Is it Actually Possible to Plant Memories in Someone? (part 2)

In my previous blog, I discussed briefly about the idea of our memories being constructive processes and how they fill in missing pieces, not necessarily with events that actually happened. I also discussed how scientists did an experiment and discovered that it was possible to plant memories in mice. However, they had to use equipment and a protein called channelrhodopsin that activates neurons when it is stimulated by light. However, there are also ways to plant false memories within gullible suspects without having to use any equipment or proteins.

Scientific American Blog features Carl Sagan, whom suggests that there are only four steps you need to follow to implant false memories in your friends. He says that implanting false memories in people is not only possible, but is actually pretty easy when attempted in the proper settings with a gullible subject. He cited examples as people who, at the urging of therapists or hypnotists, genuinely start to believe that they’d been abducted by UFO’s or falsely remember being used as a child. The distinction between memory and imagination becomes blurred for these people, and events that never actually happened become embedded into their memories as if they were real events.

The first step says Sagan, is to first select one of your friends, who is “prone to suggestion, or is easily influenced. You should most likely be acquainted with this friend for at least five years so that you have many experiences shared between the two of you.

Next, Sagan says to fabricate a memory. The false memory should have “taken place” at least a year in the past, be sort of vague, and not be something that would evoke strong feelings of emotion.

According to Scientific American, studies have shown that it’s easy to make people falsely recall small details about events, but as the fake memories grow in complexity and specificity, implantation grows progressively harder, though not impossible. After three interviews, researchers at Western Washington University succeeded in getting subjects to recall details about accidentally spilling a bowl of punch on the parents of the bride at a wedding reception. Emotions tend to make people remember events much more vividly than the average event, and this is why your target might not believe you or accept a false memory if you told him/her that thy experienced something highly emotional. However, researchers at the University of British Colombia did succeed in convincing 26% of their subjects that they had been victims of a vicious animal attack in their childhood, but the research team’s sophisticated methods probably won’t apply in a practical joke setting.

The third step that Sagan says to complete is to prepare. He says you are going to need narrative details, maybe about your friend’s outfit, what led to the event, what the setting was like, and who was there. If you have corroborators (the more the better!), your memory will be much more believable.

The last step is to set your plan in motion, according to Sagan. He says, “When you commence, be persistent. The memory may not stick right away; you’ll probably have to bring it up multiple times over a span of days or even weeks. Memory isn’t static. It’s fickle, ever changing, and easily tampered with; a patchwork quilt that can be ripped, torn, and remade. Perhaps what we actually remember is a set of memory fragments stitched onto a fabric of our own devising. If we sew cleverly enough, we have made ourselves a memorable story easy to recall.”

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