With a new documentary claiming that it may be possible to wipe out bad memories from your head, the movie 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' seems have made a leap from sci-fi to reality.
PBS's 'Memory Hackers,' which shows interviews with scientists and people with remarkable memories to explore how it is possible, suggests that memory isn't just to play back what has happened to us, but is something more interpretive, Metro.co.uk reported.
The filmmakers said that for much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays intact, but now, researchers are discovering that memory is far more malleable, always being written and rewritten, not just by us but by others.
The programme revolves around 12-year-old Jake Hausler, who is the youngest person to be diagnosed with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory and can remember almost everything that ever happened to him since he was eight years old.
In an interview with FastCocreate, writer Michael Bicks said that a lot of the things that we think are bad about memory, like forgetting things or false memories, are byproducts of the system. It's not designed to be perfect, so people shouldn't expect it to be.
The news site said new imaging tools like PET scans, TMS, fMRIs, as well as drugs, offer the possibility of radical ways to treat disorders like addiction, phobias and PTSD, adding that a new research in Optogenics allows scientists to manipulate a rat's memory with lasers, which could be part of the future in human memory science.