Topics Mind

Question How can one get rid of his/her memories, either bad or good ones? Is there any way to forget a happening in the past?

Accepted:
October 11, 2005

Comments

Memory is not under one's direct control. (In this respect, it'slike belief: see Question 142.) I can't force myself to forget what I hadfor breakfast yesterday. In fact, the more I try to do that, the morelikely it is I will remember what I had! Perhaps that does provide somekind of answer though: for the more one explicitly recalls a particularevent, the longer and better one remembers it. (At least, that's truefor me.) So, while one can't directly compel oneself to forget, one cando things that might make it more likely that one will forget, like nottalking or thinking about the event.

Maybe our memories aren't under our direct control, but certain types of alterations of our brain will affect our memories. Since, given current technology, the procedures available for altering our brain (brain surgery, brain injury, drug abuse) are not very precise in their effect on memories, I wouldn't recommend them . . .

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an amusing (or so I thought) movie about exactly this.

Fifty First Dates (Drew Barrimore, Adam Sandler) is a sour-funny treatment of loss of memory. After an automobile accident, she can remember only what happens during the course of one day. She begins again (from the point of the accident) when she wakes up the next morning. In a hospital scene, the audience is shown the case of a man whose memory extends only ten seconds. He asks over and over again how you are and wishes you a good day endlessly. A hilarious scene about something tragic. But he doesn't have a clue about his "sad" state. Might we drink to forget? Might we forget things if we smoke too much marijuana? The difference between short-term and long-term memory is important. I do remember what I ate this morning (nothing! my daily routine); what I ate on March 4, 1955 is gone. The older I get, other people claim that my long-term memory is starting to fail. But I know they are wrong, the fools.

Since I am supposed to be the sex expert among the panelists (ha), I might as well say a few words about sex and memory. People's memories of their sexual experiences are notoriously unreliable. (Keeping a daily diary helps, the professors have proved. Geeze, I could have told them that.) This is one reason why sociological studies of sexual behavior often yield useless results. Why are our memories of our sexual lives inaccurate? In a series of one-night casual events, for example, we are bound to forget a few encounters. Also, we (men) go the other way, upping the vague number that we think we can recall (women tend to "down" the number; no surprise). Those people who remember best are the virgins and the strictly monogamous (unless they are prone to hallucinations). There are other reasons for the unreliability of sexual memory but, of course, I can't remember them all. I know where that book is, I think.

Although not fully intended by the writers of the Barrimore-Sandler movie, loss of memory has erotic possibilities. After Drew and Adam are married, every sex act they perform together (if they do it only once a day) is the first, for her. In some scenarios, husband and wife, both with memory failure, would never get tired/bored of each other sexually. The rock songs "Feels Like the Very First Time" (Foreigner) and "[Feel] Just Like a Virgin" (Madonna) come to mind here. (It took some time for me to retrieve "Foreigner.")

Question How can one get rid of his/her memories, either bad or good ones? Is there any way to forget a happening in the past? Accepted:October 11, 2005

Question How can one get rid of his/her memories, either bad or good ones? Is there any way to forget a happening in the past?

Accepted:
October 11, 2005