• Langtrees.com will start paid advertising on the 12th April this year. (my mothers birthday) Wallet balances will still remain if logged in the last month. Advertisers that have not logged in wallets will be reduced to zero.

Can we erase unhappy memories?

HappyPirate

Old Pirate...
Legend Member
Points
947
We all have things we'd like to forget - being the victim of a crime, a bad relationship, an embarrassing life moments


What if we could erase those bad memories? Or at least take the edge off them?


Ahoy;--- So here my thoughts, I suspect we all have memories we would like to forget, let say this was possible by taking a brand new medication, let us call it the Green Pill, so who would not ask for this new medication? "the Green Pill"

Your Thoughts and views, pics and video`s, most welcome

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/23053568/can-we-erase-unhappy-memories/
Over the last 10 or 15 years, researchers have got a better understanding of how memories are formed and recalled. Dr Susannah Tye, an assistant professor in the departments of psychiatry and psychology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says that bad memories affect people on two levels. There's the recollection of the traumatic event, as well as a physical aspect - a person's heart may race or they may get depressed or withdrawn - that can be debilitating. "These memories, when they're traumatic, they've been stored effectively because they're very important," she says. Science hasn't found a delete button you can hit to eliminate certain memories, though researchers are looking. In the meantime, Tye suggests, "a psychologist or psychiatrist with expertise in trauma can help facilitate what the individual can do". The very process behind the recollection of an event is still not fully understood, though we're discovering some surprising things. "We don't remember everything, only bits and pieces," says Jason Chan, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State University. "We take these pieces (when we recall a memory) and reconstruct a story that makes sense to us. But it might not be correct." Those memories can also be altered. Writing on the Scientific American Blog Network earlier this year, neuroscientist R Douglas Fields explained that when a specific memory is recalled, it is vulnerable to being altered or even extinguished for a certain period of time. Chan is doing research along those lines. His team's studies, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that if a memory is reactivated by being recalled - a process called reconsolidation - it becomes susceptible to being changed. "We found you can make it harder for people to remember a previous event if they recall it, and right after that you give them information that's different from the original memory," he says. "(It) makes it more difficult."
As an example, he suggested a conversation in which he talks about a panda. "A couple days later, I ask, 'What was the animal we talked about?' You say, 'A panda bear.' I say, 'Actually it was a grizzly bear.' . A couple of days later I ask again, and it will be more difficult for you to remember the panda bear. The grizzly bear has updated the memory." There are other methods of altering memories. Certain drugs, protein inhibitors, have been shown to make memories more malleable. Electric shocks to the brain can also erase certain memories, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have found a gene that can help with memory extinction. Even alcohol can do the job. Chan says that alcohol affects the memory formation mechanism. Research continues in all these areas. Another possible way to edit memories doesn't involve professional assistance, drugs or medical intervention. Mike Byster is the author of "The Power of Forgetting: Six Essential Skills to Clear Out Brain Clutter and Become the Sharpest, Smartest You" (Harmony Books). Part of his theory involves forgetting the unnecessary and retaining what's needed. He explains that in the book. But he also suggests ways to have some control over major memories. His mother, he says, suffered a brain injury and for the last two years of her life was a different person. Because he didn't want to remember her that way, he focused instead on happy times. "I took two or three happy memories, and made myself remember them vividly, with as much detail as I could recall," he says. "I tell people to do this, make the memories as vivid as possible. Now and then my mum pops into my head, and it's the fun things, the good memories, that are so vivid."
 

johnlou

5 Star General
Foundation Member
Points
0
knowing my luck when i took the green pill i would loose the best memories that i have and the worst would be amplified x 10 :) :)
in saying this i believe it best to leave things as they are :)
why play with perfection :)
 

svengali

Foundation Member
Points
1
I suspect that such technology is years away from practical application like most of the great "breakthroughs" which are breathlessly reported by the press.
Should it ever become possible it will open a Pandora's box for clinicians, lawmakers and patients. I see overseas travel for dodgy "cures" in countries with less concern for safety or medical ethics and probably some very wealthy shrinks.

I don't think I would let anyone stir up the bats in my belfry unless I had very serious mental problems.
 
Last edited:

HappyPirate

Old Pirate...
Legend Member
Points
947
Ahoy Thank-You JohnLou and Homer, Svengali I agree with you guys.
In my case, drinking helps me a lot, saved a fortune by not going to quacks and Psychotherapy
Cheers and Pass the Rum
 
R

Renee

Lol we would all like to forget the bad memories but I believe that we learn something from them, so hopefully these bad memories help us not to do it again (well lets hope at least)
 

homer

Doh!
Legend Member
Points
0
Time can heal and let you move on but it can never let you erase what is already imprinted in yer brain. You can inject loads of alcohol to burn the cells that hold those memories but you be killing the good ones too.

I guess you can try hypnotism.
 

sunyun

Legend Member
Points
0
Lol we would all like to forget the bad memories but I believe that we learn something from them, so hopefully these bad memories help us not to do it again (well lets hope at least)


I'm with Renee.

I have done some pretty stupid things in my time (getting married!), and whenever I get into one of those situations again, bad memories come back, and I quickly move on before I make the same mistake again.

I can clearly remember standing looking at my cruiser with the keys in my hand, and quite a few bundies under my belt, then I had a flashback to hanging in my seat-belt as a previous car rolled over and over around me, in slow motion, and watching the open can of Bundy and coke bouncing around next to me.

I walked !
 
R

Renee

I'm with Renee.

I have done some pretty stupid things in my time (getting married!), and whenever I get into one of those situations again, bad memories come back, and I quickly move on before I make the same mistake again.

I can clearly remember standing looking at my cruiser with the keys in my hand, and quite a few bundies under my belt, then I had a flashback to hanging in my seat-belt as a previous car rolled over and over around me, in slow motion, and watching the open can of Bundy and coke bouncing around next to me.

I walked !
Glad that you walked from this scary experience, it could have been much worse!!
 

sunyun

Legend Member
Points
0
Glad that you walked from this scary experience, it could have been much worse!!


Thanks Renee.

Life is so full of fun things to do - until you wake up in hospital !

(Secretly I believed the alcohol saved my life, even though it helped cause the accident. I was so far gone, that I just sat there relaxed as the car did its own thing. If I had been sober, I would have been trying to wrench the steering and/or bracing myself for the final impact, etc.

Just flopping about meant I walked away with lots of bruises, but no major damage !
 

Madam Tracey

Cyclone Langtrees
Staff member
Legend Member
Points
2
You are the sum total of your life experience ,the good the bad and the bits in between. Whose life has been all good? Who is to say that good things can occur from bad events. Its how YOU perceive. If you can change the way you process the information (eg above post ) you can take something positive from a negative experience.
I love it all......even when I am depressed and feel like ending it.......I know nothing lasts forever.
I would not want change a thing.
 

billybones

Thrillseeker
Legend Member
Points
0
I like to think that everything in life happens for a reason. At the time we may not understand what the reason is but later we will. Some of it just takes a little time.

I read somewhere once... Yesterday's the past and tomorrow's the future. Today is a gift -- which is why they call it the present."
 

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
15
Wouldnt it be horrlble as a punter to leave the room at your favorite establishment saying something like
" I had a brilliant time Thanks for memories I will cherish" only to turn to have her say "Yeah same here babe" and see her popping a green pill
 

HappyPirate

Old Pirate...
Legend Member
Points
947
Ahoy LOL;- The Green Pill
"I got an issue;- shut -up and take a Green Pill"


Wouldnt it be horrlble as a punter to leave the room at your favorite establishment saying something like
" I had a brilliant time Thanks for memories I will cherish" only to turn to have her say "Yeah same here babe" and see her popping a green pill
 

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
15
And if your are a dud root You can slip a green pill into the ladies coffee next morning
 

Master Yoda

“Your path you must decide.”
Legend Member
Points
47
That is pretty cool. And I suspect that the use of a chemical for such a task uses the function of suppressing certain neuro activity with long and well established connections between brain cells that have sort of become hard wired. Perhaps these will weaken, or maybe the subject will become dependant as an absence of these chemicals will just have the old neuro network firing again and maybe more violently than before.

neurons.jpg

In dealing with bad memories what I have seen that is most effective is done from cleaning up the inner dialogue. Many things happen to us and we put meanings to it, that is part of being human. Like when we are 2-3 years of age we adopt language. And from there we are able to put meanings to things. These meanings from the perception of a child tend to stay with us for a lifetime. One typical example is a child that is accidentally or deliberately spoken to in the wrong way. Like a little girl made to feel ugly or a little boy made to feel weak. An innocent comment like a big brother saying to a little sister that she can;t come on a bike ride because you are too small and can;t keep up. She may make that mean that she is not enough. And from there this little girl will see the world through the filter of this meaning and others will stack on top of that.

I own;t go on, but does anyone get what I am trying to say?

There is a way to nip this one too.............
 
N

nightrider

We all have things we'd like to forget - being the victim of a crime, a bad relationship, an embarrassing life moments

What if we could erase those bad memories? Or at least take the edge off them?


Ahoy;--- So here my thoughts, I suspect we all have memories we would like to forget, let say this was possible by taking a brand new medication, let us call it the Green Pill, so who would not ask for this new medication? "the Green Pill"

Your Thoughts and views, pics and video`s, most welcome

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/23053568/can-we-erase-unhappy-memories/
Over the last 10 or 15 years, researchers have got a better understanding of how memories are formed and recalled. Dr Susannah Tye, an assistant professor in the departments of psychiatry and psychology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says that bad memories affect people on two levels. There's the recollection of the traumatic event, as well as a physical aspect - a person's heart may race or they may get depressed or withdrawn - that can be debilitating. "These memories, when they're traumatic, they've been stored effectively because they're very important," she says. Science hasn't found a delete button you can hit to eliminate certain memories, though researchers are looking. In the meantime, Tye suggests, "a psychologist or psychiatrist with expertise in trauma can help facilitate what the individual can do". The very process behind the recollection of an event is still not fully understood, though we're discovering some surprising things. "We don't remember everything, only bits and pieces," says Jason Chan, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State University. "We take these pieces (when we recall a memory) and reconstruct a story that makes sense to us. But it might not be correct." Those memories can also be altered. Writing on the Scientific American Blog Network earlier this year, neuroscientist R Douglas Fields explained that when a specific memory is recalled, it is vulnerable to being altered or even extinguished for a certain period of time. Chan is doing research along those lines. His team's studies, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that if a memory is reactivated by being recalled - a process called reconsolidation - it becomes susceptible to being changed. "We found you can make it harder for people to remember a previous event if they recall it, and right after that you give them information that's different from the original memory," he says. "(It) makes it more difficult."
As an example, he suggested a conversation in which he talks about a panda. "A couple days later, I ask, 'What was the animal we talked about?' You say, 'A panda bear.' I say, 'Actually it was a grizzly bear.' . A couple of days later I ask again, and it will be more difficult for you to remember the panda bear. The grizzly bear has updated the memory." There are other methods of altering memories. Certain drugs, protein inhibitors, have been shown to make memories more malleable. Electric shocks to the brain can also erase certain memories, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have found a gene that can help with memory extinction. Even alcohol can do the job. Chan says that alcohol affects the memory formation mechanism. Research continues in all these areas. Another possible way to edit memories doesn't involve professional assistance, drugs or medical intervention. Mike Byster is the author of "The Power of Forgetting: Six Essential Skills to Clear Out Brain Clutter and Become the Sharpest, Smartest You" (Harmony Books). Part of his theory involves forgetting the unnecessary and retaining what's needed. He explains that in the book. But he also suggests ways to have some control over major memories. His mother, he says, suffered a brain injury and for the last two years of her life was a different person. Because he didn't want to remember her that way, he focused instead on happy times. "I took two or three happy memories, and made myself remember them vividly, with as much detail as I could recall," he says. "I tell people to do this, make the memories as vivid as possible. Now and then my mum pops into my head, and it's the fun things, the good memories, that are so vivid."
Alcohol..........
 

Bluegrass9

Diamond Member
Points
0
There are things I would like to erase forever but the memory of them makes me a stronger and I also believe a better person. Also helps me not to be in that situation again for it to happen.
 

monique mielle

Bronze Member
Points
0
"Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us . "
"Our past is not about regrets, there are no bad memories .
There are only lessons learned that makes us grow stronger for a better future ." image.jpg
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    49.3 KB · Views: 2
  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    20.3 KB · Views: 2

Luxi Summer

Gold Member
Points
0
Just like everyone else I too have things that I would love to wake up and forget about.
But I can say that the women I am today is from the lessons I have learnt and the heart breaks I have had, has only made me stronger and know what I need in life to live.
 

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
15
You forget the bad things like the death of a loved one you probably forget all the great things that came from being with that person as well
 

DDxoxo

Live, Love & Believe
Legend Member
Points
0
You forget the bad things like the death of a loved one you probably forget all the great things that came from being with that person as well

No you can never forget good memories because they form part of your character!:shy:
 

Happy2

Legend Member
Points
15
No you can never forget good memories because they form part of your character!:shy:
I may have worded it badly as per usual DD
In the end I guess I meant you have to take the good with the bad They come all wrapped in the same parcel
So you cant erase the bad memories
 
Top