There’s only one way to preserve your memories…
Memory fascinates me.
For many of us, it defines who we are—our mental history forming the backbone of our identity. But if you woke up one morning with no memories at all, would you still be you? Or are we more than just a collection of recollections?
When I provided forensic hypnosis to various police services, I used to explain memory like this.
We have short-term memory, which is like a scratch pad—useful for storing details we need for only a few minutes. We jot something down mentally, use it, and then the slate gets wiped clean, ready for the next thing. Then there’s long-term memory, which holds everything from our childhood to the major events that shape us.
Some of those memories are easily accessible, while others fade into the background, buried deep in what’s known as archived memory. They’re still there, but without a way to retrieve them, they may as well not exist. Deep hypnosis, however, can bring them back.
But here’s the catch.
Every time you recall a memory, your brain activates substances called kinases, which literally alter it. This means memories aren’t just recalled; they’re rewritten. Details are added, subtracted, and distorted. This is what’s known as memory drift. Over time, a cherished memory can morph into something barely resembling the original event.
As our friend and fellow trainer Melissa Tiers says, “The only way to preserve your memories intact is to never access them.”
Police officers see this all the time. Ask multiple witnesses about the same event, and you’ll often get wildly different accounts. They aren’t lying—their brains have simply reshaped the memory, unknowingly and automatically.
When I look back on my own life, some memories stand out because of their emotional weight. A shocking or significant event floods the brain with adrenaline, reinforcing the memory and making it feel crystal clear. But there are also insignificant things that have stuck with me for no apparent reason.
I lived at 34 Welbeck Avenue in Chadderton, Greater Manchester, before we moved to Canada in 1957. I was only four years old, yet I still remember our phone number: Failsworth 3270. There’s no reason I should still have that in my head, but there it is, lodged in my memory, unchanged for over six decades.
But not all memories are real.
I vividly recall cross country skiing at the Toronto Zoo one winter, coming over a rise, and seeing a tiger standing outside its enclosure, staring straight at me. For a few terrifying seconds, I was sure I was about to be eaten. Then I saw the fence—a barrier hidden in the small valley between hills that I hadn’t noticed at first. It was a terrifying moment.
Except it never happened. At least not to me.
That was actually my wife’s memory. Somewhere along the way, my brain claimed it as my own. When she corrected me, I had to admit she was right. I’ve never skied at the zoo, so there’s no way that moment belonged to me. But until she pointed it out, I would have sworn it was mine.
This kind of memory theft happens more often than you might think.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Paul mentioned a guy named Gary. I barely knew him—met him once in the late 1980s, and that was it. But Paul insisted I knew him well. “Of course you know him, Mike, you were the MC at his wedding! You did a hilarious roast, and everyone loved it!”
I told him there was no way that was true. I knew nothing about Gary and his life, and could never have been invited to his wedding, let alone emceed it. I challenged him to tell me even one of the hilarious things I had said as MC.
Paul thought for about 20 seconds, then shrugged. “Maybe you weren’t there…”
No, I wasn’t.
But memory isn’t just about distortion. When hypnotically activated It can reveal things we’ve long forgotten.
My older sister had a terrible fear of heights for as long as she could remember. She had no idea why until I used hypnosis to help her uncover the root cause.
Her trance took her back to an event from before I was born—standing at the edge of a place called Huntsman’s Leap in Wales with my father. She looked down into the dizzying abyss as my dad read a plaque about a huntsman on horseback who leapt across the chasm while fleeing the devil.
That was all it took. Instant, unconscious fear. The memory had been buried for decades, but once she retrieved it, the fear immediately disappeared. From that moment on, heights no longer bothered her. She even celebrated by taking a flight in a hot air balloon.
Some memories disappear for a reason.
To this day, I have no idea what happened to our orange cat, Honey. We got him in 1960, and he was still around when I was eighteen. But after that? Nothing. I don’t remember if he ran away, got lost, or grew old and passed away. That entire piece of my history is just… gone, which seems impossible to an ailurophile like me.
Is the memory accessible, and could I retrieve it through hypnosis? Probably. But why would I bother? There’s no emotional charge attached to it, no mystery to solve, so I let it stay forgotten.
Some things are better left that way.
- Mike Mandel
(Chris here: Did you know that Mike's entire "Mandel Trilogy" hypnosis bundle is included in the Brain Software Syndicate. The price to join is ridiculously low.)