Time in the Desert: Memory Mirages
In my novel, A Second Chance Life, Sara is telling Jude about a dream she’d recently had:
“I dreamt about the summer I drove across the desert from California to Utah, to my first job. In my dream I was me, now—well, maybe (in my forties), because Casey was with me. We were driving on a two-lane highway across the Nevada desert when we saw a young woman walking on the shoulder. We stopped to see if we could help her and it was me. Me, as a young woman, walking on the road.”
Jude nodded, looking thoughtful.
“But Jude, the really weird part is that the whole thing really happened twenty-seven years ago. As I remember it, a couple picked me up when I ran out of gas on my way to Salt Lake. The woman had on a big sunhat tied with a scarf under her chin, but I remember she was just my height and had green eyes and a gap between her front teeth like mine. After they’d taken me to get gas and I was driving off, she took her hat off and her hair was like mine is now.” Sara shook her head in wonderment, the image of Madge on that hot desert highway branded on her memory.
“You think your dream-self went back in time to see your younger self?” There was no hint of mockery in Jude’s tone.
Sara raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together, the weight of doubt tugging at her hopes. “Wouldn’t it be amazing, “she said, “if a dream-self could travel along the skein of time? If a dream-self, free of physical constraints, could somehow manifest in a different place and time?”
“Is that what you think happened?”
Sara slipped into her default position of rational skepticism. “No, I think the more likely explanation is that, for whatever reason, I simply had a dream about meeting up with my younger self.” But as she spoke, she felt as if a fragile rainbow bubble popped, leaving a dull residue of fact and reality.
“Was there a message in the dream?”
“That I gave my younger self?”
Jude smiled. “That’s usually the direction advice flows.”
“In my dream, as in the reality of twenty-seven years ago, the older woman gave the younger woman a book about experiments in telepathy and encouraged her interest in paranormal experiences.”
Sara looked away, across the Sound to the clouds shrouding the Olympic range. “My memory isn’t real clear, but wasn’t that the summer of 1973? You moved out to Colorado that year.”
“Yes,” Jude said. “That was in 1973.”
“Well, this morning I dug through some cartons to find that book. You know what? I couldn’t believe it, but it was first published in 1974.”
“1974? How do you explain that?” Jude sounded baffled.
“I’m not sure.”
They ambled up the beach in silence, Sara taking long, slow strides. It could be evidence for time travel, she thought, if a book had been given to me before it had actually been published. But my memory could be faulty, no matter how real it seems.
“I could have been given that book by someone else later on. Maybe an older woman, maybe Mom? And confused the memories.”
Although I know of no scientific evidence for people traveling backward through time, there is plenty of evidence (anecdotal and scientific) for false and/or confused memories. An example from my own life is embedded in my creative nonfiction piece, Going Down Slow. In that story I tell about how my sister, brother, and I leave our critically ill Dad alone in his hospital room to go with our Mom to check out a Hospice. When my sister read the story, she exclaimed, “No, don’t you remember? I stayed back at the hospital so Dad wouldn’t be alone.” My memory of the three of us standing with Mom while talking to the Hospice nurse, although vivid and detailed, was simply wrong. Fabricated. (Interestingly, since being corrected by my sister, that memory has actually faded.)
Another example, in the recent news, concerned NBC Anchor Brian Williams. According to USA Today (2/6/2015), Williams claimed he’d been under fire in Iraq, but after challenges to his story, said he’d “misremembered” being hit by enemy fire in Iraq in a helicopter, when in fact, the helicopter had not been hit. His false memory created a stir in the media and cast doubt on his credibility.
No doubt you, too, have an anecdote about a false memory in your own life, though perhaps not as public as Williams’! But what about scientific evidence?
Arguably, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus is the most prolific and well-known researcher in the area of false memories. (Go to You Tube to watch Loftus’ TED talk–a must-view! https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=elizabeth+loftus+ted+talk ) The scientific evidence she presents strongly supports the idea that misinformation (and the world is full of it), can cause memory distortion, and that false memories can actually be intentionally implanted into one’s mind. Loftus warns us that just because a person believes their own memory and relates it in detail with confidence and emotion doesn’t mean it really happened.
Considering the recent stir about Brian Williams, Loftus, whose research has apparently made her more forgiving about memory lapses, is quoted by USA Today: “Let’s give Williams a break.” (USA Today, 2/6/2015)
Photo from www.public-republic.net
