Erasing Memories

Those clever neuroscientists are up to it again. Seems like folks are monkeying around with what it takes to ERASE memories.

I've been working on a fiction piece that has to do with deliberate removal of specific troubling memories and how that impacts the lives of those involved. It's supposed to be a bit of a sci-fi thriller.

But if there is anything I hate in sci fi is when the FI part doesn't pay enough attention to the SCI part.

Anything that occurs in the story has to be consistent with science as we actually know it and then the parts we twist and project must be at least PLAUSIBLE to something that could be developed in the future. So now it looks like I'll need to slog my way through a bunch of brain science before I move ahead with my silly plot. So it goes.

Meanwhile, my jury is still out as to whether or not I would personally choose to eradicate all memory of certain events. Some days I say ABSOLUTELY. Other days I say no, that I would be a different person without those experiences and that I will choose to keep them, as problematic as they may be.

How about you? Would you jettison certain events from your brain, given the choice? How about if there were some nasty side effects (in my story the consequences of short circuiting the memory synapses are periodic episodes of raging hot flashes, headaches, and a sense of smelling burning skin - but the memory is gone!)