Honestly, how much do you think your memory can hold? A textbook shows that a typical person's memory can hold as much info as 500 complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. Personally, I've always taken the ability of memories for granted. However, I was totally mistaken. There are real-life examples of people that show the greatness of our memories. Here is a woman who remembers every second of her life
Woman remembers EVERYTHING.flvhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2wYcFnTkgo&feature=related and another man, Kim Peek, has an extraordinary memorizing ability:
The real Rain man - Kim Peek.flvhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZBucCevSeE .
I remember how I came out from my mother's womb: Remembering the event of birth would be completely flabbergasting, but in real life, our memory cannot recall as far as that. This is called 'Infantile Amnesia' which is due to underdeveloped Hippocampus in our brains during infancy. It's amazing how memories are actually stored in a physical part of our brains.
Similarly, emotional components, especially fear, are stored in Amygdala of our brains. So if these parts are damaged, we literally lose our memories which sometimes may come handy when we want to start from scratch. Furthermore, evidence from the textbook shows that propranolol can inhibit adrenaline and prevent individuals from remembering painful or emotionally arousing memories. I'll ask you a question at this point. Would you erase your memories if you had the choice to?
"We are memories." Whether we like it or not, memories will not completely disappear, but only fade away.
No way would I erase my memories! Although some are of negative events, I am able to use these memories to learn from. For example, I have a bad memory from my childhood where I fell into the pond in my backyard. It was scary for me and since then I have used precaution when I am near it. I also have good memories too which I would hate to lose! When I am in a slump, I can recall these memories to cheer me up. Erasing one's memories would only erase all of the progress that they've made in their lifetime.
You mention the drug propanolol (propofol commercially) and its ability to erase memories of painful events. I worked at Hennepin County Medical Center in the Emergency Department last summer studying the effects of that very drug! It is indeed true; the drug disconnects the conscious from the subconscious memory for 3 to 5 minutes after an initial bolus (IV "push" of the medication). It is used for traumatic injury treatment such as resetting bones and draining abscesses. The individuals will scream and wail away from the EXTREME pain but when asked afterwards how it was they say "meh, just fine." The fact that they don't remember the pain (despite having it) means there is no risk for long term psycho-emotional damage and therefore, it's like the pain never happened...
Yes, I think if I had the chance, I would like to erase certain memories, like memories of my past mistakes or embarrassing moments in my life. Because, I agree with what you say, that memories never disappear, some of them just fade away. But I find it interesting that we have no memories from when we are infants, because now that I think about what your are saying, I don't remember anything from the time I was born to age 4 or 5 part of my life. I have always thought of memories as some subconscious part of our brain, I never knew that they are actually physically stored in parts of our brain like the hippocampus and the amygdala. This Just makes me wonder how important and crucial the function of our brain is in our lives, because any damage to it can significantly alter our lives. I found out that the drug propranolol was the first drug that was created to act as beta blockers, so it basically blocks the action of neurotransmitters, epinephrine and norepinephrine, keeping the person from remembering painful or emotionally hurtful memories. I also found out that for this reason, this drug is banned from use in the olympics, to maintain fairness among the participants. I found your blog very though provoking and learned some new facts, thank you!!!