The Terrible Power of Memory Manipulation

If there ever was a deadlier power over humans, memory manipulation stands alone as a deeply personal one. 

Many famous serials and stories use memory as a premise for their plots and people, which is unsurprising: immediately there’s a plot device of mystery and intrigue surrounding the character – whether it be internal or external – and for the rest of the story we want to see why, what, and how it all happened – the genesis, the origin, the forbidden fruit, we’re hooked on piecing together what exactly is going on. 

Memory manipulation, of course, occurs to varying degrees. There’s the traditional all-out amnesia, which can be seen all the way back from old folk and fairy lore like princes who forgot their true beloved in stories collected by the Brothers Grimm; there’s classic science fiction elements of wiping out a personality and replacing it with another, as seen in Total Recall starring Arnold Scharzenegger (“If I am not me, then who the hell am I?!”); the selective erasure from a portion of memory, which drives Jack Harkness to pursue and find out why a previous organization did so to him; residual memories that are passed onto the next generation by unique means, like in The Giver; stories that deal with real world medical issues of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s in Away from Her; and then the murky past that serves both as a beacon of light and a haunting, driving obsession to either resolve or run away from it, seen all too often in serials like Jason Bourne. 

Why are memory narratives so engaging? Foremost they are psychological: more than the physical actions at hand are the underlying pulsations of nerve signal, the undulating nuances of electrochemical messages spiking back and forth, to and from somas to axons to dendrites of neurons; yet beyond these neurobiological bounds there is something more science has yet (or if ever) to fully encompass and objectify what exactly composes the arena of irrational emotions – the enigma of psychology. 

We can never be sure if our memory is 100% accurate. Details are lost, omissions are consciously or subconsciously made, facts vary slightly, retellings and subsequent recounting dilutes the actual event more and more: it’s a very fickle component of our cognitive existence – essential, but fickle. Evolutionary, memory serves as a compilation of survival and social skills needed to get by – instinctual muscle memory and habitual memory, you could say. And while humans have evolved to exist on secondary resources (e.g. money) as a means to indirectly survive off primary resources (e.g. soil, water), thus leading to cultural and infrastructural development as we know it, memory still plays an integral part of our daily lives. Whether it’s habitually checking your car mirrors,  playing a piano piece without sheet music or even balancing on your bike – memory is all over the place, instinctually and habitually so. 

Memory is more nuanced than instinctual and habitual tendencies. There are instances we remember for various reasons. From what your boss told you this morning (“Do you still have my stapler?”) to how beautiful your spouse looks on the eve of your honeymoon, what we choose to remember is essential to how our lives function, and invariably these memories – regardless of intention or purpose – are driven by deeply personal reasons. After awhile, the truest aspect of memories is the emotion associated with them – emotions of love, hate, happiness, pain, joy, sorrow, wonder, trauma, all of it. In this sense, memories are incredibly raw in the undulating, hidden reservoirs of our cognitive conscious. This is why memory manipulation is such a engaging and haunting narrative premise to play off of. 

Take for example Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report. John Anderton, upon discovering a glitch in the pre-cog system, soon learns that he will kill a man he has never met. Despite great efforts to evade a highly computerized (optimistically futuristic) society, Anderton eventually finds the room of the alleged victim, Leo Crow. 

This scene is crucial: Anderton sees the man’s bed covered with pictures of children, one of which is of the man with his missing (and likely deceased) son, Sean. Upon seeing these photos Anderton completely breaks down, and when Crow returns into the room Anderton violently rushes at and brutally beats down Crow in a fiery rage and passion. 

What’s noticeable about this climatic scene is that up until now, Anderton methodically and cooly found clues to who could possibly be framing him. Yes, there are moments of action, but nothing compared to the almost bestial fury he unleashes when he’s led to believe Crow was the pedophile who kidnapped (and probably killed) his only son years ago.  And despite the orgy of evidence evident upon the scene (as Danny Witwer later determines, “this [was] a set up”), Anderton lets go of logic to act upon his primal emotions of anger and pain, to unleash upon this alleged man all the emotional scars that never found solace or closure for all these years. Haunted by guilt and long, long episodes of desperation and disillusionment, Anderton holds his memory of Sean so closely to his heart that in a moment of weakness, he loses all his cool and nearly fulfills his own predicted destiny. 

Anderton’s reaction results from an external and intricate manipulation of a memory deeply personal and painful. It’s a very low blow, but considering the perpetrator accomplished other personal goals prior and after it’s not surprise they used such effective and cruel psychological puppeteering. His emotional response is a powerful one not because of what happened, but because it is raw and unrefined beyond any measure of objectivity. 

While Minority Report explored the consequences of a memory past, Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough Memento explored individual fragments of memory leading up to the final consequence. 

Structurally, Memento is one of a kind: it begins with a man being shot, and then a backwards (and eventually forwards) progression to where it all began, where we the viewer finally piece together what has happened to the character of Leonard Shelby, who suffers from anterograde amnesia (the loss of ability to create new memories after the event which caused amnesia due to damage to the hippocampus or surrounding cortices). 

Shelby is haunted by memories of his wife, who he believed was killed by the same burglars who caused him to suffer from retrograde amnesia. He gets by by taking pictures of people and scenery, and then writing himself notes about what he feels or knows about the subjects in the moment he can still recall these feelings or knowledge; that way, he hopes, he progress forward and not start over again from scratch. Lastly, the most important information that he can absolutely never, ever forget – he tattoos them on himself. Fool proof, right?

Wrong. As we can see from an outsider’s objective lens, the people around him manipulate Shelby’s artificial memory mechanism for their own exploits: Shelby’s landlord charges him for two rooms while he only occupies one; Natalie uses him to drive out a man Dodd from town; and Teddy uses Shelby’s investigative vigor to track down his own set of criminals (or so he says). 

There’s a lot of discussion about the fabula and sujet of Memento, but for writing purposes I won’t discuss them here right now. Instead, I believe the implications of Nolan’s breakthrough indie speaks volumes for a few reasons: 

As I’ve said before, memory is not 100% valid: it is a figment of collected information stored in our brains, clipped and edited to our needs and liking. Even if we document the actual events via writing, photography or film, there is always the question of who’s perspective these forms of documenting come from, and whether or not they capture enough of the whole event to merit factual validity. We don’t necessarily need these types of documents to remember an event, but they very much help us remember certain details and emotions that would otherwise be lost to the crevices of cognition. In Shelby’s case, he takes polaroid pictures because he needs to write down his thought process immediately: he relies on a artificial means of memory building, and though it is quick it is no where near the processing speed of the human brain. This limited time frame is just enough for people to take advantage of him for their own needs – and by extension, this time frame is the same time for something to seep in and “tamper” our documenting process. 

Minority Report masterfully combines film noir aesthetics with chique science fiction elements, highlighting a very classic form of memory manipulation – the haunting effect that drives the protagonist to act the way they do, an echo from the past leading to the ultimate conclusion. Memento, on the polar opposite fold, is a generously unconventional film that explores memory manipulation in the opposite way, where we know the conclusion but not the beginning, the echo from the past. Both films were released around the same timeframe (Nolan in 2000 and Spielberg in 2002), so it’s especially interesting to see how two films that explore memory resonate and diverge so much from one another. 

Memory is a very intricate arena of the mind, and any tampering of it invariably violates our own identity. At its core, memory manipulation is incredibly intriguing, terrifying, and deeply emotional – enough to make it a terrible power to have over another. 

Additional Recommended Reading

• Is There a Minority Report? (or What is Subjectivity?) – by Matthew Sharpe, PhD in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. 

Logic, the Fear Killer

The other day I read this piece on how BP’s gulf crisis may have caused the beginnings of human extinction. At the time my imagination took over and before I knew it, I was wondering what it would be like to live in a Cormac McCarthy The Road–style apocalypse – given, of course, if I’d survive the whole ordeal. 

It took me a good conversation to shake me out of the whole mindset, a conversation filled with level-headed rational and laid-out logic. I was smarter than that, I knew better – hell I knew this all, for crying out loud! Get it together, it’s ok, think you idiot, think. People take advantage of crisis for website hits and readers – this could easily be another one of those. Think about it: people have been crying the apocalypse for decades now, and here I am, still alive and well. And by all means if this was an legitimate concern, well by now the whole news networks would be all over it like sharks on a blood hunt. And of all things logic – classic, old school, clean cut cold logic – was the most comforting amongst this cloud of imaginative fear and uncertainty. The irony nearly killed me. 

Today I read that the whole “methane doomsday” is likely sensationalistic, that the rational behind Helium.com’s article is near void and a far less concern than other issues at hand (marine life, for one). Seeing this was an additional relief, and I started wondering why besides almost two decades of education – everything from science to humanities to logic to creative – why one moment of susceptibility left me quivering like a wet cat in the rain. 

The reason: I’d let go of logic, the fear killer, in that moment, and had instantly become spineless prey to believing anything and everything by some bloke who’d managed to tap into some innate paranoia of mine. 

I assume a great deal of our fears stem from a lack of understanding – of the world and of ourselves. For the most part, I make a conscious effort to not shun away from instinctual fear (unless it calls for survival, which is a whole different story); instead, I try to rationalize what’s driving this feeling, this subconscious gut feeling: is it a particular phobia of mine? Has this resulted in something “bad” before? (and what is “bad”?) Do I know what’s going on? Is this something I can overcome? (and if not, why?) Does this stem from some sort of insecurity? Can it cause me harm? (and if so, what sort of harm?) Etcetera. 

These questions, this constant self-questioning has helped me overcome a lot of hindering fears – at least the ones that are conscious. I suspect a great deal of dictators, violence, racism, and other social problems arise from human fear of the unknown and the tendency to instinctually ostracize such as “bad.” And when you lose sight of logic and the holistic outlook these ingrained thoughts, these subscribed feelings result in our own behaviors and how we act – and in the case of fear, we often act maliciously. 

I find that oftentimes with a logical strive to greater understanding – whether it be accepting differences, engaging in conversation, acknowledging our own limitations – that it remedies fear that would otherwise manifest into negative actions human history is stained red with. Rationality and logic are invaluable in this case. 

The subconscious fears I’ve found to be more difficult, and frustratingly so. In fact, just a while ago I suffered a near panic attack while watching an episode of Doctor Who, “The Unquiet Dead." 

Now given if you’re familiar with the "Doctor Who” serials, you’d know that the first serial has effects near B-movie levels (one of the main reasons I got into the revamped series). This episode was no different; what was jarring was that it played on an old childhood fear of mine – of ghosts endlessly antagonizing me, similar to like the ghosts of Disney’s “The Haunted Mansion” following me home and haunting the narrow hallway upstairs. 

Of course it’s a silly fear, but hell it caught me by surprise and for the first time in decades I was badly shaken. Of all things in the world this, this B-movie status episode, this episode of minimal effects – it was scary, and really badly so. 

It reverberated so much childhood viscerally that of all things I couldn’t sleep for a good few hours afterwards. Only after taking some time to think it through – why was I scared, what about it was traumatizing, did something happen before, and so on – did I finally figure out what bothered me so much, and only then was I able to sleep comfortably enough (with a mixture of exhaustion – daylight was starting to peep in). 

Logical thought – a progression of what, why, who, when, where, and how – was tricky while digging through a subconscious fear, but it was effective enough at the time. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get over that stupid fear, but at least now I have a better grasp of what bothered me so much (plus there’s always the good laugh when I’m in the mood for self-deprecation). For now, it’s enough to know that rational is enough to dispel a good number of simple fears, and that from there I can at least progress above my own inhibitions and buried trauma. 

Note: apologies for the late post! The lack of internet was quite cumbersome on the plane trip. 

Pawns of the Dark

What is fear? 

When I was a child I used to sprint up the stairs after turning off all the lights downstairs. It was a routine: the kitchen, switch off, run to the telly area; the telly area, switch off, run to living room; the living room, switch off, sprint for dear life up those stairs. 

I believed a ghost would follow me if I stayed in the dark – in retrospect it resembled something like the pokemon Gengar – and irrational as it was, this fear held onto me strong for many years. I imagined its wide grin, spiky head and pointed fingers, round body as tall as me, simply staring with those big old eyes – always, always staring. 

I never could imagine what it would do if it caught me – I was too chicken for that. All I could muster up was that if this thing, this little devil, this ghost caught me – well that would be a very bad thing, wouldn’t it? And it was just enough to send me off sprinting, tripping on the stairs and jumping into bed as quickly as could. 

All of this drove my mother nuts, who was mostly annoyed with my shenanigans when I tussled up her bed (“you’ll break the springs the rate you’re pouncing on them!”). Now it’s all a memory, and a rather funny one too; still, to this day I habitually turn off the lights in the same manner before, and every once in awhile I’ll find myself walking up the stairs faster than usual once the lights are all out. 

So what is fear exactly?  

A good portion of our life is uncontrolled. Weather, disease, economics, death – we can map these out, react to them, possibly predict their course but ultimately we can never foresee the future. And that’s just it: what we cannot control, what is beyond us can be awe-inspiring and utterly terrifying. 

This lack of control is a slight to our own ego, our pride in existence; in a sense it makes us feel subservient to a greater force that is arguably unpredictable, a greater power per se. And that’s just it: here we are, proud humans, being tampered with with things outside of our control that essentially render us helpless. 

Of course, such things are to be expected. We can only stay in control to a certain extent – what we eat, what we wear, what we like, how we talk – but beyond that our natural instincts instruct us to expect and anticipate the unforeseeable and the unforeseen. It’s survival instinct at its finest, and it’s also how and why our fears can get the best of us – in real life and in fiction. 

Classic horror narratives and century old folklore play off these aspects of fear. From the Slit-mouth demon to the Hound of Baskerville to Sadako, these stories and their respective narrators played off our innate and subconscious characteristics, puppeteering the smallest of elements into grossly gripping disturbances to psychological peace. We know something is going to happen – just what it is is the real question, and perhaps the most maddening part. 

When we are put at suspense and dangled in wait, the built anxiety becomes stronger and stronger until suddenly it’s there – hand, a face, a cackle, a blur, a element. The element itself may not be wholly terrifying, but the wait, the anticipation is what triggers an instinctual fear. The longer it is, the more our imaginations take hold and by the time it reaches we can only pray its presence is only half as bad as we hope it to be. 

What makes the element itself additionally terrifying is subjectively personal. For Bruce Wayne, it was bats; for Hamlet, it was his father’s ghost. The manifestations that trigger fear and subsequent horror have varying meanings and implications of our own subconscious and psychology, perhaps more than we can explain ourselves. I was fearful of the Gengar-like ghost because subconsciously, I was cautious of fickle classmates who in one moment were my best friend and in another moment mischievous and plotting; the ghost was my insecurity materialized, a devilish grinner who simply antagonized my imagination with its mischievous aura. I know this now, only may years later with extreme contemplation, and even then I’m not sure if I’ve hit it quite right. 

In film, the framing, pacing and sound (or lack of) of a uncontrollable element is essential to create any effective suspense and subsequent horror. From Dutch angles to extreme close-ups, the filmmaker is in total control of what we are able to see and hear, lending them masters of our expectations and the elements that trigger our instincts of fear. In the dark of the theatre we are helpless, subjected and subservient to what is unfolding on screen. We know not of the element and its effects until it occurs, and until then we are left to calculate algorithms of possibilities to prepare for such shock, ironically resulting in more stress and anxiety before element X even appears. Arguably, the less element X is seen the more suspenseful and terrifying the narrative becomes – for we are nearly always left in the dark, vulnerable and sensitive still to the sensation of such an wild card entity. And when it actually strikes down by God is it horrifying. 

Fear is instinct, anticipation, expectation – all together. It is essential for survival and stems from the inevitably of elements beyond our control that perhaps incept in our own insecurities as well. In a sense, fear lends itself solely to sensation in which we react to it immediately, commonly in the form of horror or flight. The psychological aspect, the subconscious angle is perhaps the most disconcerting characteristic of it all, and perhaps something we may never fully understand despite decades of Freudian teachings. 

So what is fear? Perhaps we are destined to never know beyond its sensation of anticipation and elementalism. It may simply be instinctual, ingrained in our own existence. And by God, it surely is a fascinating and bewitching element to manipulate and study in narratives and storytelling – something that I hope to investigate with future articles.