(Read this and then please SHARE your thoughts on the questions at the end in the COMMENTS section below!)
Bad memories can eat away at you, keeping you up at night and making you simmer with anger or fall into depression. For some, such memories make it virtually impossible to enjoy life and may even progress into physical conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or relapses into drug addiction.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were simply a button you could push to make those bad memories disappear?
At first glance, most people would probably say yes, but that’s because they know it’s not really possible. Or is it? And if it were, would you want to do it?
Scientists Have Figured Out How to Erase Bad Memories in Mice …
And, to state the obvious, this suggests that human memories may be next. The study involved mice that had been trained to associate the rewarding effects of methamphetamine with visual, tactile and scent cues. But, after the mice were injected with a substance that inhibited actin polymerization — the creation of large chainlike molecules, which plays an essential step in memory formation, the mice showed no interest in the methamphetamine associations.[i]
Science Daily reported:[ii]
“Behavioral tests showed the animals immediately and persistently lost memories associated with methamphetamine — with no other memories affected.”
The study’s lead author expanded:[iii]
“”Our memories make us who we are, but some of these memories can make life very difficult … Not unlike in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we’re looking for strategies to selectively eliminate evidence of past experiences related to drug abuse or a traumatic event. Our study shows we can do just that in mice — wipe out deeply engrained drug-related memories without harming other memories.”
Pills to Erase Specific Memories are Already in the Works
Your brain already uses tactics like suppression and substitution to help you forget bad memories ‘naturally,’ and groups including the American Red Cross, U.S. Department of Defense, the Israeli Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency use a seven-step practice called critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) to help those exposed to traumatic events to essentially ‘forget’ the trauma. The problem is, CISD doesn’t work very well, and might make the bad memories even worse.[iv]
The next best option? According to some, memory-erasing drugs. Pills are already in the works that may one day soon be able to selectively target and erase certain memories. Wired Magazine reported:[v]
“Future treatments … will involve targeted inhibitors … that become active only in particular parts of the cortex and only at the precise time a memory is being recalled. The end result will be a menu of pills capable of erasing different kinds of memories–the scent of a former lover or the awful heartbreak of a failed relationship. These thoughts and feelings can be made to vanish, even as the rest of the memory remains perfectly intact.
… While we typically think of memories as those facts and events from the past that stick in the brain … research suggests that memory is actually much bigger and stranger than that. In fact, PTSD isn’t the only disease that’s driven by a broken set of memories–other nasty afflictions, including chronic pain, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and drug addiction, are also fueled by memories that can’t be forgotten.”
Would You Erase Bad Memories?
The potential ethical issues raised by erasing memories are major. Which memories would be deemed bad enough for erasing? A traumatic event, surely, but what about a bad Christmas or day at work? What would happen if a person were able to erase criminal acts, like murder, from their brain? And … what would happen if the memory-erasing pills fell into the wrong hands or were used against your will?
The questions are endless … as are the possibilities. Please do feel free to share your thoughts on this controversial issue below … and if you’re interested in preserving your memory as best as possible, check out all-natural Advanced Memory Support.
