A few weeks ago, I had a ND in which I was Samus from the Metroid video game series. In this dream, I had no knowledge of my RL self. No memories, personality traits, nothing. When I saw the other hunter, I knew she was an enemy and that we had met and fought many times before. I didn’t remember any specific events, just as you don’t recall everything you’ve done with a friend that made you friends.
Three days ago, I had another ND, wherein I was James Bond, in Casino Royale. Once again, all of my own memory was suppressed, replaced by the false one of traveling to the casino and playing the so-crucial poker game. That’s when the emotion kicked in. The stress was near unbearable, but I knew I had to keep my cool if I wanted to win. I knew that if I lost, I would be supporting terrorism and betraying the government.
When I woke up, I had a realization. My entire life, my memories, pretty much everything that made me me, was gone, replaced by a new set of memories and traits. All the emotion was real.
And it was awesome!
To experience my favorite movies and video games in all 5 senses would be cool enough, but to have the honest, true emotions of the characters made the experience even more enjoyable.
Then again, it raises several questions. If my mind can generate a whole new life that quick, what do I know of my life? How real is it? Also, what are the moral implications of this, creating a new life and destroying it at will?
Has anyone else experienced false memories in dreams? What do you think of them?
The only dream I had where all my real life memory and personality were gone was this one 104 garden/lost of my personality
instead of just being male or slightly different … I had none of my real personality at all
I almost always have false memories in dreams, my dreams tend to be so vivid that they require false memories to allow my brain to accept them. But I can’t say I’ve ever totally lost all connections to who I am. It sounds as though, whilst no doubt awesome, it could be quite an unnerving experience.
As for moral implications I don’t really think there are any, whatever it is that you’re doing it is still in your dreams and as such can (probably) have no affect on anyone or anything outside of these dream experiences.
As for the mind generating these new memories, I don’t think there’s too much to worry about, your SC is clearly just very skilled at creating fully believable worlds, I’d say in some ways that’s a good thing.
I’m guessing that upon waking all of your normal memories return instantly and you have no problems with your own identity outside of the dreams?
I sometimes have false memories when I doze off for a very short moment, e.g. when sitting at my desk at night. These are not complete new identities, but false memories of aspects of my life, e.g. the impression that I have had a particular hobby for years. When waking up I realize that this entire strand of my life’s memory is actually false and obsolete and I need a while to overcome the confusion.
