False memories

[Amoeba]

This is going to come across as a rather bizarre question.

False memories: memories that you have stored up there in your brain of things you couldn't have possibly ever done or places you couldn't possibly have ever been. It may be triggered by deja vu, leading to a longing for a time and place you remember but have never experienced.

I ask this question relating to the jinn. What are they capable of? I'm quite interested to know if there is anything to say what they're capable of and if so, what does it say? Can they implant (or suggest) false memories into our minds to confuse us? Or is that beyond their ability?

Because if it is beyond their ability then we must rule out tampering. How else could those memories have gotten there? They often lead to negative consequences, such as people believing in reincarnation. "Well I never experienced this in this life, so it must have been a past life..."

No, just... no.

I sometimes worry that it could be a psychological disorder! You know, that you can create memories in your head without realising it to the point where they feel very real. And then they instil an unhealthy longing and love for the dunya, particularly times and places that no longer (or may never have) existed.

I seem to have these false memories. About a year ago I found it very hard not to dwell on them particularly since I felt these memories were from early childhood. It was a time when I was still awakening many childhood memories that had been locked up and was trying to find my true self, not the cold hard mask that I had constructed to deal with the world.

Unfortunately it unlocked a lot more than just my own memories. But it also unlocked a lot of false ones too, all related to the same place and time in history. As a result I sometimes get overlapping where elements from the false memories creep into my real ones. China early 21st century was something that as a child I had no clue about nor any care for, as far as I remember. But then I remember this kind of parallel to reality where it was all I knew.

In reality, I knew nothing but cartoons and games and animated anthropomorphic animals. On the same token I was kind of lonely. Then the parallel is entirely different - I can't really describe with words because most of what I remember is feelings attached to pictures. And I don't like to say too much really about it because it creeps me out a bit. What I remember is definitely from a child's angle - a lot going on in China at that time was pretty scary for a small child.

Anyway I would prefer to be rid of these false memories, or at the very least find the route of them so that I can rationalise them. I know they are tricks of the mind nothing more.

 

[جوري]

false memories in medicine are attributed to Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome-- a result of destruction to the mammillary bodies in the brain!.. happens due to excessive drinking. The mind then makes up memories to fill in the gaps.. it is called confabulation we don't however attribute it to jinn since an actual cause and effect are present!

and Allah swt knows best

 

[ژاله]

just a thought.
It might be a side effect of having a very imaginative, creative and intelligent mind that cant be easily distracted..if that is true then perhaps you can use that extraordinary mental power of yours to block those false memories..?
I am waiting for bro Woodrow's response on this.

 

[Woodrow]

just a thought.
It might be a side effect of having a very imaginative, creative and intelligent mind that cant be easily distracted..if that is true then perhaps you can use that extraordinary mental power of yours to block those false memories..?
I am waiting for bro Woodrow's response on this.

Memory in itself is quite an interesting study. Although the concept is analogous to computer storage it is many times more complex. I will not go into detail as to how it is believed memories are stored, but it does seem the amount of information that can be stored is very close to being unlimited. We have 2 levels of memory one is on the Conscious level and the rest is on an unconscious level the vast amount of memories we have are at that level and are not directly accessible to us, for example memory of every puff of air that brushes our skin. Each of those that occur are stored in our unconscious memory

Every thought, every thing we hear smell, touch, see is stored someplace in our memory. But so also are every thought we ever had.

It is not fully understood as to how meories are shifted from conscious level to unconscious or vice versa, but it is believed sleep plays a vital role and in particular the stages of dreams.

Now to go past the mechanics of memory and attempt to explain false memories. Our mind is made in such a manner it refuses to allow any blank areas in our memories. There are many things that can cause blank spaces some examples this list is far from complete:

Illness

Head Injury

Emotional trauma

Drugs of any type including but not limited to Alcohol, and Cannabis,

Vitamin deficiency

insufficient sleep

dehydration

Sensory deprivation (one of the reasons we can not remember under going surgery)

Since our mind refuses to accept blank spots these gaps become filled in with possibilities from our unconscious memory.

There is nearly always a physical or emotional cause for false memories. While Jinn possession is a possibility, this does not seem to be very probable in virtually all cases as other causes are identified.

 

[Muhaba]

there is such a thing about false memories. i remember reading about a woman who's psychiatrist had triggered false memories from her childhood about her father abusing and murdering someone. after a long court case it was proven that those were only false memories and her father hadn't really abused or killed anyone.

 

[Amoeba]

false memories in medicine are attributed to Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome-- a result of destruction to the mammillary bodies in the brain!.. happens due to excessive drinking. The mind then makes up memories to fill in the gaps.. it is called confabulation we don't however attribute it to jinn since an actual cause and effect are present!

and Allah swt knows best

I was one of the "weird" ones in my community who didn't really like alcohol. It can't be attributed to drinking in my case. Unless you mean excessive consumption of any fluids including water. In which case I might agree with you, I do get thirsty a lot.

just a thought.
It might be a side effect of having a very imaginative, creative and intelligent mind that cant be easily distracted..if that is true then perhaps you can use that extraordinary mental power of yours to block those false memories..?
I am waiting for bro Woodrow's response on this.

I understood the first part but not the last part. Being imaginative doesn't give you strong mental powers unfortunately. Actually I consider myself fairly weak of mind. Although I am artistically creative I'm not really imaginitive and I don't have the type of imagination where I can imagine being someone else or putting myself in someone else's shoes.

Memory in itself is quite an interesting study. Although the concept is analogous to computer storage it is many times more complex. I will not go into detail as to how it is believed memories are stored, but it does seem the amount of information that can be stored is very close to being unlimited. We have 2 levels of memory one is on the Conscious level and the rest is on an unconscious level the vast amount of memories we have are at that level and are not directly accessible to us, for example memory of every puff of air that brushes our skin. Each of those that occur are stored in our unconscious memory

Every thought, every thing we hear smell, touch, see is stored someplace in our memory. But so also are every thought we ever had.

It is not fully understood as to how meories are shifted from conscious level to unconscious or vice versa, but it is believed sleep plays a vital role and in particular the stages of dreams.

Now to go past the mechanics of memory and attempt to explain false memories. Our mind is made in such a manner it refuses to allow any blank areas in our memories. There are many things that can cause blank spaces some examples this list is far from complete:

Illness

Head Injury

Emotional trauma

Drugs of any type including but not limited to Alcohol, and Cannabis,

Vitamin deficiency

insufficient sleep

dehydration

Sensory deprivation (one of the reasons we can not remember under going surgery)

Since our mind refuses to accept blank spots these gaps become filled in with possibilities from our unconscious memory.

There is nearly always a physical or emotional cause for false memories. While Jinn possession is a possibility, this does not seem to be very probable in virtually all cases as other causes are identified.

Thanks this was probably the most helpful response. I have covered a lot of these points in my mind. The only thing I can't figure out is where the blank spots are in my memory. I have always had an exceptional memory of my childhood, there's nothing major that I don't really remember. I never had a lot of problems either. I was bored a lot, but I wouldn't count that as emotional trauma. There was a point in my childhood where I did lose sleep, but I don't recall any major gaps in my memory.

The false memories, strangely, don't seem to try to fill in anything missing in my life memory. Rather I can't figure out where the false memories fit in. There doesn't seem to be a space for them. Like I know that they never happened. Yet I get so much deja vu about a time and place that I have never had the slightest interest in until recently when I started to learn a little about it and suddenly all this deja vu and reminders of things. It all just seems very familiar, even though I don't know which part of my life it fits into. If my memory serves me correctly, there was no part of my life where I was involved with these places and times and poeple. So I can't understand how it's so familiar to me and makes me feel so drawn to it, and why I get the feeling of having had a lot to do with it as a child, knowing fine well that I didn't and can remember knowing nothing about it back then (in reality).

I know this might not make very much sense. I'll continue this post late when I get back home, I have to go now.

 

[جوري]

I was one of the "weird" ones in my community who didn't really like alcohol. It can't be attributed to drinking in my case. Unless you mean excessive consumption of any fluids including water. In which case I might agree with you, I do get thirsty a lot.

There is such a thing as water intoxication however it wouldn't cause 'false memories'
I don't think there is anything at all weird/unique or unusual about you.. I do find some of your posts to be attention seeking and a little histrionic but I'll attribute to a sort of adjustment you are going through!

and Allah swt knows best

 

[Woodrow]

I was one of the "weird" ones in my community who didn't really like alcohol. It can't be attributed to drinking in my case. Unless you mean excessive consumption of any fluids including water. In which case I might agree with you, I do get thirsty a lot.



I understood the first part but not the last part. Being imaginative doesn't give you strong mental powers unfortunately. Actually I consider myself fairly weak of mind. Although I am artistically creative I'm not really imaginitive and I don't have the type of imagination where I can imagine being someone else or putting myself in someone else's shoes.



Thanks this was probably the most helpful response. I have covered a lot of these points in my mind. The only thing I can't figure out is where the blank spots are in my memory. I have always had an exceptional memory of my childhood, there's nothing major that I don't really remember. I never had a lot of problems either. I was bored a lot, but I wouldn't count that as emotional trauma. There was a point in my childhood where I did lose sleep, but I don't recall any major gaps in my memory.

The false memories, strangely, don't seem to try to fill in anything missing in my life memory. Rather I can't figure out where the false memories fit in. There doesn't seem to be a space for them. Like I know that they never happened. Yet I get so much deja vu about a time and place that I have never had the slightest interest in until recently when I started to learn a little about it and suddenly all this deja vu and reminders of things. It all just seems very familiar, even though I don't know which part of my life it fits into. If my memory serves me correctly, there was no part of my life where I was involved with these places and times and poeple. So I can't understand how it's so familiar to me and makes me feel so drawn to it, and why I get the feeling of having had a lot to do with it as a child, knowing fine well that I didn't and can remember knowing nothing about it back then (in reality).

I know this might not make very much sense. I'll continue this post late when I get back home, I have to go now.

Memory is not time dependent and sometimes what we see as a single continuous memory is a series of separate events occurring at different times. Another cause of false memories is misidentity as to what happened. For example many people have memories of the sensation of flying. That is most likely memories of when they were being carried as babies. A persons false memory need not be memory of something non-existent, sometimes we have misunderstood what was happening and what we have is a memory of what we believe happened and it may not be exactly what did happen. Also when something is carried from our subconscious to our conscious level it may not be in the order in which it occurred and what we think as being a single memory can be bits and pieces of many memories of things that occurred at different times, but we are interpreting them as being at a specific time or not related to any time frame.

While our brain is many times more complex that a computer, it is not 100% perfect. For any given thought there can be as many as 5,000,000,000 neurons firing to reproduce a specific memory. If our memory is 99% accurate that means we have 50,000,000 errors in that memory.

 

[aadil77]

false memories? aren't they just called dreams?

 

[Woodrow]

false memories? aren't they just called dreams?

Sometimes.

But the most common dreams we usually do not remember unless we are awoken in the midst of them. The typical dream which we experience many times a night and have now memory of are when our brain is in the process of consolodating the days input and matching it with previous memories in order to store it as conscious or unconscious memory. An observer can tell the person is dreaming because of the REM activity and if the person is woken up in this stage they will relate the dream they were having. If the person is not awakened they will have no memory of the dream Day dreaming is our imagination relaxing. However, if we day dream intensely that can be stored in our conscious memory and seem to be very real although we know it never happened.

 

[جوري]

However, if we day dream intensely that can be stored in our conscious memory and seem to be very real although we know it never happened.

one is conscious of that introduction of false memories however..
the analogy is the same for someone with the reverse situation who suffers from a form of dementia and loses memory (some memory will not be lost) most people can tell at least their name but I digress.. someone not suffering from dementia however, CAN'T claim that they are suffering dementia for the simple reason, that those suffering it don't know that there is anything at all wrong with them.

a 'false memory' has to be consciously introduced to ones psyche, how else would one know that it is false? A recollection of something that didn't happen by the person has to be corroborated by another who was there and didn't experience that false memory to point such a memory to the one claiming it as false.
unless the person is under the influence of drugs/alcohol or actively seeking help from a therapist who has introduced by suggestive leading questions things that simply didn't happen, the story otherwise wouldn't pan out.

sorry!~

the only other thing that would make this true, is a form of repression where the events did take place however were incredibly traumatic that the person chose to repress them and they came back at a later time for whatever trigger!

 

[Amoeba]

I know it's false because I know it's too absurd that they could ever have happened. That doesn't make it feel any less real.

I do have a lot of vivid dreams (at least those of which I can remember). These false memories are not accurate to reality, and neither are dreams. It's the only thing that seems possible to making it feel close to real. But I guess I still find it strange that I can't shake my mind off it.