When we are experiencing high levels of stress our anxiety, our bodies produce a hormone called cortisol. Researchers at a clinical study realized that the hormone remains with us when we recall the memory and once again feel stressed out, and hypothesized that the hormone itself was tied to reproducing the memory.
By giving volunteers a cortisol-dampening pill after having exposed them to a stressful short film, researchers discovered that patients had difficulty in remembering the film and what it was about it that caused them anxiety in the first place.
This research honestly feels like something out a science-fiction, and eerily close to what happened in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where the main characters both had their memories of each other erased after their relationship grew painful.
While this new pill sounds like it good have positive benefits, such as soothing people haunted by a traumatic event, it also has the potential to be abused. People might see the pill as the solution to minor problems and heart aches, rather than coping with them. Imagine taking a pill to erase your memory every time you make a mistake; you will only end up repeating that mistake over and over.
Our memories and experience make up who we are, without them we would be much like goldfish circling forever in our fish bowl, not realizing how we got there or where we are going. Bad memories are as important as the good, because without them we would never learn from past mistakes or become stronger human beings.
What do you think? Can having some of your memories erased be a good thing, or should we go on living?
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