crazy and related to that weird thing "the brain") explanation, I'm glad to know it's got an explanation.

Originally posted by Solasis
reply to post by Dorian Soran

 

Actually, this was the first time it had ever happened -- at least, in any notable fashion.

reply to post by Zerra

 

Thank you so much! Even if I am kind of disappointed that it's got a fully mundane (if crazy and related to that weird thing "the brain") explanation, I'm glad to know it's got an explanation.

The question would be , why did your brain create a false memory? Even though it is possible and there is an explanation for 'how' it happens- but why did it happen to you? Was it something mundane like a dream or a suggestion? or was there another influence outside the 'normal'?

Anything is possible.

reply to post by Zerra


I was not aware of any direct suggestions. I had not fallen asleep, though I may have fallen into a semi-asleep daze state, as I occasionally do in class. And even if it were a dream, it seems that that would have to be suggested by something as well. watching the game could certainly explain part of the memory of events in the game, but it doesn't explain the detail with which it arose, nor the poem later. But the poem could've arisen by the fact that I'd recently read Ozymandias in a class... I guess I"ll find out more tonight

When I told my roommate about it when we were both sober, she, tongue firmly pressed against her cheek, suggested that I had momentarily seen into another dimension because I'd been telling her about the Australia/New Zealand thread