new technologies: memory implants?

[Disappointered]

I saw someone mention implanted memories and it got me thinking. Does anyone have any knowledge/experience of creating new memories? If this actually worked i would do it. Neither hypnosis nor cbt worked on me but if there's technology that can implant false memories to create new narratives, that could be promising, especially combined with erasure of real ones. It's not all that far away from suicide if it turns you into a different person..sign me up. But how far away is that kind of technology? I just googled it and saw that they implanted memories in mice in an article from 2019.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I would imagine implanting false memories would be:
a) very difficult
b) very dangerous
c) very dodgy legally
d) a long way off having that technology

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courses.lumenlearning.com

 

[BipolarGuy]

I saw someone mention implanted memories and it got me thinking. Does anyone have any knowledge/experience of creating new memories? If this actually worked i would do it. Neither hypnosis nor cbt worked on me but if there's technology that can implant false memories to create new narratives, that could be promising, especially combined with erasure of real ones. It's not all that far away from suicide if it turns you into a different person..sign me up. But how far away is that kind of technology? I just googled it and saw that they implanted memories in mice in an article from 2019.

Honestly I'd be worried about how this could be used.

Furthermore, if we're a product of our experiences, wouldn't different memories create a new person, very roughly speaking?
Law of unintended consequences.

From a scientific viewpoint, I'm not sure we understand exactly how memories are formed or stored, never mind how to artificially create an entire false narrative.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I've heard brain surgeons refer to brain surgery as "Playing Russian Roulette with two revolvers and only one chamber empty."
Unfortunately, the only way to change who you are is to plod the inscrutably hard path of experience, and to generate those new memories yourself.

 

[Disappointered]

I'm not worried about how it could be used. I believe it's already being used nefariously but I'm hoping it could be used beneficially as well. As far as potentially creating a new person that wouldn't bother me at all, same with equating it to suicide. There could be legal frameworks and oversight set up to ensure ethical research and implementation, assuming the subjects are able to be consenting in the first place and accept any risks.

But how difficult is it to get there is what I'm wondering. The mice things seems promising but it probably won't happen in my lifetime...especially since I'm hoping my lifetime ends soon.

 

[Giraffey]

I am a clinical hypnotherapist and a published sleep scientist, I'm by no means an expert on memory although one of my colleagues and friends is a leading academic who specialises in false memories and false memory syndrome. I fired off a brief message to fact-check before I sat down to write my reply. Neither of us have ever heard of a technology that is able to create or implant a false memory, although there have been animal studies in which memory circuits have been artificially stimulated to cause the brain to encode a specific memory.

We are a very long way from replicating such techniques in humans; parts of their technique are technically possible to translate into humans, but our understanding of memory just isn't advanced enough to make that leap. Give it another ten years and I'm optimistic we will see promising therapies beginning to emerge in the research centred on destabilising or erasing specific memories, and removing the fear and emotion from traumatic memories, as opposed to simply creating new suppressive memories as in current therapies, but I would argue it will be longer than that before scientists are actually implanting false memories - if ever it gains the ethical approval to be tried in humans.

It is, however, possible to condition a false memory in humans through a variety of different techniques such as hypnosis, social pressure and conditioning and a variety of other psychological tools. My colleague gave expert evidence in a court case where a young woman had become genuinely convinced that she had been sexually assaulted by a passing male. It wasn't until CCTV evidence was discovered that all involved realised the young woman had not been assaulted at all but had, in fact, unconsciously fabricated the memory from a theatre play she had watched in which a sexual assault took place.

If you study false confessions in the judicial system as well you will see that a proportion of those cases involve innocent parties who through various means come to believe that they must be guilty, they then imagine committing the crime and through various mechanisms, this becomes an actual memory which they recall to falsely justify their guilt. Indeed, multiple experiments have replicated this process of false memory implantation with the assistance of the presentation of false evidence.

It's also one of the main arguments against so-called 'recovered memory therapy' of which as both a scientist and a hypnotist I am a staunch critic.

 

[Disappointered]

Yes, I believe it is possible to create memories for certain people, especially if the right resources are dedicated toward that goal. Unfortunately no hypnotherapy or other form of intervention has worked for me so I'm disappointed to hear that the technology isn't close to being out, or at least not to the public. Thanks for looking into it for me.

 

[x~Sophia~x]

Surely if someone had false memories implanted into their brain, they would need the positives of these false memories to be ongoing. If your false memories included people you don't get along with suddenly being your best friends, how can this be carried forward to continue, if these 'friends' aren't really friends?

 

[Giraffey]

Yes, I believe it is possible to create memories for certain people, especially if the right resources are dedicated toward that goal. Unfortunately no hypnotherapy or other form of intervention has worked for me so I'm disappointed to hear that the technology isn't close to being out, or at least not to the public. Thanks for looking into it for me.

Sorry to have been the bearer of bad news, I'm afraid the media are often guilty of creating hype. An article talking about how scientists have successfully created and implanted an artificial memory is far more appealing than one which talks about the technical difficulty of translating such results to humans. I should say though that there are many flavours of hypnotherapy which extend beyond the usual CBT.

Memories are malleable and can be reconditioned to an extent and there are treatments available that exploit this. I used to do a lot of work with nightmare sufferers and one of the techniques essentially involved creating a new positive memory or dream narrative and triggering that during the nightmare using special cues. It's specialist work and if you go down that road again, it's well worth speaking to a hypnotherapist who specialises in trauma or has experience in dealing with memory in a PTSD context. I think on average clients see about five or six therapists unsuccessfully before they're finally referred onto me or seek me out, the right therapist can make all the difference.

Easy to say I know, far more effort to find a decent one.

 

[Disappointered]

@I'm fragile I was thinking more of experiences that might provide a sense of confidence and uplift one's spirits. Someone I know started using ecstasy and nightclubbing with an acquaintance from a part-time job many years ago. She seemed to become a changed person over a matter of months due to the positive experiences she had from socializing in that context on that drug. It really buoyed her and helped her transform herself afterwards. Not a complete transformation, no, but still significant. You could also get memories of being a hero or strong winner somehow so that you wouldn't see yourself as a loser or childhood memories that could reprogram parts of your brain. If you also erased bad ones it could help you try to get a fresh start in life.

 

[Giraffey]

Surely if someone had false memories implanted into their brain, they would need the positives of these false memories to be ongoing. If your false memories included people you don't get along with suddenly being your best friends, how can this be carried forward to continue, if these 'friends' aren't really friends?

This is a very interesting point actually and I'm going to comment on it because it has a parallel in hypnosis. One of the fascinating observations made during the studies of hypnosis over the years is the difference between how genuinely hypnotised patients and malingerers handle logical contradictions. For example, if you suggest to someone who is genuinely hypnotised that they cannot see the chair in front of them and then ask them to walk around the room, they will report that the chair has vanished but alter their path to avoid it (walk around it). Malingerers who have been instructed to pretend will bump into the chair as if it were genuinely invisible.

Similarly, if you suggest to a hypnotised patient that they cannot see a number is written on a piece of paper, they will report that what they see is just a blank piece of paper. But interestingly when you then challenge them about it, most will eventually capitulate and correctly recall the number that was written on the paper. Hypnosis doesn't physically prevent them from seeing the chair or what is written on the paper, but it gives the patient permission to 'suspend belief' if you like, to genuinely think and act as though it weren't there.

If someone had a false memory implanted and was then confronted with evidence contradictory to said false memory then I suspect, depending on several variables, it would take two paths. Either they would stick rigidly to the false memory and challenge the authenticity of the evidence, or more likely, they would resolve the disconnect between their memory and the present circumstances by deferring to their current situation. Perhaps they may believe that they were once friends with the enemy or that they simply thought that they were friends.

Again, it's a fascinating subject area.

 

[x~Sophia~x]

@I'm fragile I was thinking more of experiences that might provide a sense of confidence and uplift one's spirits. Someone I know started using ecstasy and nightclubbing with an acquaintance from a part-time job many years ago. She seemed to become a changed person over a matter of months due to the positive experiences she had from socializing in that context on that drug. It really buoyed her and helped her transform herself afterwards. Not a complete transformation, no, but still significant. You could also get memories of being a hero or strong winner somehow so that you wouldn't see yourself as a loser or childhood memories that could reprogram parts of your brain. If you also erased bad surely ones it could help you try to get a fresh start in life.

Sorry, you're not convincing me. People who have had severely bad life experiences surely can't be cured by having good experiences implanted into their brain, when they will eventually discover that it's all a lie. I'd suggest that something like this would be soul destroying for them when they realise they've been duped.

 

[Giraffey]

@I'm fragile I was thinking more of experiences that might provide a sense of confidence and uplift one's spirits. Someone I know started using ecstasy and nightclubbing with an acquaintance from a part-time job many years ago. She seemed to become a changed person over a matter of months due to the positive experiences she had from socializing in that context on that drug. It really buoyed her and helped her transform herself afterwards. Not a complete transformation, no, but still significant. You could also get memories of being a hero or strong winner somehow so that you wouldn't see yourself as a loser or childhood memories that could reprogram parts of your brain. If you also erased bad ones it could help you try to get a fresh start in life.

Believe it or not, visualisation therapy can assist with this. Athletes and other sportspeople visualise competing or training, they imagine winning and recall the feeling of crossing the finish line first or scoring that killer goal; businessmen visualise delivering the winning speech at a pitch or meeting and psychological anchors are created, from a memory perspective, this has to do with how anticipatory events are stored in long-term memory. It's a powerful technique.

I use a related but more complicated technique that is a form of lucid dreaming as it has a bias towards positive emotion and the suppression of pain. In both cases, although one is simply visualising or experiencing an imaginary scenario, there is a measurable physiological reaction.

None of this is is a substitute for comprehensive therapy in cases of trauma or abuse, but for combating stage fright or performance anxiety, addressing phobias, building self-confidence and improving muscle memory in relation to a specific task, there are demonstrated use cases.

 

[Disappointered]

Sorry, you're not convincing me. People who have had severely bad life experiences surely can't be cured by having good experiences implanted into their brain, when they will eventually discover that it's all a lie. I'd suggest that something like this would be soul destroying for them when they realise they've been duped.

You don't know they would ever realize the memories are false. The false memories could help them to recreate how they see themselves which could in itself lead to new real memories that would continue to boost their emotional and social well-being. It doesn't have to be memories of people they're around who they don't get along with. But you're obviously correct that the more severely bad the life experiences have been the harder it would be to use it and for it to lead to major changes.

 

[x~Sophia~x]

You don't know they would ever realize the memories are false. The false memories could help them to recreate how they see themselves which could in itself lead to new real memories that would continue to boost their emotional and social well-being. It doesn't have to be memories of people they're around who they don't get along with. But you're obviously correct that the more severely bad the life experiences have been the harder it would be to use it and for it to lead to major changes.

So for it to work, they would have to move away to a new area so as not to run into people who made their life hell in the past?

 

[Disappointered]

Hmm let's think about it...maybe. Or maybe just move forward with both enemies and memories of friends from past experiences who aren't there anymore. From which they might find new real friends. I'm sure if you're hated by everyone in your environment it would hard. But in some cases would it be possible? I think so.

 

[SweetSurrender]

I am a clinical hypnotherapist and a published sleep scientist, I'm by no means an expert on memory although one of my colleagues and friends is a leading academic who specialises in false memories and false memory syndrome. I fired off a brief message to fact-check before I sat down to write my reply. Neither of us have ever heard of a technology that is able to create or implant a false memory, although there have been animal studies in which memory circuits have been artificially stimulated to cause the brain to encode a specific memory.

We are a very long way from replicating such techniques in humans; parts of their technique are technically possible to translate into humans, but our understanding of memory just isn't advanced enough to make that leap. Give it another ten years and I'm optimistic we will see promising therapies beginning to emerge in the research centred on destabilising or erasing specific memories, and removing the fear and emotion from traumatic memories, as opposed to simply creating new suppressive memories as in current therapies, but I would argue it will be longer than that before scientists are actually implanting false memories - if ever it gains the ethical approval to be tried in humans.

It is, however, possible to condition a false memory in humans through a variety of different techniques such as hypnosis, social pressure and conditioning and a variety of other psychological tools. My colleague gave expert evidence in a court case where a young woman had become genuinely convinced that she had been sexually assaulted by a passing male. It wasn't until CCTV evidence was discovered that all involved realised the young woman had not been assaulted at all but had, in fact, unconsciously fabricated the memory from a theatre play she had watched in which a sexual assault took place.

If you study false confessions in the judicial system as well you will see that a proportion of those cases involve innocent parties who through various means come to believe that they must be guilty, they then imagine committing the crime and through various mechanisms, this becomes an actual memory which they recall to falsely justify their guilt. Indeed, multiple experiments have replicated this process of false memory implantation with the assistance of the presentation of false evidence.

It's also one of the main arguments against so-called 'recovered memory therapy' of which as both a scientist and a hypnotist I am a staunch critic.

I actually have some personal experience with this. I went to a therapist that used bogus techniques. Now I struggle with if a memory is real or not. It's beyond weird, but mostly deeply distressing. I'd love to be able to talk to someone about it. Do you mind if I messages you about it?

 

[Giraffey]

I actually have some personal experience with this. I went to a therapist that used bogus techniques. Now I struggle with if a memory is real or not. It's beyond weird, but mostly deeply distressing. I'd love to be able to talk to someone about it. Do you mind if I messages you about it?

I'm so sorry to hear that @SweetSurrender, I am similarly not a fan of 'past life regression' but at least when people genuinely believe in those techniques there is still a boundary between what is real and what is, in this case, 'spiritual', or as a sceptic would say, imaginary. With repressed memories that boundary is blurred and it can be incredibly pernicious.

You're more than welcome to message me.

 

[SweetSurrender]

@SlowMo I'm pretty new here and don't yet have PM privileges But when do I'll Pm you Thankyou so much! I don't really get to talk about because its so weird and crazy.

 

[Giraffey]

@SlowMo I'm pretty new here and don't yet have PM privileges But when do I'll Pm you Thankyou so much! I don't really get to talk about because its so weird and crazy.

You're most welcome, I shall look forward to your message. Just remember, you're not weird or crazy any more than those of us who experience phantom memories like deja vu or jamais vu. Memory is intricate and complicated and false memories are actually very common. Indeed, I have a few memories from my early childhood below the age of 3. I know these cannot possibly be real memories because at that age my brain would not be developed enough to form long-term memories, and yet they feel vivid and real and have emotional and sensory qualities attached.

How did I end up with such memories? They are from photographs that I have 'stepped into' from which real memories of a fictitious recollection of events have formed. If you look at studies on this phenomenon it's actually more common than you think and can occur just as readily in people like myself who don't score highly on the susceptibility scales (such as fantasy proneness) as those who do.

Similarly, there is a great misconception that those who hear voices are psychotic or schizophrenic but actually. hearing voices is a phenomenon that also often occurs in perfectly ordinary, psychologically sound people who have no history of mental illness and never develop it. The neural correlates (as we say) are not unique to the brains of those with mental illnesses and in-fact, voices can be considered neurologically as a perfectly normal event that most of us will probably experience at least once in our life.

If you drill down into the phenomenology of the voices, that is the characteristics of the person's subjective experience of the voice, only at that level can you make meaningful distinctions about what does and doesn't constitute a symptom from a mental health perspective. I would make the same argument with false memories, most people who experience false memories are not crazy or mad, or at risk of losing touch with reality, only a subset are at risk and the blanket pathologisation of such phenomena is an unhelpful stereotype I see too many psychologists repeating.

Anyway, my apologies for the speech, I just wanted to challenge you on calling yourself crazy, perhaps doing so almost by default. When you can PM, you're welcome to drop me a message any time and I can go into any details to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

This is a very interesting point actually and I'm going to comment on it because it has a parallel in hypnosis. One of the fascinating observations made during the studies of hypnosis over the years is the difference between how genuinely hypnotised patients and malingerers handle logical contradictions. For example, if you suggest to someone who is genuinely hypnotised that they cannot see the chair in front of them and then ask them to walk around the room, they will report that the chair has vanished but alter their path to avoid it (walk around it). Malingerers who have been instructed to pretend will bump into the chair as if it were genuinely invisible.

Similarly, if you suggest to a hypnotised patient that they cannot see a number is written on a piece of paper, they will report that what they see is just a blank piece of paper. But interestingly when you then challenge them about it, most will eventually capitulate and correctly recall the number that was written on the paper. Hypnosis doesn't physically prevent them from seeing the chair or what is written on the paper, but it gives the patient permission to 'suspend belief' if you like, to genuinely think and act as though it weren't there.

If someone had a false memory implanted and was then confronted with evidence contradictory to said false memory then I suspect, depending on several variables, it would take two paths. Either they would stick rigidly to the false memory and challenge the authenticity of the evidence, or more likely, they would resolve the disconnect between their memory and the present circumstances by deferring to their current situation. Perhaps they may believe that they were once friends with the enemy or that they simply thought that they were friends.

Again, it's a fascinating subject area.

Is this processing without awareness? So much of what we perceive, we are not consciously aware of. We can believe whatever we want but we can often see the truth of a situation even if we choose to deny it.
I find hypnosis fascinating. I liked the idea of suggestion and tried seeing a hypnotist myself. Didn't work. I simply couldn't think in the way he wanted me to.

 

[Viro_Major]

For some reason, I immediately think about

Spoiler

This subject appears to be a pandora box.

 

[Disappointered]

It always seems like there's so much potential to change the brain, including perception and memories, through hypnosis but only if you can be the one hypnotized. I can't be hypnotized so without a new technology or something new to induce hypnosis I won't be able to benefit. I straight up asked my last 'therapist' to go ahead and brainwash me but she was unsuccessful.

 

[Giraffey]

Is this processing without awareness? So much of what we perceive, we are not consciously aware of. We can believe whatever we want but we can often see the truth of a situation even if we choose to deny it.
I find hypnosis fascinating. I liked the idea of suggestion and tried seeing a hypnotist myself. Didn't work. I simply couldn't think in the way he wanted me to.

Yes and no. In the 'negative hallucination' examples above the effect is being mediated by a disruption to the person's perceptual awareness. In other words, they can 'see' the object in front of them, but they form an illusionary mental block which disrupts the way their brain processes the sensory information they're receiving about the object in question. Such powerful effects generally only work on a small proportion of the population, those who score highly on suggestibility scales, but with an experienced practitioner, hypnosis will work to some degree on nearly everybody.

As I mentioned above though, there are different styles and flavours and many different techniques, if one doesn't work then a good practitioner will be able to identify the reason why and try a technique better suited. Alas, it's one thing in theory and another in practice, as with therapists there are the very good ones, average ones and those who you just cannot believe could ever qualify.

 

[Disappointered]

@SlowMo

Would it be possible to hypnotize someone so that they can get themselves to ctb peacefully and painlessly? i guess people would be thinking that if you can achieve that you should be able to hypnotize them so as to improve their lives such that they don't want to die anymore but that might not necessarily be true.

 

[FatalSystemError591]

@SlowMo

Would it be possible to hypnotize someone so that they can get themselves to ctb peacefully and painlessly? i guess people would be thinking that if you can achieve that you should be able to hypnotize them so as to improve their lives such that they don't want to die anymore but that might not necessarily be true.

Humans are more biased toward the negative, and with what I understand hypnosis only occurs in the boundaries of what the person wants, so if someone wanted to CTB it would be easier to convince someone to not feel pain when they do it than it would be to help them live. Human nature dictates that in theory it should be easy enough to do granted the person was susceptible to hypnosis.

There is a professional in here so correct me if I am wrong!

 

[Giraffey]

@SlowMo

Would it be possible to hypnotize someone so that they can get themselves to ctb peacefully and painlessly? i guess people would be thinking that if you can achieve that you should be able to hypnotize them so as to improve their lives such that they don't want to die anymore but that might not necessarily be true.

Forgive my late reply, I've been away from the site for a few days.

This is an interesting question actually and it raises a number of issues. The first is the concept of how far hypnosis can intrude on the autonomy of a person; could hypnosis be used to override the survival instinct? If you're talking about hypnosis in the strictest sense, then the answer is yes, and no... You could use hypnosis as a way to counsel a person and relieve a specific fear in relation to a suicidal act. For example, if what prevented a person from drinking a poisonous substance was fear of a specific side effect, you could relieve that fear, thus removing the barrier to them performing the act.

What you couldn't do is override the innate survival instinct in a physiological sense, you couldn't hypnotise somebody to stop breathing. I've spoken on here before about people making claims that hypnosis can be used to stop the heart or cause a peaceful death, their evidence being that certain subjects have anecdotally experienced near-death experiences during hypnosis and thus faultily assume they have been clinically dead for a period of time. I have induced near-death experiences in subjects using hypnosis; it's a flawed methodology to suggest this was in any way related to death.

Now, could you hypnotise somebody who has ingested a poisonous substance, for example, to not experience pain as they pass away? Yes, you can, but I don't know how practical it would be. Hypnosis for anaesthesia has been around for centuries and was actually common practice before medical anaesthesia drugs were available, it's still sometimes used today. With a reasonably responsive subject, you could indeed hypnotise them to not feel any pain or discomfort as the process of whatever drug or poison they had ingested took hold. Again, I'm not sure how practical it would be with other methods such as hanging, but to my knowledge, it's never been attempted, so it may or may not work, I don't have an answer to that.

But yes, brilliant question @Lovequenel, in certain contexts, you could hypnotise somebody to allow them to experience a painless and peaceful death. To answer the latter half of your question, using hypnosis to remedy their desire to die very much depends on the issues that underpin that desire. You couldn't just hypnotise somebody to shut off the part of their brain that felt suicidal as suicidal feelings are far more complex in nature and origin, but hypnosis as an adjunct to other therapeutic techniques can be used to remedy some of the issues in people's lives that might underpin their feelings of suicide.

I hope that answers the question, if I missed anything then just drop me a tag and I'll try and clarify.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Now, could you hypnotise somebody who has ingested a poisonous substance, for example, to not experience pain as they pass away? Yes, you can, but I don't know how practical it would be.

Probably supported by a MASSIVE consensus of society, as to what is right, accepted for centuries and conditioned to be normal. Maybe? I think physical, survival issues will take control at the pointy end. At least that's what happened when i stopped breathing.

 

[Giraffey]

I think physical, survival issues will take control at the pointy end. At least that's what happened when i stopped breathing.

Absolutely, you can't use hypnosis to override survival instinct in a physiological sense, but hypnosis could be used to relieve pain or distress during the process of dying until the point of unconsciousness, at which point the person is no longer guided by the hypnotist's instructions.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Absolutely, you can't use hypnosis to override survival instinct in a physiological sense, but hypnosis could be used to relieve pain or distress during the process of dying until the point of unconsciousness, at which point the person is no longer guided by the hypnotist's instructions.

Respect to you Slowmo, But...I've not found that when I was faced with death, that is all there was. Hypnosis has always failed with me, as much as I wanted to adhere to the principles. Maybe I had shit practitioners.
But facing death, even at the start of the process, it put all things into relief. My experience is this: there is no way to avoid experiencing your demise. No amount of hypnosis, philosophy or sedation. I've witnessed death, it comes regardless. What we think makes it easier...I'd question. Everything has it's time and everything dies. I think we all experience it, not matter how much modern science tries to block it out.
But... question the dead. I have no answers.