False Memories and their dangers

Our minds are not hard drives. When we remember an event, we don't retrieve it in its integrity from our memory, our brain reconstructs it by connecting different loose fragments and filling in the gaps with assumptions, emotions, and external suggestions.

The fallibility of this reconstructive process makes us liable to manufacturing memories of incidents that have never occurred. 

A casual comment from a family member, a zealous therapist's leading question or an unbridled imagination could plant a seed that would develop into a full-fledged memory.

The brain doesn't distinguish between a real and a manufactured fact. Once the seed of an imagined narrative is planted, the mind takes over and begins the process of making it real.

The details of the imagined event feel reel because the brain uses the same structure for both the real memories and the crafted ones. 

The danger of false memories lies in the fact that once we acknowledge the authenticity of an invented incident, the brain furnishes it with characters, smells, facial expressions and sounds.

We might falsely remember the yellowing wallpaper, the smell of acrid sweat, the peeling leather of an old sofa, the laughter of rowdy kids or the muted conversations of familiar voices. 

The consequences of this mental choreography can be devastating. 

Innocent people could be accused of the most heinous crimes based on fabricated memories, or we could base major life decisions on a childhood experience that our mind have invented. 

Memories that relate to significant events or decisions should be handled with a bit of skepticism, because what feels like remembering might be just the product of an over-enthusiastic imagination.