How do we create fake memories?

[kvnchrist]

I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you, but somehow I created in my mind, afew years ago the memories of me walking across America from where I lived in Kansas as far as the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. I remember vividly the backpack I carried and the single man tent I slept in during the night.

I remember several other things that happened during my travels as clearly as I remember today, and these memories happened before I left the military and far from when I started driving a truck.

These memories were so realistic to me that I actually thought I had done them, but the thing is, I never experienced them. I never walked any further than my hikes in the country and I never got on the highway past the Kansas City area.

Has that ever happened to you and how could they manifest themselves in my mind so vividly I would actual, for a time, think they were real?

[Harbringe]

Dreams , which though not real and most times barely remembered if at all , are glimpsed in your waking state as a memory and as your mind tries to fill in the blanks of the memory it draws on those dreams or even just an imagining to accomplish it . It happens in group dynamics also . For some reason we as a species have it in our minds that there must be an answer to what we see or think or even dream and are driven to fill in the blanks ,even when there is no answer to the blank.

[Tidus44]

Stop going to Rekall Inc. :smile:

 

The mind's creation of false memories is not uncommon, it happens to people quite often. People who experience this need to decide if the memory is true or false and reject those that are false.

 

The speculation of why it happens has a number of theories apparently. The one I happen to like is that false memories are related to, and may be a result of the ability to imagine. Humans have the ability to envision, in many cases in very great detail, and to combine real and imagined events. This is a trait seen in the arts and sciences and creative ability that humans possess. Some people have the imagination and ability to envision and thus create things of great beauty, cure disease or send men to the moon. Others just have a memory of something that never happened.

[WarRatsG]

I did know that memories can be easily influenced, I hadn't realised they could be created from nothing. I mean, even the words used to describe an incident can affect your memory of that incident - for example when asked "did you see any broken glass following the car crash/collision/bump" the likelihood of you remembering any glass is affected by saying either crash, collision or bump. Truly pathological liars can't remember which details they altered in a story, or to what degree. Even without external influences or behavioural disorders, a memory can be changed by entirely internal processes, usually expectations. For example, you may have a memory of someone wearing glasses before they received their first prescription for glasses. You may remember someone being present at an event they would normally have been present for, even though on this occasions they weren't.

As for making up memories from nothing... I can't really be sure as to how that works. I have heard of studies showing that it is frighteningly easy to create memories in this way, although I'm not sure I could link anything. Maybe you are remembering a dream, only your mind has forgotten that you only did it in a dream. A man I worked with once told me about how occasionally he not only had memories from his past but also his future - it's not something I normally go for but he did appear to have an uncanny ability to predict things no-one would have guessed. There was a time I lost 12 hours of memory; I don't know what I did in that time, although I still have "memories" based on what I was told had happened. I know that they aren't real, just as you know yours are not real, but the point I'm making is that the human mind has to resolve conflicting information. I suppose in terms of cognitive dissonance, given the information available your mind either has to accept that this is something you remember doing (regardless of whether you were dreaming at the time) or reject it entirely, since our brains don't really like "sort ofs" or "nearlys".

 

That's pretty much all the theories I can offer, even the slightly absurd ones.

[Vagrant0]

Sometimes it's just simply out of the need to fill in the space where you don't have anything better to remember. In these cases the mind may take in stories or images that were witnessed indirectly and piece them together in an effort to create a coherent group of memories. As this chain of thoughts keeps getting reviewed and thought about it has the potential for becoming more vivid and clear as the pathways keep being reinforced. The more you think about it without dismissing it outright, the more real and certain it will become.

 

This is why witness testimonies tend to be almost worthless unless they're recorded soon after the event. People think about not only the event, but similar events and have a tendency to mix up facts, add in extra details, or just dismiss the events that happened in favor of a more agreeable alternative.