1004: Memory | Skeptical Sunday

1004: Memory | Skeptical Sunday

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm with Skeptical Sunday co-host writer Jessica Wynn on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories of secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

And Jessica, I appreciate that you smiled, even though we're not doing this on video. It's nice. I introduced you, you smile. Even no one can see it but me. But you still, you still try. I

[00:00:27] Jessica Wynn: was raised, right? Yeah, I was raised right. You were.

[00:00:30] Jordan Harbinger: Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker.

During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though we do skeptical Sunday, we're a rotating guest co-host, and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic.

Topics such as why tipping, makes absolutely no sense. The lottery, Reiki healing, ear candling, self-help cults, bottled water, energy drinks, diet pills, targeted advertising and more. And if you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, cyber warfare, crime, and cults and more.

It'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/starts or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. In this episode, we get into some abuse stuff. So, uh, I guess this is a trigger warning. I'm not really sure how to do trigger warnings, but since I feel like I should do a trigger warning, that's your trigger warning.

Our understanding of memory is controversial. It's questioned, it's doubted, it causes arguments, it makes headlines, affects legislation and influences civil and criminal trials. Scholars, psychologists, politicians and lawmakers debate ideas about repressed memories, implanted memories, and with the limitations of memory actually are.

So what is agreed on and what should we be skeptical of when thinking about the past? Is it possible to tap into our unconscious and stir up forgotten memories? Should that be permissible in court? So many questions. Too many to remember actually. And writer, Jessica Wynn is here short term to discuss what we've learned in the long term about memory.

[00:02:07] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Hey Jordan, thanks for having me.

[00:02:09] Jordan Harbinger: By the way, folks, in this episode, we use the term repressed memory here, more or less interchangeably with recovered memory. Now that's not totally accurate, but we thought it was better to be simple and consistent here. So when you hear repressed memory, yeah, we're more or less talking about recovered memories.

[00:02:24] Jessica Wynn: So do you consider yourself to have an excellent memory?

[00:02:27] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. Yes. I think it's probably pretty good, but my wife would definitely disagree. And now that I think about it, my memory is probably crap. Just like most people's memory

[00:02:37] Jessica Wynn: it might be, but I think it all depends on what we're remembering, right?

Like. What specific memories do you have from February 3rd, 2024?

[00:02:48] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, probably a typical day. Not exactly sure. Off the top of my head. It's a while ago.

[00:02:52] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, sure. I mean, that's tough, right? It was over a month ago. Mm-Hmm. But what specific memories do you have from September 11th, 2001? Oh, a lot, but that's so different, right?

So different. It was 23 years ago, first of all. But people imagine their memory is like a video that we file away and when we remember, we just open that file. But our brains do not work like that. And if there's no emotion around an event, like the events of February 3rd, it's difficult to remember specific details.

But emotionally loaded events like nine 11, they make memories easier to recall.

[00:03:30] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that makes sense. Right. I, I'm not gonna remember the oak meal I ate on February 3rd, but I, I, I do remember right where I was when I heard about this and talking with my roommate and who called me first and seeing. ICQ messages or a OL and some messenger messages, whatever pop up from friends who lived in Europe and they were like, what's going on?

And I'm like, whatcha talking about? I just woke up. It's nine 30 in the morning or whatever. That was really something. So do we just forget the mundane things generally? Is that how it works?

[00:03:56] Jessica Wynn: No, I mean, definitely not, but memory is, it's an act of process, right? And forgetting is part of that process. So there's this misconception that forgetting is bad, but it's important to forget.

So we don't have to like sift through everything that ever happened. Mm-Hmm. That would be a really inefficient way to be. We remember mundane details that have no significant events around them sometimes, or we remember the mundane things that happened before and after a significant event like you.

Like I remember the color sheets that were on my bed on nine 11, but I don't know if I could tell you what color sheets are on my bed right now,

[00:04:35] Jordan Harbinger: and

[00:04:35] Jessica Wynn: with confidence I can describe what the landline telephone next to my bed looked and sounded like and what clothes I put on that morning. Mm-Hmm. But. I'm also confident that a lot of those details are going to be wrong.

Why would they be wrong? Well, when you recall a memory, you're actually remembering the last time you remembered the memory

[00:04:58] Jordan Harbinger: uhhuh

[00:04:59] Jessica Wynn: and, and every time you remember it, you're exposing it to being manipulated.

[00:05:03] Jordan Harbinger: This makes sense. So I'm not remembering the actual event, I'm just remembering the last time I remembered the event.

So every time I remember something, it's one more abstraction away from the actual event, I guess. That's crazy. So manipulated By what I mean if, if it's in my brain, am I just manipulating myself? Is that kind of where we're going with this?

[00:05:21] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, sure. I mean, all our senses can manipulate a memory, right?

So can our emotions, experiences other people? For sure. Even our other memories influence our recall.

[00:05:33] Jordan Harbinger: Hmm.

[00:05:33] Jessica Wynn: I'm sure most of us can think of a time someone told, even if it's a mundane story, like somebody mentioned something and we thought, really? Did that happen? Like, Hey, no, our auntie was there, remember?

And I'm like, she was, uh, okay. So now I remember her being there. Mm-Hmm. And every time I remember that instance, I'll remember a person that may or may not have been there, but it might not be like drastic, but every time we think of a memory, it's going to be different.

[00:06:04] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So our memory gets fuzzy, but is there a reason for this?

Do we know how memory works in the brain? I'm guessing it has to do with limited space and you can't just remember everything because of that.

[00:06:13] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, of course. So we remember the important stuff, hopefully, but the simplest like textbook definition of memory is, is it's a continued process of information retention over time.

[00:06:25] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:06:26] Jessica Wynn: So memory helps us make sense of the present and future and it's central in learning. And the three main processes that characterize how memory works. Are encoding storage and recall.

[00:06:39] Jordan Harbinger: That's funny. 'cause it sounds like computer lingo. I mean, we're kind of all born with an iPhone 11 or something like that for brains in many ways.

It's actually pretty incredible.

[00:06:47] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, it's really incredible and it's incredible how we develop that over time. Like we're not born with it. If you ever hear someone say they remember their birth, they are mistaken. I actually saw Matt Damon on Stephen Colbert last night talking about how he remembers his crib.

Mm-Hmm. But the brain cannot form memories that last into adulthood prior to two and a half, and memories really patchy from ages three to seven.

[00:07:15] Jordan Harbinger: That's interesting. I feel like I definitely remember crying in a crib. I'm also like, maybe I was four and my parents were just like, get rid of this noise machine for just two seconds.

I'm gonna ask about that because I, I swear this happened. Right. But then again, crying in a crib, what a vague thing that lit happens to literally everyone that I could have seen on tv. Right, right, right. All right. So that, that's good news for parents to know, you know, no kids, daddy never dropped you.

Your memory is faulty. One of my good friends swears he knows this event that happened before he was born and his mom is like, yeah, he told me this story and it's totally a thing that happened. But I'm like, hello? That's obviously not the case. He, it's like a random guess or he heard you talking about, come on.

Anyway, it's a good reminder as well that I don't have to do anything special for either of my kids 'cause they're just not gonna remember anything anyway. I can tell 'em we spent every weekend at Disneyland.

[00:08:02] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. You, uh, you actually could, you know that science proves our brains are not developed enough to consolidate and form a long-term memory until after like 30 months.

So what's happening to the people who claim those really early memories are you're forming a memory from trusted stories, pictures, and the media, right? People do this and it's unintentional, but just like all the other parts of our brain that develop and change as we grow older. So do the parts that deal with memory,

[00:08:35] Jordan Harbinger: but just to survive.

A baby's gotta remember some things. Like, don't they have to know who their parents are? You know, when I go to pick up a random stranger's kid at the park as I often do, oh my God, no kidding? Of course they scream and they cry because I'm not their father and they know that. And, but honestly, whenever I pick up like a kid who's playing at our house, if I'm not the parent, they'll often be like, Ugh, they just freeze up.

Right? 'cause they don't really know me.

[00:08:58] Jessica Wynn: Oh, totally. I mean, but what you're doing is you're confusing recognition and memory, and they are, I see they are different things. So baby brains are forming procedural memories, which makes sense, right? There's an ability to perform tasks. That function of the brain, it gets stronger as we go through childhood.

So at six months you can be taught like a basic action, but you can only remember it for about 24 hours they find, but not 48 hours. So you have to be retaught it. So, and a nine month old remembers basic functions for about a month, but not three months. So it develops quick and the older you get, memories become easier to retain

[00:09:38] Jordan Harbinger: until you hit about 44 in my experience.

At which point,

[00:09:42] Jessica Wynn: why did I walk in here? Yeah. Things start to go

[00:09:44] Jordan Harbinger: downhill. Yeah. The why do I walk? Why did I walk back in the house thing? Unfortunately, it's been happening to me since I was like 15. All right. I've heard so much about repressed childhood memories, right? It's almost a like a cliche, but is that actually a thing?

I think the most common thread that I see online or in true crime, or even in my inbox, is people who encountered abuse as kids. But then as adults, they don't or can't remember it, and it's just sort of lurking in the background, waiting to be rediscovered, which it often is by a therapist, and then all hell breaks loose.

[00:10:12] Jessica Wynn: Right? And that whole idea of repressed memory, everything I have researched, it all points to know. Memory repression is not a tool of our brains.

[00:10:26] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So you sound pretty confident and sure about that, but it definitely comes up over and over and over again. So how can we just completely discount this?

[00:10:35] Jessica Wynn: Of course not. And it's just the opposite. Like there's so much in the orbit of repressed memory that it's actually daunting to discuss, right? Mm-Hmm. So psychoanalysis was and is full of questionable practices. And one idea from it is that some memories are so traumatic that our conscious mind sort of hides them away and buries them in the closet of our brains in that dark forgotten corner of our sub or of our unconscious.

[00:11:06] Jordan Harbinger: That concept seems difficult to prove. What's, is there science behind that?

[00:11:10] Jessica Wynn: Well. As luck has it, psychoanalysis gives therapists magical powers to dig out memories that are buried in those dark corners of your subconscious.

[00:11:22] Jordan Harbinger: So psychoanalysis thinks we're just too stupid to remember a significant thing, especially if it was traumatic.

[00:11:27] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's kind of insulting, right?

[00:11:30] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:11:30] Jessica Wynn: I mean, there are a few events in my life I definitely wish I could forget, like my entire first marriage. Yeah. But unfortunately, life can be unpleasant, but you don't have to relive those unpleasant experiences over and over, like not thinking about them.

It's not repression, it's coping, it's just life.

[00:11:52] Jordan Harbinger: But people accept the idea that trauma leads to a complete memory blockage, basically, something super bad happens and your mind just, I don't know, can't handle it. So it puts it into cold storage or whatever.

[00:12:03] Jessica Wynn: Right. But that is a completely irresponsible concept to push on people.

The question of repressed memories is one of the most heated debates in modern psychology, but all I have found is that the belief in repressed memories results in damaging consequences in clinical, legal and academic situations.

[00:12:24] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so basically repressed memory is not a real phenomenon. So where did the idea of repressed memory come from in the first place?

Because it's, I don't, it didn't just come outta nowhere. I mean, it seems like everybody knows about this thing that doesn't actually exist.

[00:12:39] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I don't think you'll be surprised that this idea of repressed memories is all thanks to that most famous smother lover, Sigmund Freud.

[00:12:49] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:12:49] Jessica Wynn: Yo. He had this endless tower of misguided and debunked ideas.

And Freud proposed repressed memories are a defense mechanism against traumatic events. But he based this on zero scientific evidence,

[00:13:04] Jordan Harbinger: which is on par for Freud, I think. So what did he base it on? I'm guessing it's some silly Well, yeah, every, tell me

[00:13:12] Jessica Wynn: everything. Freud is silly, right? So

[00:13:14] Jordan Harbinger: yeah,

[00:13:14] Jessica Wynn: in the beginning, Freud was a hypnotist, right?

Like a lot of psychologists were. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:19] Jordan Harbinger: And

[00:13:20] Jessica Wynn: it turns out he was a really clumsy one. So he liked to claim that he furnished his office with a couch to make it feel less clinical. But it had more to do with that whole You are getting sleepy thing. Oh, yeah. Combined with his clumsiness. So one of Freud's first patients had all sorts of physical symptoms that medical doctors couldn't explain at the time.

[00:13:46] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:46] Jessica Wynn: And she was really happy to lie on his couch, but she didn't succumb to his crummy hypnosis skills and she just wanted to talk. And when she started to get better after talking about her terrible childhood boom, the whole concept of psychoanalysis was born.

[00:14:03] Jordan Harbinger: Wait, so the whole lie down and tell me about your mother thing.

That was just an accident because he was terrible at hypnotizing people and bought a couch randomly

[00:14:12] Jessica Wynn: so they could fall on it. Yeah, totally. It turns out it was not a happy accident. Right? Like Freud developed the concept of repression based on this one patient. He made this huge leap saying everyone's current symptoms are related to the past and without scientific proof, he claimed.

When someone experiences trauma, the mind removes that event from conscious awareness, automatically leaving the person unaware that this horrible thing happened. It's like, well, why do I remember my ex-husband Freud? Like anything, this is just an easy solution to human nature. And he was feeding off the feeling we all have that, hey, there has to be a reason I am the way I am and I wanna blame something.

[00:14:58] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. I suppose I can understand the desire to blame something, especially something other than oneself. Totally for messed up life messed up relationships. But this whole concept of repressed memories, it seems a part of our understanding of memory. Like I said at the top of the show, it's basically a cliche at this point, and I, I've gotten letters in the feedback Friday inbox from people saying.

Hi, I, my sister who hasn't done anything with her life is now going to a therapist that says we were sexually abused as kids because we had repressed memories. And she's like, but I'm successful. And I don't remember any of this. And part of our answer if memory serves was like, isn't it convenient that your sister who hasn't done anything is now like reverse engineering a cause for why that might be the case instead of looking at like the other reasons that it might be.

Now, of course, people who suffer trauma have all kinds of problems that can lead to them not doing well later in life. Like I, that's why we put the trigger warning in there. And also why I want people to give us grace on this episode. However, in this case, the other sister was like. When, when we went on vacation to such and such.

No, I remember that. And we were not abused by like the neighbors at our timeshare or whatever it was. And the sister's like, you have to remember, you have to be against mom and dad allowed it to happen. And the letter was about how this is tearing their family apart. And I'm going on a little tangent here.

Uh, so I apologize for that. But it's so interesting how it must just be really tempting if I had a twin brother. He was crushing at life and I was just bouncing from job to job and couch surfing. I too might be like, huh, well clearly I have the genetics and I had the upbringing. Well, wait a minute. What if there's a massive serious flaw that no one remembered until now?

Yeah, that would explain it.

[00:16:36] Jessica Wynn: You can just escape the accountability for your own choices by Yes. Making up something of like, of course, some this way.

[00:16:44] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:16:44] Jessica Wynn: That was it. That was it with Freud, like he even knew what his patients were like, quote unquote, remembering that they weren't actual events, but he still pushed this idea of repression because it got him attention.

Yeah, it got 'em patience. And he was even gifted his now like iconic, famous couch by some wel wealthy client. Right? Oh geez. So he wrote about this. People believed because like you said, how convenient and it keeps this whole like mind keeps the score hypothesis. Going and implies that trauma can be discovered.

[00:17:21] Jordan Harbinger: So for people who subscribe to the idea of repressed memory, the goal of therapy aims to what? Make the unconscious memories conscious again.

[00:17:30] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, I mean, sure the people definitely believe this, but. In my research, I notice like believers in repressed memories, they base it on three ideas. Uh, whether you're the therapist or the patient, you think that you can repress traumatic experiences.

You think those repressed traumatic experiences can cause your psychiatric disorders. And then you think that recalling trauma is necessary to heal.

[00:17:59] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:17:59] Jessica Wynn: And without looking at the science, like these people, it makes me wonder what's wrong with my brain. I mean,

[00:18:05] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:18:05] Jessica Wynn: I can lay in bed at night thinking about the time in middle school I was at a party and it was the first time I got my period and I was humiliated, right?

[00:18:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:18:16] Jessica Wynn: But why do I remember that Mr. Freud? It haunts me.

[00:18:20] Jordan Harbinger: That sounds like a different kind of therapy might be in your future, but I'm, I'm still unclear. Is it possible to forget an extremely intense experience? Then remember it again later. How would we know either way?

[00:18:33] Jessica Wynn: Okay. Well this is what experts have been fighting over since Freud.

Right? So if we fast forward to the 1990s, we can look at this whole phenomenon of when therapists were proven to be accidentally planning people with false memories.

[00:18:50] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, how is that possible? Are they, it's like the machine from the movie inception to put something in your brain. That's crazy.

[00:18:57] Jessica Wynn: I know. And I think that.

Some people would probably use that machine if they could. Right. But sure. Therapists were using and still do use what could be harmful techniques when they think they're helping. And it's techniques like hypnosis or suggestive imagery. And patients are open to this.

[00:19:14] Jordan Harbinger: These people kind of just want repressed memories to be true, which seems kind of counterintuitive.

Like, Hey, there's a horrible thing that you didn't know about. Oh, I wanna know everything about this horrible thing. It's like, oh, maybe I, maybe I don't wanna know. That was the other thing from the letters of my feedback Friday inbox, is people being like, maybe I don't wanna know. I have a great relationship with my parents.

I don't, maybe I don't wanna know if they let me get abused and I just forgot about it. Right. And you know, sad.

[00:19:39] Jessica Wynn: It's not just counterintuitive though, right? It's counter. All these credible psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists who all agree, the subconscious process of repressed memory, it doesn't occur and it's unreasonable to believe that's how memory works without anything proving it.

[00:19:58] Jordan Harbinger: I guess it's crazy to think that there's a secret part of my brain that. Has sole authority deciding which events I can and cannot handle. You know, there are definitely some nights and weekends I would like to forget too. And some that I forgot due to probably consumption of, of beer that I wouldn't have chosen to forget, but I don't really need to remember the time.

I wrote Libby Walker, a Love Letter, and then she showed the whole school like that. Can I repress that please? That'd be great.

[00:20:25] Jessica Wynn: I don't wanna freak you out, Jordan, but I've seen that letter online when I've Googled you.

[00:20:30] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God. Tell me you're kidding. Of

[00:20:31] Jessica Wynn: course, of course. But Libby, if you're listening, you know what's funny is

[00:20:35] Jordan Harbinger: she did hit me, uh, years ago and she's like, Hey, I checked out your podcast.

And I'm like, remember that time that I wrote you that letter and you showed the whole school? And she's like, I thought you promised in college we'd never talk about that again because I wrote it in middle school. We ended up gonna high school together as you, as one does from middle school. Then we went to University of Michigan at the same time.

Oh wow. And kept in touch after. So I was like. Could I have written a note to a girl that moved after like two months? Why does it have to be to a girl that ended up going to college with me and is like friends with a bunch of my friends? But I guess you, she just

[00:21:03] Jessica Wynn: bought the house across the street like,

[00:21:05] Jordan Harbinger: hey, still have that letter in my trapper keeper.

Gotta show your parents. And the wife and the in-laws would get a good laugh out of it. Yeah, it was pathetic too, just as you would expect. Alright, so do believers of repressed memories think I can instruct my mind to forget certain things? Or is it kind of an automated process?

[00:21:23] Jessica Wynn: No, I mean, I think a lot of people believe that, that you have the capability to forget stuff and it's just definitely not true.

The best advice I did come across from experts is like this Libby letter trauma you have. It's, yeah, you can just think about something else,

[00:21:43] Jordan Harbinger: but yeah.

[00:21:43] Jessica Wynn: But people are convinced of repressed memories and there are explanations for what's going on with these like, you know, lost memories. It sometimes things happen when we're really young and so they're just forgotten.

[00:21:56] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[00:21:56] Jessica Wynn: And not deliberately, not magically repressed. Sometimes people have actually shared the event with somebody else and then they forgot. They told people. That's also not magic or repression, it's just called forgetting.

[00:22:11] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So kids are often silly and forgetful as well. So should we just discount memories from when we were little?

I don't know.

[00:22:19] Jessica Wynn: Of course not. You know, there is this possibility that as a kid, but we didn't know the event was horrible, so we don't think about it.

[00:22:26] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:27] Jessica Wynn: And for most people though, traumatic events are remembered.

[00:22:32] Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

[00:22:32] Jessica Wynn: And it can be subjective, but like you can be too young to recognize abuse or trauma or whatever and grow up like I did and realize like, hey, that was pretty messed up when my older brother taught me to roll joints when I was five.

Ooh.

[00:22:47] Jordan Harbinger: If that's true,

[00:22:48] Jessica Wynn: it's true. I didn't smoke it and it was fine. I just had the little fingers that that were good. Good for rolling. But my point is, we have to stop using the explanation of repression because there's other tools the brain's using like the good old, push it down, cover it up, never address it.

Coping mechanisms of life like this is just how we survive. It's not proof that we don't remember significant trauma. Right. Sometimes we think of something, we're like, oh man, I haven't thought about that in so long, and we kind of shudder at the thought, right? That's conscious repression. Again, it's not a magical mind automatically deleting traumatic events from our thoughts.

[00:23:30] Jordan Harbinger: That makes sense. I've definitely got some of those where it's like, oh, remember that time that I did that thing and it was really dangerous? Wow, that was scary. Yeah, and I will change. I will stop thinking about it because otherwise I feel like, wow, I almost fell out of a window and died. That's really scary and would've been super sad.

I don't wanna think about that, but yeah, it's not that I don't remember it, it's just that my mind consciously, I don't want to keep torturing myself with that stupid thing. Here's something you should implant in your memory. The deals on the products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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You hear insane examples though, like people being abducted by aliens and they repress the memory and it's actually quite sad because it's often combined with real issues that you can just see or hear in their stories. There was one woman I saw in a video and God knows where this was, unsolved Mysteries or something like that, some OG show like that, and she was just convinced that she had been abducted by aliens.

And her whole thing was she was married on another planet and she had kids and a family there. And it was like one of the alien leaders had married her. And of course, in reality she was just like a lonely mess here on earth. And it was quite tragic.

[00:27:43] Jessica Wynn: Right? And so she created this. Yeah. Kind of sounds awesome, right?

Like,

[00:27:46] Jordan Harbinger: right, like, oh, I'm important on this other planet where people love me. It's like, oh man, right? And,

[00:27:51] Jessica Wynn: but it is like. Really depressing. She's not, not alone in those stories. Like a lot of people do that and they're just justifying the idea of false memory because they hear about it. Like everybody hears a repressed memory.

And then there's the clinical definition of something called Disassociative Amnesia, which is published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM.

[00:28:18] Jordan Harbinger: I've heard of that. The book does come up often on the show, and I know it has issues here and there. I'm not up on the specifics though.

[00:28:24] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, I mean, I think that book has a ton of issues, but as far as memory science goes, like I did a little digging and the panel that put together the DSM. Includes no memory experts and the definitions it lays out they carry significant risks in clinical and legal settings.

[00:28:44] Jordan Harbinger: You mentioned that the concept of repressed memory also affects public policy.

So how does this affect the law? For example?

[00:28:50] Jessica Wynn: Well, in the eighties and nineties, the United was swept up in like this baseless conspiracy theories about satanic cults committing rampant abuse all over the country. Do you, do you remember this?

[00:29:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. The Satanic panic, right? This is that what this is totally, totally A AKA.

This is the time when every album I bought from Sam Goody was heavily scrutinized by my parents.

[00:29:12] Jessica Wynn: Right? Right. And it started with accusations of satanic abuse at this one preschool in California.

[00:29:20] Jordan Harbinger: Mm.

[00:29:20] Jessica Wynn: And it was compelling, right? So talk shows and news, it spread these fears and there were hundreds of allegations that were investigated.

In 1988, Geraldo Rivera, of course Air. Yeah, of course. He aired this primetime special called Devil Worship, exposing Satan's Underground, and he just alleged thousands of children were being sacrificed by satanic cults in the US every year. He interviewed Ozzy Osborne and then blamed heavy metal music for luring kids into satanism.

[00:29:57] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, hey. We couldn't find a memory expert, but we did book Ozzy Osborne. I, I can just see my parents watching that way back when you could actually understand some of the things coming out of Ozzy Osborne's mouth.

[00:30:08] Jessica Wynn: Aw, poor Ozzy. I know it was, I don't know if it was Ozzy or her or what, but it was the highest rated television document.

It was considered a documentary at the time. Oh,

[00:30:20] Jordan Harbinger: wow.

[00:30:20] Jessica Wynn: 20 million households watched and parents were of course, collectively freaked out and not long after the. Thing aired. Oprah did a show warning about how dangerous Satanic cults are and that they were coming for your children. It's crazy, man.

[00:30:39] Jordan Harbinger: People were compelled by Geraldo and Oprah.

They, Oprah was charming. I, I don't know what, I never quite got the Geraldo thing. Even as a kid, I was like, that doesn't seem quite accurate. It's wild how much disinformation those two are responsible for. And it's like their fans are in a cult actually. Yeah. It's absolutely mind boggling. They're the cult.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. They're the cult. The real cult was the people you heard were listening to about cults the whole time.

[00:31:00] Jessica Wynn: Know, and I mean, but people listen to them. Yeah. And so boom, here we are. The Satanic Panic Unfolded. I wanna say that I'm a hundred percent against banning books, but some should just never be published because these TV specials, they were based on several books published in the eighties with titles like The Courage to Heal, which is also known as the Bible of incompetent therapists.

[00:31:28] Jordan Harbinger: Oof.

[00:31:28] Jessica Wynn: Then there was the 1980 book called Michelle Remembers and it was co-written by a therapist and his female patient. It discussed his brilliance in uncovering her memories of childhood Satanic abuse, and it was a bestseller.

[00:31:45] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:31:46] Jessica Wynn: The two of them divorced, their partners married each other and laughed all the way to the bank, I guess.

[00:31:53] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, wow.

[00:31:53] Jessica Wynn: There's, um, this really depressing documentary about it, and it shows just how insane they were. The patient's sister said in the documentary that she believes Michelle is, she's living in hell. The story haunted their family for years. She said, you know, we pretend we're a family, but there's always that feeling of like, how could you do the damage you did by telling the story that wasn't true?

So these repressed memories of Satanic childhood, they put Michelle's family under investigation. Then tons of therapists In the eighties and nineties, they got obsessed with rooting out evidence of satanic cults sexually abusing children, and they believed memory suppression was a tool of satanic cult abuse.

[00:32:40] Jordan Harbinger: It sounds like something you would see in a conspiracy theory, but it's done by therapists, which is really disturbing. So it's, it's so silly to think, oh, so satanic cultists have magical powers that involve psychological mechanisms to make you forget how convenient, you know, and also nobody can identify, no experts can identify these, but like random people who worship Satan.

They're just so well versed on these that they can pull the trigger Yeah. On a whim,

[00:33:05] Jessica Wynn: and then to battle it. It's like, oh, psychoanalysts to the rescue, you know? Mm-Hmm. It's, it becomes like this. Terrible superhero movie, right? But th they believe through hypnosis and careful questioning that these therapists can bring horrible memories back and root out the devil.

So the combo of this repressed memory theory, along with the Satanic panic, it was insane.

[00:33:30] Jordan Harbinger: It does sound absolutely outta control. Is there a kernel of truth to this? Like were there any cases of satanic cults actually influencing children? But it was nothing like this, or No, no, no, no. Is there a shred?

Nothing. No, just nothing. Zero crap.

[00:33:43] Jessica Wynn: Zero.

[00:33:44] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, I guess it's good. Why not? Crap, it's good. No satanic cults to be clear. Oh damn it. I'm not a fan of satanic cults. Darn.

[00:33:50] Jessica Wynn: I mean, there were huge investigations in the nineties about it, Uhhuh. But the FBI, they found no evidence ever of any secret organized cult of Satanic child abusers anywhere.

But people still went to jail for it.

[00:34:05] Jordan Harbinger: You know what people are gonna say, oh, the FBI found no evidence of satanic cults. That's because the FBI is the satanical. You don't have to email me folks. I know where your head's at. So I, I can't believe people actually went to jail over this nonsense. That part.

That's horrifying.

[00:34:20] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. And it also discounts people who are having. Actual abuse, right. But sure. Even as cases slowly collapsed and like the skepticism prevailed, defendants were going to prison and families were traumatized, and millions of dollars were being spent on prosecutions. A lot of people went to jail for decades convicted of these like hideous crimes where the sole evidence was these repressed memories of long forgotten abuse coming to the surface.

Oh man. But research came out that showed these techniques used by therapists to quote unquote recover these memories. These techniques also work really well to implant false memories and create like realistic recalled experiences of things that never happened.

[00:35:09] Jordan Harbinger: Wow, that is terrifying. So imagine, just imagine getting convicted of using a child in a satanic ritual and you go to prison, your life is ruined.

You go to prison and people who thought they knew you are shocked and they don't wanna talk to you anymore. Even, you know, friends, family, maybe even your spouse, and it's just completely nonsense. Yeah. It's was such a nightmare. Oh yeah. So do people still believe memory repression is a weapon used by cults or whatever?

Or is that era kind of passed?

[00:35:34] Jessica Wynn: No, I mean, unfortunately. It's still around. I mean, online conspiracy groups like Q Anon, right? Sure. Like they have a lot to do with this kind of thinking. In 2021, the New York Times ran an article titled It's Time to Revisit the Satanic Panic, and they were equating the whole Pizzagate thing to the Satanic panic.

[00:35:55] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Okay. So Pizzagate, for those blissfully unaware of what this is, and I wish I were one of you actually. That was the sort of Q Anon slash Alex Jones slash Internet kooky conspiracy that alleged, I think it was Hillary Clinton had children held in a, they were captive in a pizza shop basement. Then it turned out the pizza shop didn't even have a basement.

A fact, which was uncovered when a crazy terminally online conspiracy, neckbeard dude waltzed in there with a rifle demanding to rescue kids in the basement. That didn't exist in the first place.

[00:36:31] Jessica Wynn: You got it right. Yeah. And I bet that guy wishes he could forget he did that, right?

[00:36:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. There

[00:36:37] Jessica Wynn: was an FBI agent in the article.

He had worked on a lot of the satanic panic cases and he said that. When people get emotionally involved in an issue, their common sense and their reason, they just go out the window. So people believe what they want and need to believe, and that seems to be the basis for many lost memories of abuse.

[00:36:58] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm. There

[00:36:59] Jessica Wynn: was a difference between Satanic panic and Pizzagate, which is pretty huge though. In the eighties and nineties, actually hundreds of children were interviewed and questioned, and they used leading questions and techniques that could implant these memories. It was wild. There was just this combo of seemingly credible people saying the occult is everywhere.

Then there were kids who started to believe these horrible satanic things happened to them, and then there was kids who didn't believe that they just wanted the questioning to end. So they simply admitted to things that later on they retracted. Hmm. You know, luckily, I guess if you wanna look at a positive of Pizzagate, no child ever came forward or they didn't question any children regarding Pizzagate.

So the implanted memory there happened to the people who were reading post after post about Pizzagate.

[00:37:48] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:37:49] Jessica Wynn: But if when you go back to Satanic panic in like 1994, researchers with the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect found that again, investigators could not substantiate any of roughly 12,000 accusations of group cult sexual abuse.

Based on Satanic ritual. Hmm. But by then, by the time they came out with those findings, over 200 people were already in jail.

[00:38:15] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God.

[00:38:16] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Many were still being accused.

[00:38:17] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God. Even though nothing was proven and the evidence all fell apart, what? 200 people? That's just a tremendous amount of lives ruined.

Oh my God.

[00:38:26] Jessica Wynn: It's heartbreaking. Right. But a staggering, a lot of those people were eventually freed, but it was, thank goodness, sometimes after years. Yeah. I think it's pretty famous. The West Memphis three, that whole thing was, they were convicted of murders that they did through Satanic sacrifice, and that was in 94.

They were freed in 2011. Like it was proven. That was all baloney. Jeez. And then in 2013, a Texas couple were released after 21 years in prison. Oh my goodness. For satanic sacrifice of children, the state awarded them three point, like $4 million from the state has a fund for wrongful convictions. But thanks.

But nothing buys you those years back.

[00:39:10] Jordan Harbinger: No. Basically you can retire 'cause you're unemployable anyway. And hopefully, and sorry for the 21 years you didn't spend with your kids, if you even had kids, because now you're too old to have. You're like, that's just right. Horrific. I mean there's, oh, that's so sad.

So the memories are implanted in the victims, or they're implanted in the accused, right. Do people know they're admitting to crimes? They didn't commit. Because people do that for plea deals all the time. Right. Like, just say you robbed the store and you'll get probation. Yeah. Right. It's like, all right, fine.

[00:39:39] Jessica Wynn: There's examples of everything you mention, right? It can, memories can be implanted in victims or accused or whatever, but people deny crimes and then after interrogation techniques are used, they sometimes doubt themselves.

[00:39:52] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:39:52] Jessica Wynn: This is why you shouldn't say anything when being interrogated. Why you want your lawyer present?

Because there's just a long history of people confessing to things they did not do, and Oh, I wanted to mention this, for what it's worth, Herardo, he apologized.

[00:40:09] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, for the Satanic panic special.

[00:40:11] Jessica Wynn: Yeah.

[00:40:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And I'm sure he gave back all the money that he earned from that too. And, and like, oh man, that thing that made me super famous in the nineties.

I'm so sorry. Sorry about that. As he dries his, his tears with a hundred dollars bills, sorry for all that fake satanic stuff. It's how nice of him. But it wasn't just Geraldo who owed an apology, obviously. I mean, there's, there's a lot going on here. A lot of moving parts.

[00:40:32] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, there's countless malpractice lawsuits against therapists who use repressed memory techniques.

That makes sense. Like these therapists though, I mean, they all, they do believe they're doing good, but in every case I've come across, the therapists lost and then they were told their practice is harmful.

[00:40:51] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, this is anecdotal, but I have heard that a lot of the repressed memory stuff comes from the same therapist.

Like if you're a therapist. You've been practicing for 40 years. There's maybe like one iffy case where maybe somebody doesn't remember a traumatic event. But then there's other therapists where like every single patient they have has repressed memory issues and traumatic events that they don't remember.

And it's like, uh, what are the odds? Yeah. That you get the, the 0.1% of, of everyone else in terms of the type of patient. So one would think then that mental health clinicians would treat these practices as anathema, right? Okay. These don't work. They're harmful. You think therapists would be trained actively to avoid this practice?

Come on. As a lawyer, you're always seeing like continued learning how to manage your client's money because you can't put the money in your own bank account or move it around. You gotta keep it in the trust and it's super strict and you can't, you know, there's like a lot of guidelines. They hammer these things on quite a bit.

If you get it wrong, you go to jail.

[00:41:47] Jessica Wynn: Right. And I mean, you would think that would, so you'd be the same in with clinicians, but Sure. New research I was looking at is showing between 60 and 90% of modern mental health clinicians believe traumatic memories can be repressed at a popular therapy. Now it's called EMDR, which stands for eye Movement desensitization and Reprocessing therapy.

It involves moving your eyes a specific way while you think about a traumatic repressed memory, and somehow that's supposed to help you heal. I can't really wrap my mind around it, but Sure. There's no scientific research. There's no testable hypothesis about this technique as it pertains to repressed memories, but a study of clinicians finds 93% of them believe I.

These traumatic memories can be repressed and retrieved this way. Research shows too, like just the general public, like they believe we can even repress an act of murder.

[00:42:50] Jordan Harbinger: It seems the belief is, well, I can't remember large parts of my childhood, so I must have been abused. There must have been something bad in those blank spaces because otherwise I would remember.

And then it's like, let me get to work remembering this stuff. 'cause I'm looking for a cause for my current woes.

[00:43:06] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, yeah. And I mean it's not just abuse, right? So we could get away from the, the abuse aspect of it. 'cause it's depressing and sometimes it's sure it's real. But there are lots of lab experiments that prove memories.

Whether they're good or bad, they can be implanted.

[00:43:22] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:43:23] Jessica Wynn: The ethics of these kind of studies could be questioned, but there's like a really famous study called the Formation of False Memory Study, and it's also known as Lost in the Mall Study. So they got a family member to talk about five things that happened during the subject's childhood.

But one of the things would be made up and that made up thing was the time the subject got lost in the mall when they were five 80% of people. They were all in and they said, oh yeah, I remember getting lost in the mall. And then 40% of them, they added details, they weren't told.

[00:43:55] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. So you can make everyone a liar pretty much,

[00:43:58] Jessica Wynn: right?

Yeah. Kind of. But they're not liars. Right. It's just a plausible situation.

[00:44:03] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[00:44:04] Jessica Wynn: One, they trust that family member. Two, they went to a mall as a child. Three, they've seen home alone. So it, you can get lost, but the memory, there you go. It's implanted. And more recently, a study was done showing adults a photo of them in a hot air balloon as a child.

Okay. And. 100% of those shown this photoshopped picture remembered the experience, and 50% spoke about like really specific details

[00:44:35] Jordan Harbinger: of something that never actually happened. That's incredible. I know you just show someone a picture of them in a certain situation and there's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I remember riding on an airplane wing.

Right. That definitely happened. Exactly.

[00:44:47] Jessica Wynn: Like they're given no information, just shown the photo and we believe it. Right. So, oh yeah. I remember that day. The examples like that, they go on and on. Like, if it's plausible, then the memory is quite easy to implant. Mm-Hmm. You know, I could Photoshop you into my childhood photos, and if the circumstances were plausible, you could believe it's a photo from your childhood.

[00:45:08] Jordan Harbinger: With ai, this is gonna get outta hand, right. Because you are gonna be able to be like, all right, I want 13 hours of video of this person hanging out at my summer house in the eighties. And you'll just be like, I guess I did grow up with Jordan Harbinger. How weird. I don't remember this, but actually now I, now that I think about it, I do.

So I've actually had a memory stolen. No Photoshop needed. I, I really don't wanna out this person because they're kind of a public ish, uh, figure. But I told this story about seeing a celebrity on an airplane. And something they did on the airplane. And then later on I heard this person tell this story on a piece of media.

And I was like, what the heck? That's definitely my story. But

[00:45:46] Jessica Wynn: without you. Oh yeah, without me. It

[00:45:48] Jordan Harbinger: happened to them suddenly. And then this person wrote a book and they put it in the book and I was like, what the heck is going on here? And I thought that was so odd, and, and I knew the person who wrote the book for this particular thought leader, and I was like, Hey, FYI.

What do you think of this story? And he is like, oh yeah, you know, that was a later ad actually. And I'm like, I'll tell you why, because I told that story.

[00:46:08] Jessica Wynn: Wow. And it's my

[00:46:10] Jordan Harbinger: story. And the guy, the writer was like, that doesn't surprise me at all. I feel like a lot of the stuff this person told me happened to them is just like stuff I read about on the internet that's different.

Has him added in there. It's like this guy doesn't have a real personality. He just like borrows things from the internet and makes them his own and convinces himself that it happened to him. It's so freaking weird.

[00:46:30] Jessica Wynn: That kind of thing. I did not come across like he just sounds like a sociopath or, I think

[00:46:35] Jordan Harbinger: so.

Or like mentally

[00:46:36] Jessica Wynn: ill, like I, I don't know if that's anything going on with like the memory, but that is insane.

[00:46:43] Jordan Harbinger: I think he implanted memories in himself.

[00:46:45] Jessica Wynn: In himself, right, right, right. Yeah. Like, oh, I wish that that happened to me. Yeah.

[00:46:48] Jordan Harbinger: He, he wanted the memory, so he's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just pretend that this is my memory now.

[00:46:52] Jessica Wynn: Hey, I mean, that might be what a lot of politicians do, right? They say if you say something over and over again, people believe it. So

[00:46:59] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. If

[00:47:00] Jessica Wynn: it's in a book, it's not your memory anymore, Jordan. I mean, there you

[00:47:03] Jordan Harbinger: go.

[00:47:03] Jessica Wynn: There's like so many suggestive techniques like that and they can affect us when no one's even trying, you know, memory researchers, they make a really good point.

That traumatic and other really significant events, they're well remembered. So complete memory loss for traumatic events. It's rare. It's like really, really rare and usually involves brain damage. There's no documented accounts I could find of memory repressed Holocaust survivors or survivors of Japanese concentration camps or New Yorkers from nine 11.

I mean, people with post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, they often suffer from flashbacks and intrusive memories. You know, it's like just the opposite of repressed memories.

[00:47:53] Jordan Harbinger: So the issue seems to be clinical psychologists who believe in repressed memories, treating patients who also believe in repressed memories.

[00:48:01] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, I mean, it's turtles all the way down, or, I don't know, memories all the way down, I guess.

[00:48:05] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:06] Jessica Wynn: There is scientific interest in what therapists know about the functioning of memory. And the findings always show a high percentage of clinicians believe in repressed memory theory.

[00:48:18] Jordan Harbinger: So what are psychology majors learning?

Because when it's in a $900 textbook, it's gotta be real. Right? Must be correct.

[00:48:25] Jessica Wynn: I will say, I will give these textbooks credit that in psychology textbooks, they give Freud just like a little paragraph al, like one of those little boxes in the corner. So they don't spend a lot of time on him.

[00:48:36] Jordan Harbinger: You might have heard of this guy, right?

Forget everything you heard about this person. Right?

[00:48:39] Jessica Wynn: Right. This gloss over this. But you know, we just have to look at more than the psych majors because there's so many professions that work closely with victims and patients and witnesses and suspects, and they need accurate memory training because there's so much opportunity for implanting memories.

Increasing these professionals, you know, increasing their awareness of potentially harmful beliefs about repressed memories should be a priority in clinical and legal work, as well as for psychological scientists. It does seem like skepticism of repressed memory. It's the highest in legal psychology.

That's great because it led to a standard on what kind of testimony is allowed in court.

[00:49:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's good. I vaguely remember this as, I haven't repressed all of law school yet. I vaguely remember this. The gatekeeper for expert witnesses, the Daubert challenge, it's like the ultimate test for experts.

[00:49:37] Jessica Wynn: Oh yeah.

Totally. And they have to prove their testimony is based on like sound science and can withstand scrutiny. So. Mm-Hmm. Insurance companies rely on it's, it was a US Supreme Court case called Daubert v Dow Pharmaceuticals. The insurance companies rely on it for injury claims because a Daubert motion seeks to exclude presentation of expert testimony, and under the Daubert standard an expert's testimony, it must be based on the scientific method, and it has to help the jury understand evidence given so through this, like judges have the power to admit or not admit expert testimony,

[00:50:16] Jordan Harbinger: right?

This is important because otherwise you could just hire any quick scientist who supports your thing, right? And be like, yeah, you can detect water using this magic pencil. Everyone knows this in my industry. And it's like the, all the other scientists are like, no, that is fake. And then you give those guys equal weight.

It's totally unfair, right? So the expert witness has to help the jury understand the science as well. They can't just be like, I'm an expert, trust me, bro. Right? If that doesn't happen in a satisfactory way, the judge can say, look, you can't even bring this guy in the courtroom, or the jury's free to disregard the evidence or the testimony entirely.

How does this affect memory though, in the courtroom?

[00:50:50] Jessica Wynn: So because of this, it can just eliminate testimony based on just memory. I mean, this is still debated. Like in France in 2017, they wanted to increase the statute of limitations for sexual abuse prosecutions because the idea was victims might repress those memories and it might take them years to uncover their traumatic experiences.

[00:51:16] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:16] Jessica Wynn: But in the courtroom, there's many reasons we would do that. Right? Like more plausible than repression, like shame, fear, all things like that could be at play.

[00:51:26] Jordan Harbinger: You know what's better than losing decades of your life in federal prison because you're accused of abusing children in a Satanic cult.

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You know, if you're abused when you're a kid and then you're 17 or 16, you don't want to just dig all that stuff up. Maybe you just let sleeping dogs lie, but then you're 30 and you're like, no, that was messed up. I want this guy to go to jail. I, I get it. That said, testimony must be credible. So that keeps a lot of repressed memory testimony out of the courtroom, I would hope.

[00:54:01] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, definitely keeps what's called repressed memory testimony out, you know, the word repression became so controversial after that whole satanic panic thing, right? So it's just by another name. Now, clinicians adopted the term dissociative amnesia. Which is just repressed memory with a fancier name.

Right? So in 2013 that pesky DSM did not include the word repression or the phrase repressed memory, but define dissociative amnesia as an event. So traumatic, it causes the quote, inability to recall autobiographical information.

[00:54:41] Jordan Harbinger: That's kind of scary because it's basically repressive memory in a trench coat.

And then it's like, oh, well, as a judge, I, I know about repressive memory being fake, but this is different. It's dissociative amnesia and there's an expert here, so maybe we should let him in. And this, that's sort of scary. It's almost like, not a loophole, but uh, an ugly way for fake evidence to get into your trial.

[00:55:02] Jessica Wynn: And if you look at it, dissociative amnesia was not mentioned in pre 1990s. Work on repression. So it, it is, it's just like a workaround and the subtle, but really significant name change. It's muddied the waters and provided a cover for this continued practice of psychotherapy that involves repressed memories.

[00:55:24] Jordan Harbinger: It's kind of like if you, oh man, asbestos is bad for us. Oh, you know what? Here's a new thing we're gonna call it. I don't know. I can't think of a clever name right now. We're gonna call

[00:55:33] Jessica Wynn: cotton candy.

[00:55:34] Jordan Harbinger: We're gonna call it cotton candy installation, and we're gonna, you know, fireproofing, and everyone's like, oh, great.

I like the sound of that, but it's still cancerous and carcinogenic. Yeah, that's really gross. Mm-Hmm. So is this an American phenomenon or. You said France earlier?

[00:55:49] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, I mentioned France. I mean, it's more like a Western world thing. Repressed memories in the uk, they were examined, and I love this name.

They have the British False Memory Society.

[00:56:02] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm. Okay. Which

[00:56:02] Jessica Wynn: is a charity for people who claim they are falsely accused of a crime, specifically on the basis of a false memory. Wow. And they've looked at thousands of cases since 1993 and find that it's like 84% of women accusers claim they recovered a childhood memory of abuse while undergoing some kind of psychotherapy.

And a lot of it involves hypnosis.

[00:56:29] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, okay. There are a lot of ways to decipher that statistic. There's a slippery slope here on a, on on multiple sides. I know, I know. It's,

[00:56:36] Jessica Wynn: it gets dangerous because you wanna believe everybody, but there's other things going on. It could mean women who are abused are more likely to seek therapy maybe.

Of course. And it could also mean though, that memories can be implanted by these therapists. They maybe both can be true, but a lot of the cases that this charity researched, they found the accused to be innocent.

[00:56:59] Jordan Harbinger: I'm not sure what to do with this information. Obviously, we, we wanna believe any victim who comes forward, of course, but we also have to adhere to the standards that our justice system is laid out and make sure that we're adequately investigating.

So that we don't end up putting the wrong person behind bars and running their life. Yeah, I mean we, we see it happen all the time for murders and stuff like that. It's just terrible.

[00:57:18] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, of course. I mean, and a lot of countries are just trying to unblur that line here. Like there's a Dutch group called the Fictitious Memory Group, and there's False Memory, Deutschland and Germany, and they, but they all have similar discoveries in the US and the uk.

There's a similar organization called the Innocence Project. These organizations, they're necessary. They're not like out to blame these victims, but it's 73% of jurors, 50% of judges, and like 65% of law enforcement believe in long-term repressed memory.

[00:57:58] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:57:58] Jessica Wynn: So those statistics are similar in other countries too.

But this notion of repressed memory, it's, it's just highly problematic.

[00:58:06] Jordan Harbinger: Has there ever been a repressed memory recovered that is. Like really good, you know? Oh my gosh. My uncle was super rich and we went on this camping trip and I helped him bury treasure, and I just forgot all about it.

[00:58:16] Jessica Wynn: That sounds awesome.

I mean, I didn't come across that, but it would stand to reason. Like that would be true too. Like,

[00:58:22] Jordan Harbinger: I suppose, why

[00:58:23] Jessica Wynn: won't my therapist uncover the memory that I am a princess and I was just robbed of my fortune and title.

[00:58:30] Jordan Harbinger: Still traumatic. Yeah,

[00:58:31] Jessica Wynn: still traumatic. Sure. Uh, but I, I don't wanna make light of anyone's traumatic experiences.

No, I, I just wanna highlight how flimsy this repressed memory concept is. So, you know, remember this doesn't just involve these big traumatic events. Like I argue with my sisters about insignificant childhood things all the time, and we're all probably a little bit wrong.

[00:58:55] Jordan Harbinger: Aren't we all somewhat wrong?

Pretty much all the time. That's kind of how the, the whole thing works with the brain, right? It's such a different interpretations of reality and then people remember different parts of something.

[00:59:03] Jessica Wynn: That's why we all fight all the time, right? There's this,

[00:59:05] Jordan Harbinger: yeah, there

[00:59:06] Jessica Wynn: is, um, this collective misinformation phenomenon called the Mandela Effect.

Have you heard of this?

[00:59:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yes, sure. But is that a memory thing or is that like a parallel universe conspiracy type idea?

[00:59:18] Jessica Wynn: When I was reading about it, it just seems like most examples are spelling errors or like silly rumors or the fact that when we're kids, our memory just stinks and yeah.

[00:59:29] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:59:29] Jessica Wynn: That was named after Nelson Mandela because.

Like a ton of people vividly remember him dying in prison in the 1980s, even though he lived until 2013.

[00:59:40] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's like a glitch in the matrix. And it is so bizarre how our brains can play tricks on us like that. There are so many examples of the Mandela effects, but what's interesting is when you look at the stu when you Google it, you'll find that a lot of it has to do with kid stuff.

Some of it's just gotta be like, kid memory is terrible. And so now as adults, we all misremember a bunch of the same stuff. Like I could have sworn the monopoly guy had a monocle and now you're like, oh, he did, right? He's he's running and he is got a monocle. No, it, he doesn't have one actually.

[01:00:10] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, I mean that's a classic Mandela effect example.

You know, another one's the spelling of Baron stain bears, like people swear it was spelled. With EIN instead of a IN, but, but Berenstein.

[01:00:24] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That, that is tricky though. I, I saw that we have that, those books in our house, and I was like, oh, it's Baron Stain. But to be fair, I couldn't spell my own last name when I was little, let alone one as complex and, and vowel heavy as Berenstein.

Besides, who knew there were Jewish bears?

[01:00:42] Jessica Wynn: Come on. I mean, well, I guess. You could go to a gay bar in Tel Aviv. Right. But we Oh, nice. We might, we might be talking about something different. I don't know.

[01:00:51] Jordan Harbinger: Didn't see that coming. You

[01:00:52] Jessica Wynn: know, my last name has no vowels, so that was like super confusing as well. Oh yeah.

But my sister, she just entertains the idea that, no, we're not remembering it wrong. There's just some tear in the fabric of space and time and it, something came and it changed the spelling of our childhood books. And in reality, it's just the Mandela affects a result of false memories and the power of suggestion.

Mm-Hmm. Like we hear something so many times again that our brains start to fill in the gaps with what. We expect to be true.

[01:01:23] Jordan Harbinger: Maybe your sister could take those memory pills advertised on tv. Is there any truth to those? I mean, surely good nutrition helps our brain and memory, but I don't know about a straight up pill.

[01:01:33] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, when you really start to think about it, like the concept of memory enhancing drugs is so appealing. Mm-Hmm. But pills that dramatically enhance our memory are fictional, and if they were real, they would not be available to everyone through the mail. Right. Mm-Hmm. Like it's more the ethical implications of memory enhancing drugs that I think are interesting.

Like think about it. If those drugs actually worked, who would really have access to them? You know, would they be creating an unfair advantage in education or at work?

[01:02:03] Jordan Harbinger: Do you think I slash all of us have memories implanted in our minds?

[01:02:09] Jessica Wynn: Definitely. Like, think about all your alien abductions,

[01:02:13] Jordan Harbinger: right? True.

You got me on that one. It's, it's just all so like the matrix. It's eerie, isn't it? You know, how how do I, how do I know which memories to question now?

[01:02:21] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. And think about like what you said earlier about adding memory implantation into an AI simulation. Yeah. And just creating a memory you would never, never question.

[01:02:33] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[01:02:34] Jessica Wynn: This is just taking us into an ethical dilemma. Like who would decide what memories are implanted

[01:02:39] Jordan Harbinger: and what happens if something goes wrong and the memories cause harm or distress. Oh my gosh. That's kind of bound to happen.

[01:02:46] Jessica Wynn: Yeah.

[01:02:46] Jordan Harbinger: This

[01:02:47] Jessica Wynn: is a conversation that needs to happen, right? We have to have strict regulations and safeguards in place.

To ensure that memory implantation is used responsibly and ethically 'cause it is going to be used, but, Mm-Hmm. It's coming. Like we have to face these questions.

[01:03:03] Jordan Harbinger: How so?

[01:03:04] Jessica Wynn: Well, in 2014, so it was like already 10 years ago, scientists discovered how to implant false memories in lab mice.

[01:03:14] Jordan Harbinger: What? Wow. That sounds like a sci-fi movie.

How do they know that they can do that?

[01:03:18] Jessica Wynn: So, I mean, there were these neuroscientist nerds, right? I think this was at MIT. I think

[01:03:23] Jordan Harbinger: experts is the term you're looking for, but continue.

[01:03:25] Jessica Wynn: Sure, sure. Expert nerds and they used a technique called optogenetics. This uses lasers to stimulate these genetically engineered cells.

So essentially they figured out how to reactivate a memory by flooding certain neurons with laser light, and then they figured out which neurons triggered fear. So they placed this little guy in this really safe space he was familiar with. They engaged this memory laser thing and the mouse froze and displayed distinct fear response, and the mouse was reacting as if it had received an electrical shock when it hadn't at all.

I won't go into like details, but they scared the mouse to death.

[01:04:15] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, poor mouse. I know. That's crazy. I, first of all, I didn't know you could actually get scared to death. Is that, is that possible to try on humans? Not that I'm volunteering anytime soon, but that's scary.

[01:04:25] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, according to those researchers, the only leap left between that experiment and doing that to a human.

It's just technological innovation.

[01:04:36] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Well that's terrifying. Right? Tell me some good that can come from all this. So we don't have all have nightmares about this real or implanted nightmares.

[01:04:45] Jessica Wynn: There are so many positive. Sure there are. I swear. So this could lead to scientific memory suppression that we want, right?

Oh yeah. This could cure PTSD depression or other disorders. Like it could make people with substance abuse issues forget their addiction. Wow. That's incredible. You know, and a lot of the research is done with the hopes of curing Alzheimer's because they think they'll be able to reverse engineer memories that are lost to the disease.

[01:05:14] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, wow. That's amazing. But could erasing a memory, even a bad one. Erase a portion of the person themselves. I mean, now we're getting philosophical, right? It's kinda like where, right? What is our personality and our life experience separate from who we are?

[01:05:28] Jessica Wynn: Yeah, of course. But it, it's definitely a philosophical discussion that needs to happen.

Though it can be painful. Our negative memories do define us. But I think for you and I, that means one thing where somebody who's debilitated by PTSD, they could see it differently than us. So there's also questions like, if you erase the memory of a bad ex from your past, are you erasing the lessons you learned about love?

The larger point is here that there are negatives, so we need to brace ourselves, but for all the good it could do, we have to encourage that while at the same time understanding that the neuroscience, it could allow for witness tampering. It could implant false patriotism in people under a brutal dictatorship.

Like it's super complicated. Also could be, I watch the born movies too much. You know? I can

[01:06:23] Jordan Harbinger: see that. Yeah, it could be that too. So is it The Matrix or Inception becoming Reality? I mean, it's, it's actually quite freaky that this is all happening. It seems inevitable, but Wow. It's closer than I thought, I guess.

[01:06:35] Jessica Wynn: But it is happening, right? Yeah. I mean, we have to look at both sides of it and the ability to actually do this is thought to only be like four or five decades away. Mm-Hmm. So, definitely Warn Your Children. There is a federal research group called The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or darpa.

They have said that they're just four years, four years from a brain implant capable of altering PTSD related memory.

[01:07:06] Jordan Harbinger: That sounds like the beginnings of some CIA mind control type stuff. Y'all know I'm not a conspiracy guy, but dang. Like if you're, oh, we can alter your memory with this chip, but it's just for medical stuff.

It's purely therapeutic. Come on. Right. That's not gonna survive scrutiny for very long.

[01:07:22] Jessica Wynn: You know, we have to focus on the good stuff. Like it doesn't have to be doomsday. There's um, an NYU professor who has a proposal for a microchip in the human brain that will allow a human internet interface making the mind like a search engine as well as improving our memory.

So. In theory, he thinks we could essentially back up files to prevent someone from tampering with our actual memory.

[01:07:48] Jordan Harbinger: Huh. I've seen the Neuralink video where the guy can play chess with this brain machine interface. It's incredible. It's so incredible. The world's. World's first cyborg. I guess still though, not making me feel too much better, but wouldn't it also allow a hacker to hack your brain and your memory?

I mean, it's not quite that simple, of course, but it would be possible, and that's really scary.

[01:08:07] Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, that's why we have to have these discussions, right? That you're just emphasizing how important ethical dialogue is and it needs to start. So these techniques are being developed and. Discussions on the regulations and oversight must happen to prevent human rights violations or miscarriages of justice.

You know, there are moral implications around technology and memory, but there are so many positive and life improving possibilities too. So above all, it's just, this is a great reminder to approach our memories with a healthy dose of skepticism and curiosity. Huh.

[01:08:48] Jordan Harbinger: Well, I wonder how I'm gonna remember this conversation.

It's, it's been quite traumatic. Oh, thank you for bending our minds, Jessica. Of course. And thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday toJordan@jordanharbinger.com. Show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes on the website as well, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals.

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and you can find Jessica on her Substack between the lines, and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. This show is created in association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, LIO Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing things you hear on the show. Also, we may get a few things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday, so if you think we really drop the ball on something, definitely let us know.

We're usually pretty receptive to that. Y'all know how to reach me, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.

You are about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about junk science.

[01:10:08] Clip: There is this anti-establishment sentiment that leads to blanket science denial, which is enormously problematic and seems to be growing. There is so much false information on the internet. It's very easy to just facelessly claim that legitimate information is false.

We're having to reckon with the fact that the internet is doing this to us. It's very much a double-edged sword. It's giving us all the information and so it's very hard to like censor things. But then also we have all of these, you know, lies and charlatans and this stuff propagates like wildfire and it's an enormous problem.

It's just such an alluring narrative. It's so easy to pedal. We want it to be true so bad, but it's not real. You need to be equipped with some ability, some set of skills to be able to discern the validity of information. Right? And particularly scientific platforms like YouTube have had to make adjustments to their algorithm because they have come to understand how much they have been facilitating this destruction of our sociological fabric by allowing people to travel down these rabbit holes.

It's very attractive narrative, right? It gives you a sense of purpose. It's a big problem. That's why we're in the post-truth era. Whatever you wanna find on the internet, it's there all the truth and all the lies. When you wrap your identity around a, a false cause, you are eliminating yourself from some other possible contribution that you could be making.

I'm crusading against this thing, yet we should remain driven and, uh, encourage others to, to do the same. I think it's the biggest problem facing mankind.

[01:11:37] Jordan Harbinger: If you wanna increase your scientific literacy and not get suckered into believing, weaponized, hogwash, and passing it off to your friends and family as fact, check out episode 7 45 with Dave Farina.

With Dave Farina on the Jordan Harbinger Show. I.

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As the world gets crazier every day, you can stay fairly sane. I'll keep you there. I'll handle the crazy nuance is often lost on today's world, but you can find it right here available wherever you listen to Finer podcast. I'm Adam Corolla and I approve of this message.