Dreams

Most people think memories are just accurate accounts of what happened. This view is mistaken: memories are much more interesting, especially since they can be manipulated in ways to improve people’s lives. In his book The Unknowing Project, Michael Lewis describes a piece of scholarly research that sheds light on how memories operate. The research comes from decades ago when doctors did not give their patients anesthesia before a colonoscopy; as a result, patients remembered these painful procedures. The researchers found that the patients remembered the most intense pain during the procedure as well as the amount of pain they endured at the very end of it. Somewhat surprisingly, the patients often did not remember how long they experienced pain during the operations. The researchers also altered the amount of pain patients experienced at the end of an operation to see if they could manipulate memories. More specifically, the researchers broke their patients into two groups. To the first group of patients, the doctors performed the typical colonoscopy, which we will assume took a half an hour. To the second group of patients, the doctors also performed the typical half hour operation. During the half hour of the typical colonoscopy, the group a person was in did not affect his or her level of pain since the procedures were the same. However, the doctors extended the procedure by three minutes for the patients in the second group. During these three extra minutes, these patients experienced relatively mild pain. While these patients experienced three extra minutes of pain, they remembered the operation as less painful than those people who had the shorter operation. Because they remembered less pain, the people with the longer operation were more likely to go back for another colonoscopy. Since colonoscopies allow doctors to catch precancerous growths in the colon and remove them, lives are saved when more patients return for colonoscopies. In short, the research findings suggest that doctors can manipulate patients’ memories in a way that saves lives. When I learn about research results, I usually wonder if the results reported in the study are applicable in other settings. I find myself testing out the theories on myself. The memory research has results that I have already put into practice. For example, I have a goal of getting regular exercise. Using the research findings that I discussed earlier, I can manipulate my own memories to achieve this goal. First, when I exercise, I try to eliminate the most painful experiences. For instance, when I swim, I do not swim a mile without a break and slog through the distance regardless of how tired I become – even though I could. If I were to swim a mile without a break, I would remember how exhausted I was and dread swimming again, making it unlikely that I would keep to a regular exercise routine. When I swim or run, I do interval training. By taking breaks, the exercise never becomes very painful. Second, when I exercise, I try to make the end of the exercise less painful and even enjoyable if I can. For example, after running, I listen to a song. I hear a lot of my friends complain about having to exercise. Because I manipulate my own memories, I find that I actually look forward to exercising, which makes it much more likely that I will keep to an exercise routine.