It is sometimes claimed by fans of the paranormal and suchlike that under hypnosis it is possible to recall memories of all events/words/places etc in amazing detail, including things we took in subconsciously/subliminally at the time such as printed notices on the wall etc…
Is it true your brain really stores all this info - or more likely, as a scientist friend was saying to me, that the brain is meant to store a lot of stuff in a rather vague, hazy way so as to save space and not clutter it up unnecessarily.
Maybe the amount of detail etc relates to the interest and/or emotional charge associated with the event/information?
Maybe for lots of humdrum days no info is stored at all?
Having said that I guess there are actually loads of memories in there somewhere that we may not recall to mind for years, or ever, till maybe something triggers them.
Linked to that I guess it makes sense to ask if there is a limit to what we can put in our brains? Do you get to a point where some memories/pieces of knowledge have to go to make room for more?
The human memory is not all that reliable. People often get confused about the details, and most people have somewhat inefficient recall mechanisms. People are built to react quickly when needed, so we often fill in the gaps of memory before we actually get the information back out of our heads.
The brain has immense storage. If you have a lot of time to go back and think about it, you can recall an awful lot of information you never knew you had: the names of your 7th birthday party guests, a diagram from an old geology book, the history of France, etc. It’s all in there once you learn it, assuming it was taken into your long-term memory. But bringing it out takes months of thought, sometimes.
Some prisoners of war, who have that kind of time, develop impressive recall about things you and I might not remember, simply because they have the time to sit and think about what has happened, and no rush to finish in a month or a year.
Hypnosis isn’t reliable. It won’t enhance your mnemonic powers, and often simply results in you doing (1) while thinking your doing (2). And think about: isn’t it just a wee bit suspicious that so many of these recovered memeories are something awesome and dramatic, like sex abuse, murders, and what-have-you? People often don’t want to admit these things - but they don’t forget without undergoing serious mental illness.
It’s an appealing notion that the brain is a perfect recorder and stores details that we weren’t consciously aware of at the time, but although it’s very convenient in movies and TV shows, AFAIK, there’s no evidence that such a thing is possible.
Yes, memories which are formed while under stress are stronger and more detailed, and the effect is linear: the greater the stress, the stronger and more detailed the memory. My father was the first person to identify this phenomenon, and published his findings in Acta Psychologica in 1973.
commasense, hypnosis isn’t bunk–monomania is a real and useful function of the human brain-- but the idea that it can be used to improve your memory of a certain event is false.
In the hypnosis classes I took in college (taught by the then-president of the Assn to Advance Ethical Hypnosis) it was explained that people in a suggestive state are already inclined to agree with whatever the hypnotizer says, and so will make up stories rather than disappoint the person they’re concentrating on.