Dreams are common for all humans across the world. Sometimes we have nightmares and at other times we have wonderful and exciting dreams. Then there are there are times that the dreams are so vivid that we have to really channel our minds into keeping the dream and reality separate. It scares me to think that in my thirty-two-years of life, I may have implanted these dreams and made them my own reality. The mind is overwhelmingly powerful and false memories have been a common occurrence in numerous circumstances that can last for a lifetime. Are you getting scared yet?
The topic is unknown to most everyone that is around me, but when I talk about it, it usually gives them a startle and then they become intrigued. Who wants to think that they have created some of their memories based on false information? When recalling memories, we are reconstructing information (not playing it back like a recorded video) from more than just the actual events and that can influence how we actually remember that memory. When we are awake, errors due to attention, familiarity, suggestion, and post-event questioning can all impact the creation of a false memory (Goldstein, 2011).
Dreams could also be distorting what we believe is a true memory. There have been numerous studies involving dreams and false memories. Empirical data shows that we do in fact have a hard time distinguishing certain dreams because they are intrinsically similar which causes source misattributions. Needless to say, our unconscious mind is once again manipulating our conscious. In a funny kind of way, we’re all living in a real-life Matrix movie, minus the fighting skills and no choice on whether to pick the blue or red pill.
“It is very common for memories to be incorporated into the first night after they were initially experienced (Lewis, 2014 ). ” You can see how this would present a problem. If we’re dreaming about events that we just did, then the dream can be so vivid and real that if the dream manifests into something that didn’t actually happen, we could wind up adding or deleting the actual memory itself. In a study done by Beaulieu-Prevost and Antonio, they study the impact of dreams on memories and have concluded that dreams are actually more susceptible at creating false memories than are real-life events (2015).
Unfortunately there isn’t really a cure for the misinformation effect caused by dreams or just errors of recall in our daily lives. If we really want to make sure we mentally record everything correctly, we might need to hire a film crew to follow us around in our daily lives. We have to accept that our mind is always trying to fill the gaps and give us the fastest route to recall, even if it does make slight errors. There are plenty of studies continuing to study false memories and dreams and I urge you to look into it yourself. It’s simply amazing.
Beaulieu-Prévost, D., & Zadra, A. (2015). When people remember dreams they never experienced: A study of the malleability of dream recall over time. Dreaming, 25(1), 18-31. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1037/a0038788
Goldstein, E. B., (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, And Everyday Experience. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning
Lewis, P. (2014, July 18). Dreams may play a role in memory incorporation and influence our long-term moods, physiology and creativity. Retrieved from www.scientificamerican.com