It is true that some of our clearest, most detailed memories also happen to be our most emotional ones. Within our brains is a system that connects feelings to experiences, and, in many ways, this is often for our benefit.

If you’ve heard of the “fight, flight, or freeze” phenomenon, it refers to these interconnecting processes that register harmful threats and prep us to respond in protection of our psychological and physical existence. For instance, detaching or “numbing out” during parts of extremely scary events can help us by ensuring the most harmful details don’t become cemented in our memories. On the other hand, remembering difficult times in very visceral clarity can allow us to prepare for future adversities when it comes to our emotional resilience.

But how reliable are our memories? It turns out that some peripheral details of emotional memories are not always exact. In Doom Patrol, Cyborg is a being with both organic and biomechanical body parts, and as such, his memory function gives us a good way to explore how his lived experiences are cemented, affixed, and retrieved as memories.

In this episode, we explore the concepts of “false memories” and whether they can be implanted through manipulation or suggestion. We also address times that our recall of historical events is actually unreliable and inaccurate, despite our strong conviction of what we know to be “real.” Science and fiction intersect in interesting ways in this episode of The Arkham Sessions!