Memory, at least human memory, is very tricky. If we gather together several people who have witnessed the same event, many of them will have different recollections of at least some of what they saw. This is one of the problems law enforcement always encounters when they are trying to find out what witnesses saw when investigating a criminal case. It is very common for witnesses who say they saw the perpetrator of a crime describe him or her completely differently from each other. This is one of the reasons cameras have made such a big difference in catching criminals. Once you have a photo of a person committing a crime it gets very hard for them to deny they did it. I have seen cases where different witnesses described a person who committed a crime as having black, brown, red and even gray hair for example. When it comes to their height, it is all over the board. This is also true in civil cases. One of the biggest discrepancies is the speed a car was traveling. I remember one case where two witnesses claimed a car was going over 80 mile per hour when it hit another car, but it turned out it was only traveling about 30 miles per hour.

Scientists have found one in two people are carrying around false memories of things which never really happened. They know if you repeatedly ask someone to imagine a fake event, it will create a false memory in some people. The procedure of creating false memories in some people is not understood very well by the scientific community. Since we are not familiar with what causes these false memories there could be entire groups of people who are prone to false memories and we wouldn’t know it. Lately we are finding out things we never suspected, such as the microbes in our bodies could affect us in ways we never thought about and there might even be a connection between the microbes in our gut and our brains. If we take this a step further we might find out these or other microbes are responsible for at least some of our false memories.

If you have ever seen patients in a mental institution you would know a lot of them have false memories. I remember one patient who “remembered” the fact he wasn’t born, but came out of a photograph. Why would he remember such a thing when clearly it never happened? Somehow it was related to a mental disorder he had. Could it be the mental disorder just magnified the fact? We all have false memories, but we are sane enough to realize at least some of them are not true. It is probably also true sane people don’t have the types of false memories the mentally ill have. Did you ever notice when you sleep and wake up you can’t remember dreaming? It is said the most common myth is we don’t dream, because science tells us we all dream. Some of us just don’t remember most of our dreams. Dreams are important, because it is believed a dream can create a false memory.

Some people are claiming many of the repressed memories others claim to have are just false memories caused by dreams in many cases. In one study it has been said some people have said their repressed memories had returned and they realized they had been sexually abused by various relatives. This has led to arrests and trials and some of the people who were accused have been sent to jail, but could some of them have been innocent and the victims of false memories? At least a couple of psychiatrists think this might be the case. If this is the case it means people’s lives have been destroyed thanks to false memories. One case was based on the fact a women went to a doctor who allegedly brought back repressed memories of her father raping her since she was a small child up to a few days before her wedding. She then had him arrested and they went to court. Had the rapes really occurred or did false memories come to the forefront?

It is said people with Alzheimer’s commonly have some false memories. Doctors state people with Alzheimer’s have a big problem with false memories. Their memory fades and as this is happening it becomes increasingly more fractured. This causes the person with Alzheimer’s to become more influenced by what he or she hears. This memory can become a mixture of actual memories and things which he or she has heard dating all the way back to childhood. Anything could have triggered false memories even a movie or television show which was once seen. Unfortunately there comes a point where one can no longer convince someone with Alzheimer’s their memories are false.

Is it true, the US military is creating a memory weapon? There have been a lot of rumors which seem to indicate at least work on it is being done. If it is true this could be a very powerful weapon indeed. Think of the potential. Brigades of enemy soldiers being sent memories of their families being tortured by their government and killed or perhaps memories of some painful debilitating disease which will render them immobile. We know the United States and perhaps other nations have experimented with taking over people’s brains by allowing another human brain to control them and it worked. These people were all connected by wires to a computer, but if this could be done by broadcasting mind control or false memories it could make quite a difference on a battlefield.

False memory study is a relatively new field. I expect to see a lot of new evidence in this field in the next decade or less. Perhaps it can be used to find a breakthrough for some mental diseases. Maybe the implantation of false memories can be used to cure some diseases or at least make things somewhat better for those with a mental disease. An example might be planting false memories to calm down patients. While most of us think false memories are not a good thing, maybe there is a way we can use them for good.