Memorycemetery

Do you remember that old movie “Total recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Thinking about self-hypnosis and our abilities to induce memories, I decided to “create” fake memories inside my head. If you ask me why, I would tell you, probably just for fun. Actually, I believe our memories are mapped. None of them exists on its own, but rather refer to each other and interlinked with each other… our brain representing a big search engine, kind of biochemical based Google employing a random search. Try to refer to any memory you have: to make things easier, strong memory, or a memory of big importance for you.

An example. I have a memory of trying to climb up Everest.  It’s not the case of being megalomaniac, but rather accidentally. As long as I was there, you know.  I actually posted this memory here, on September 11th… , … nope, the date is just a coincidence. This memory opens up like a Russian matreshka doll: containing yet another one nested inside another etc. Thinking about that day brings back other memories: of finding a fossil near Milarepa’s cave, of fluorescent dog, of friendship, of moments while waiting for our friend we collected some stones and arranged them into a message “FREE TIBET”, of dying from thirst and cold. Whatever. This memory is also nested in others: of my long journey across Siberian plains, Mongolia, China, Nepal and India, of places I visited and people I met etc. OK, you have the picture.

Now imagine, you plant a fake memory inside your brain. Something completely out of sane mind and context, like planting a rare orchid somewhere in Siberian permafrost. If it will live, your brain would have to rewire it with some other facts, blending “reality” and “imagination”. So, what I’m interested in, is this “shadow zone”, border area in between, this vegetation between orchid and permafrost which my brain has to create to “index” this fake memory.

To make things even more interesting, I decided to experiment with planting fake memories in different contexts. For instance, I always wanted to visit Peru. So I thought  about planting a fake memory of this trip. But this task is way too grand, and the real trip would have too many details, so probably I wouldn’t succeed. Nevermind. I am writing a story at the moment. The best and easiest way to write is to write about something you know. It also gives the story some credibility, and makes it more captivating to read.

This story plot, to put it short,  goes partly in the future-past loop excluding present, partly in the parallel universes and most of it inside the black hole , with 3 main characters - creators of those parallel universes embedded without their acknowledgement in the mind of one character, whose consciousness is being badly split in 3 parts, meaning he is a schizophrenic (schizophrenia, actually literally means “split mind”, schizos phrenos in Greek, if I’m not mistaken). Moreover, these multiple “fake personalities” are being split in their own turn, forking further as the story develops… so it’s a kind of fractal consciousness in senses of being fractal and being fractured.

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