I’ve just been watching Total Recall.  Not the Arnie one, the other one.  Besides being an unreal adrenalin-fest that is setting my Sympathetic Nervous System on FIRE, the heightened neural function has got me thinking.  Unusual for 9pm on a Monday night.  The discussion is around having memories implanted by changing body chemistry.  i.e. You choose the ‘memory’ you want, perhaps something you might not be able to afford or ever dare to do, and they inject you with the chemicals required to make you believe you did it.  Affair with George Clooney?  Here you are luv, can’t you almost smell the Nespresso from here?  Trip to Paris?  Oui, and here are a couple of extra kgs on your bum from all the pastries.

We already know this to be the case, don’t we?  Our memories are simply a bunch of chemically modulated neurones firing at a particular frequency, painting a picture of something we assume to be true.  And the more we play that movie in our minds, the deeper it becomes entrenched.  The more connections we make for that chemical tale, the more we interpret this imprint as fact.  The Reality.  For it is our reality, but is it actuality?  Our cells tell us it is.  But is it?

It is said that “the mind doesn’t know the difference between something real, or imagined, if repeated in great and vivid detail”.

Our technology is not such that we can simply inject ourselves with holidays to Disneyland and weekends with River Phoenix, (Yes, yes, I know, STILL.) but could we not at least try?

Would it be possible to enhance our happiest or most thrilling memories, and modulate our most distressing ones?

Could we, with regular, repeated and comprehensive practise, modify the way we perceive our past, and hence potentially change how we react to current situations and circumstances?

And who would that make us, if we could?

So please excuse me, whilst I go and imagine eating this lot:

No Turkish Delight in my imaginary box.

Who am I kidding?  Imma eat them for realz.

What “memory” would you implant?  And hands off River and Johnny Depp, they’re mine.

…From The Ashers xx