I've just been studying a book on the American phenomena of 'Alien Abduction' which seems to be strongly related to 'Repressed Memory' and 'sleep paralysis'.
There seems to be a belief that human memory is like a video camera that records our entire life. But we don't actually remember all of it. So some therapists offer to help clients recover these memories.
It is noteworthy that in many US states, a witness who has been hypnotised in an attempt to learn more of an event can no longer be called as a witness [1]; The AMA has said that "recovered memories are unreliable and should not be considered true." [2]; the American Psychiatric Association and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis issued a formal statement that hypnosis should not be used to enhance recall [3].
In 1997, in the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists announced a ban on using recovered memories in child abuse cases. They noted that the practice of using hypnosis for recovering memories can give rise to false memories, which often become strongly held beliefs[4].
Elizabeth Loftus has written extensively on false memory (recovered memory) and is a good starting point for anyone who wants to dig deeper [5].
All this calls into question what the human memory really is. We think of it as a place where things are stored for later recall. But this only seems to be true to a very limited extent. Indeed, the ability to recall past events seems to be an auxiliary function of 'the memory'.
But there are lots of little memories around the brain, obviously I am considering the recollection of past events and not the temporally unassigned 'method of riding bike'.
So what does long term memory do if it isn't a video camera? Clearly there is an evolutionary role - remember that sabre toothed cats bite, but these kinds of memories are transactional, like riding the bike. You don't sit in your cave and recollect the correct response to a sabre toothed cat but you might muse over your last encounter. This musing prepares you for little if anything at all.
There is little doubt that the long term memory is not static. Except where very strong emotion was involved when the memory was laid down (which may lead to that memory being recalled often and in the same way - possibly in a 'preparation for action' or 'thing to avoid' mode) memory changes.
There are physical (brain) reasons for this, but there are strategies the brain could use to avoid memory corruption. It seems that past, present and future are divisions that are nowhere nearly as clear when it comes to memory, that things that have happened in the past sometimes change to suit present conditions.
[1] The Abduction Enigma: the truth behind the mass alien abduction of the late twentieth century by K.D.Randle, R.Estes & W.P.Cone, Fobge, 1999, Page 338
[2] ibid, page 337
[3] ibid page 336
[4] ibid page 332
[5] Elizabeth Loftus Home page
© Robert Karl Stonjek 2002