A ‘Memory Hacker’ Explains How to Plant False Memories in People’s Minds

We all have memories. They go back to our childhood, sometimes even further back. And they go back to tomorrow, what you had for lunch or what you did with your friends. A memory is a network of brain cells. Our brains are so advanced that one would think it would be easy to ensure that our memories are all real. But - there is something called a false memory - and it is deceptively easy to create false memories intoner people.

Shaw is a researcher who works as a senior lecturer and researcher in London’s South Bank University. She has written a book, The Memory Illusion, where she devotes an entire section to false memory. False memories are often placed in people’s brains, by psychologists, therapists or investigators. Sometimes it is deliberate but sometimes it is not.

Either way, implanting a false memory into someone’s brain is not that difficult. Shaw explains that you just have to confuse imagination with memory. You can ask a person about their memory and then you can slowly change it. You can convince them that other things happened, and slowly, the layers of confusion add up to one thing - a false memory. You usually need to find someone who is little bit vulnerable. If you think of all the people who so convincingly spoke about their alien abductions - those were all false memories. Their memories were distorted so brilliantly by people who wanted them - and you - to believe in aliens.

False memories are when somebody else plays with your reality and changes your own perception of it. They will keep telling you what happened, and you slowly start to believe it. Generally, there is an ulterior motive here. A policeman wants to find a murderer. It suits him to have you confess. And you will confess if you have a false memory. Even if you didn’t commit the crime.