False Memories
Today in class we discussed, Speak, Memory. It really interested me because I feel like I can relate to the reaction of Sacks. Sacks remembers vividly that a bomb fell behind his house, he remembers his father with a stirrup pump and his brothers with pails of water. Sacks remembers every detail like the hissing sound that the burning hot metal made when water hit it’s surface. I don’t know about anyone else in the class, but I’ve experienced developing a false memory as well. I can clearly remember myself at eight years old getting lost at Coney Island. I remember being with my whole family and letting go of my dad’s hand for a moment to get a glimpse of what was behind me and then turning back face forward and not seeing my family in sight. I’ve told this story on many occasions during one of our family get togethers and got the same reaction every time which was, “Huh? What are you talking about?!”. It frustrated me because I remembered the event so clearly, my heart beating fast, tears slowly running down my cheek because I was so nervous and scared… Was it a dream that just felt real? Did it really happen? Was it just a false memory? It beats me.
Reading this excerpt made me feel like I wasn’t necessarily crazy, it happens to other people too. There were actually studies on this. I found a video on YouTube that might be able to answer some of our questions about false memories and I’ll link that below. Scientists made up a couple scenarios and claimed that it has happened to them, even thought it didn’t, these individuals genuinely believed that those situations occurred at some point in their life. It’s so easy for the mind to trick you. You can just fill in the blanks with YOU and it’ll all seem so right. This can also relate to the Brian Williams story, he could have developed a false memory, it all could have felt so real to him, we wont really know the real truth, but it’s a possibility. Speak, Memory definitely gives us more options as to what really happened with Brian Williams. We can really connect Speak, Memory to many occurrences. What do you guys think?