I was thinking (after an exchange in the ghosts thread) about how unreliable memory can be. For example, we've all heard how unreliable eyewitness accounts to anything generally are, and how much they conflict. I've heard and experienced things that show it's in general just a very poor tool for certain situations.
A mate of mine did some psych at uni and told me (and I hope I'm telling it properly) he experimented with planting false memories - only on minor things, obviously. Basically, he and his partners would get students in with their parents (parents were in on it) and ask if they remembered certain events that hadn't actually happened - e.g. buying a certain ice cream from a certain stall on a certain beach visit, things like that. The students would, eventually, almost all say they remembered, and would often add details to the story. They'd then be debriefed so they didn't wander round with false memories, however minor.
This was interesting to my mate because he has a vivid memory of when he was a kid and was on the train with his mum (or maybe mom - he's Canadian, eh!) and a guy rushing to get on got his arm stuck in the door while the rest of him was outside the train. The train moved off and the guy was frantically running alongside with his arm flailing in the carriage. Years later, he talked to his mum about it, and she told him it never happened. And let's face it, that's not the kind of thing you forget if you see it.
When he told me this, I remembered a similar thing: I was with my mum and brother one day when I was about 5, and I saw a car (I even remember what the car looked like - it was black, and I now 'remember' it was a Morris Minor by the shape) that had rolled down an embankment and hit a tree. There was an old guy in the driver's seat slumped over the steering wheel, facing out the driver's side window, eyes open and staring into the distance, clearly dead. I pointed it out to mum as we walked past and asked if he was dead, and she said not to worry and that he was probably just waiting for his wife to come back with their shopping.
Years later, when I was still young enough to remember it clearly but old enough to question whether it had actually happened, I asked my mum about it. She thought I was mad.
So how about you guys? Any odd (perhaps macabre, if you're like me and my mate) 'memories' that you doubt happened?
A mate of mine did some psych at uni and told me (and I hope I'm telling it properly) he experimented with planting false memories - only on minor things, obviously. Basically, he and his partners would get students in with their parents (parents were in on it) and ask if they remembered certain events that hadn't actually happened - e.g. buying a certain ice cream from a certain stall on a certain beach visit, things like that. The students would, eventually, almost all say they remembered, and would often add details to the story. They'd then be debriefed so they didn't wander round with false memories, however minor.
This was interesting to my mate because he has a vivid memory of when he was a kid and was on the train with his mum (or maybe mom - he's Canadian, eh!) and a guy rushing to get on got his arm stuck in the door while the rest of him was outside the train. The train moved off and the guy was frantically running alongside with his arm flailing in the carriage. Years later, he talked to his mum about it, and she told him it never happened. And let's face it, that's not the kind of thing you forget if you see it.
When he told me this, I remembered a similar thing: I was with my mum and brother one day when I was about 5, and I saw a car (I even remember what the car looked like - it was black, and I now 'remember' it was a Morris Minor by the shape) that had rolled down an embankment and hit a tree. There was an old guy in the driver's seat slumped over the steering wheel, facing out the driver's side window, eyes open and staring into the distance, clearly dead. I pointed it out to mum as we walked past and asked if he was dead, and she said not to worry and that he was probably just waiting for his wife to come back with their shopping.
Years later, when I was still young enough to remember it clearly but old enough to question whether it had actually happened, I asked my mum about it. She thought I was mad.
So how about you guys? Any odd (perhaps macabre, if you're like me and my mate) 'memories' that you doubt happened?
), and actually had on video the ABC's broadcast with the first 60 seconds or so of Lock, Stock, then the "newsflash" interruption when they said 2 planes had hit and they were now going live to NY.
