A Deer with a Righteous Look

Posted on December 30, 2005 in PTSD

Recently I read about how easy it was to implant false memories. False memories usually turn up when you turn to a hypnotist to “help” you uncover traumas that you have “repressed”, a relic of the “buy yourself a bad childhood” age of psychotherapy. A few people have been falsely tried and convicted based on such memories. Lawsuits against therapists have been successful. And I dare say, that they don’t do much of a service to those of us who have real traumas that we never forgot.

Susan Clancy discovered that victims of real trauma are very susceptible to false memory syndrome. I think this is because they don’t expect the manipulation. Those who have already had their memories manipulated are wary that their recollections of alien abductions or satanic abuse will be taken away from them. (Clancy found these downright defensive and resistant to going along with the process.)

Following Clancy’s lead, I decided to play with a memory for which I have ample outside corroboration. The details of which are embarassing, so I won’t share them. But I will tell you what I added to them.

First, I added a deer standing on a nearby hillside. I had the deer standing in dry, yellow grass. It stared at me with righteous approbation. Now, the trouble with this image was that I gazed at the deer as if it were much closer. And, at that time of the year, the grass on the hillside was bright green.

Second, I had the Goodyear Blimp flying very low, casting its shadow over me as it passed across the canyon, rim to rim. (Inadvertently, I made the canyon walls much steeper and higher.)

Finally, I included a field of poinsettas surrounding me. There was no such meadow. Everything was grass or trees or splintered wood.

And the damndest thing is that whenever I think of that episode, the deer, the blimp and the poinsettas are there, obscuring what actually happened.

Be careful of what you suggest to yourself about events in your life. You may forget what is really important.