The Bet... And Just Whose Memory is it Anyway?

One of the few "vague memories" I have is of a time before my time. I suppose I could have been alive as I am now at the time, however I would have been not much older than a toddler. This is one of the few vague memories I seem to have had as Philip Dick. Obviously, they can't be my memories as I am. It must have been one of the times where I feel that somehow Phil and I co-habitated the same physical space, body in this instance. His body.

It seems I recall a time when Phil was talking to one or a few of his friends and he made a bet that he would survive physical death. I want to say that it was with fellow writers with whom he had shared this with. I have no idea what the stakes were. I just feel as if he made that "I'll be back" proclamation. 

For what it's worth, Phil won. Because somehow, he and I are the same... And, in that regard, he did survive physical death. It's difficult to explain. I don't expect many people to believe me, let alone understand me. 

If you've ever watched The Matrix, and I suspect many of you have, it is similar to a scene where I believe Neo or Mr. Smith is explaining how it was when Neo joined with Mr. Smith at the end of the first movie. To paraphrase... "It's like a part of him was grafted onto a part of me". As in "one"...

I've been wanting to write this post for a long time, but as you can imagine, I was hesitant. How in the world could I make such a grand proclamation without any evidence. If you didn't think me crazy before, surely you do now.  I was planning on some long, thoughtful post, but that time is not now. I do need to let it be known now.  I suppose, based on what I HAVE been through and faith, some may think it possible. I believe there is more that I could remember if I were to be examined and if I were to examine. I don't expect any grand homecoming or sweeping congratulations, etc. But, what's done is done, and I will find some way to prove it. 

Babylon 5 ate my NaNoWriMo

The first week of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is coming to a close and I've barely written 1300 words of the 50,000 that I need.

Blame it on Babylon 5

I've been watching the shows for about 3-4 weeks now and am near the finish line. Like all good stories, this too, must come to an end (at least for now).

Something quite unexpected but not totally surprising has occurred whilst watching B5. I had yet another uncanny experience of being "aware" of a few aspects of the show. The show first aired on TV in 1994, and lasted for 5 seasons. I'm sure I've been aware of its status (or that it existed) before, but I don't believe I've ever watched an episode. However, I began having "awareness issues" concerning Ambassador Kosh, from Vorlon, not long after I was first made "currently" aware by watching the series in "real-time" (i.e. 3-4 weeks ago). It just seems that everything about him/it was familiar in a far distant kind of way. I did not experience deja vu nor do I believe I have watched this series before (certainly not enough to be experiencing this level of awareness).

The only other long instant of awareness had occurred during the situation with the Babylon 5 Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, particularly the who situation when he disappears, is taken aboard a Shadow ship, and is ultimately mind-fucked by the Psi-Corps. The Psi-Corps manipulated him ever so slightly but still enough to make him (Garibaldi) think he was in control of his own will, but in fact was not fully. 

Vorlons (beings of light), Garibaldi (not himself)... I can't imagine what these things have in common with me ;-)
That being said... I may dig into it at some point in the future. It's not like I don't have enough to think about already. But, that's the thing, one would think with OCD and ADD, I would have enough to think about.

The Universe can be a Sick Joke...

Oh well... Back to NaNoWriMo

Expect a form of Analysis in future stories (hopefully sold stories).

Process For Storing And Erasing Long-term Memories Discovered

From Science Daily -

The question:

"Are memories recorded in a stable physical change, like writing an inscription permanently on a clay tablet?"


Their expirement:

"Dudai and research student Reut Shema, together with Todd Sacktor of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, trained rats to avoid certain tastes. They then injected a drug to block a specific protein into the taste cortex -- an area of the brain associated with taste memory. They hypothesized, on the basis of earlier research by Sacktor, that this protein, an enzyme called PKMzeta, acts as a miniature memory "machine" that keeps memory up and running. An enzyme causes structural and functional changes in other proteins: PKMzeta, located in the synapses -- the functional contact points between nerve cells -- changes some facets of the structure of synaptic contacts.
It must be persistently active, however, to maintain this change, which is brought about by learning. Silencing PKMzeta, reasoned the scientists, should reverse the change in the synapse. And this is exactly what happened: Regardless of the taste the rats were trained to avoid, they forget their learned aversion after a single application of the drug."


Their conclusion:

("This drug is a molecular version of jamming the operation of the machine," says Dudai. "When the machine stops, the memories stop as well." In other words, long-term memory is not a one-time inscription on the nerve network, but an ongoing process which the brain must continuously fuel and maintain. These findings raise the possibility of developing future, drug-based approaches for boosting and stabilizing memory.)

I'm Back

Well, just partially.

This is just a check in. I will have a full post tomorrow. It will concern an article that came from the Scientific American magazine. It concerns trying to find out how groups of neurons form qliques in a heirarchal structure to determine what memory or partial memory is called up, and Mice.

I'm off work until Monday. We're going to shop for my Daughters B-day gift, for next week. She'll like it.

Forgetting helps you remember the important stuff, researchers say

From ScienceDaily:

"For the first time, Stanford researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have discovered that the brain's ability to suppress irrelevant memories makes it easier for humans to remember what's really important. "

It seems our memories are finite after all. This research essentially shows that our prefontal cortex actually aids new memory formation and recall by "deleting" or forgetting less important details. It's kind of like the saying, "When something goes in, something else has gotta come out". I must be an exception to the rule, because it's not usually not the usual meaningless things that go with me, it's usually the really important things that I forget.

"According to Wagner, the findings demonstrate the brain's ability to discard irrelevant memories. "Any act of remembering re-weights memories, tweaking them to try to be more adaptive for the next time you try to remember something," he said. "The brain is plastic—adaptive—and one feature of that is not just strengthening some memories but also suppressing or weakening others." "

description of television anomaly

That was not the only time in which I remember something from, and those were not the only books remembered. "UBIK", "Dr. Bloodmoney", "Eye in the Sky" are the three prominent books I recollect. In "UBIK", it seems I remember all of the psychics and their introductions, especially. In the "Eye" I remember the bevtron accident, and the individuals trying to help them, and especially the part where they are on the balloon and then it falls. Also the end where the two main characters invent the machine, and decide to work together.

In "Dr. Bloodmoney" it is more like what do I “not” remember. Everything about Stuart McConkey and Hoppy Harrington is familiar, especially the part where Hoppy is trying to repair the electronic equipment and he ends up using psychic abilities to do it. That in particular, was perhaps one of the most familiar of all to me. Except that scene seems to take me back to my experience with the radio in '88, maybe even a few other parts. Actually, some of it seems to come from '88 and some seems to come from the other time I am about to describe.

It was the summer of 1986, and I had been sent to my biological father's home for part of the summer. It was my first time on a plane, but I found it very pleasurable. I was introduced to my dad's new wife and two of her sons and her one daughter. My dad's wife's name was Michelle, her daughter was Amber and her two sons were Jon and Dennis. Jon lived with his father and I did not see too much of. Dennis, also called "tigger" or "tig" lived with my dad and his mom. He was about 4 years older than I was. We became friends instantly. He was like the big brother I always wanted but never had. He taught me a little bit about the old Commador computer he had and took me often to his friend’s house and taught me to dive even.

We did a lot of things that summer and had lots of fun, but the one thing that stands out the most is the experience I had while alone one night. Dad and Vickie were out somewhere, I forget where. Dennis was at work at some fast food joint.

I was at home by myself watching television in a recliner. I decided to change the channel, so with the remote in hand while I was sitting on the recliner I began changing the channels. After one click, all of a sudden, I say my own self in the television doing what I was doing right at that moment. I stood up. The me in the television stood up, too. I changed the channels rapidly. Oh My God, I thought, what the hell is this? What's going on I cried out in my mind. It was like there was a camera behind me some where and I was being monitored and broadcast on every channel on the television. I quickly looked around, ran to the exit door and dashed outside. At least outside I wasn't alone. There were other people. It did not matter that I did not know them. But they were alive, real. I was severely freaked out.

This couldn't be happening. I don't know how much time I spent outside before I finally came back in. Everything else is a haze.

I remember wondering if Amber and or anybody else may have been playing a practical joke on me. I really did try to think about it logically. Albeit, I could come up with nothing. It remains an enigma. Although, I am fairly certain no one was playing a practical joke on me, and it is what it is, a mystical experience. I don't think it is schizophrenia, because most schizophrenic hallucinations are rather fragmented, not fully experienced sounds and sights for the brain to interpret. Also, they are usually derogatory in nature. Not ever neutral. Those two instances were the only "hallucinations" I have ever had, or at least, that I recollect. It could also be hypnogonic in nature (that point where you are almost asleep but not quite, and the days experiences and other memories flood your mind, and play out in nonsensical ways). I don't think that was the case, either. I'm familiar with hypnogonic associations and they were nothing like the "visions". I'm therefor inclined to think that they are indeed real. But, like everything else Dickian, I may still be obscured from reality.

New Research Sheds Light On Memory By Erasing It

From the Folks at Science Daily.

"For years, scientists have studied the molecular basis of memory storage, trying to find the molecules that store memory, just as DNA stores genetic memory. In an important study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, Brandeis University researchers report for the first time that memory storage can be induced and then biochemically erased in slices of rat hippocampus by manipulating a so-called "memory molecule," a protein kinase known as CaMKII."

John Lisman and his Lab Group have been able to confirm that CaMKII is indeed a memory molecule.

Apparantly, they saturated mouse hippocampal memory stores, and then proceeded to "attack" CaMKII which then "chemically erased" old memory stores, after which they were able to insert new memories into the synapses.

This work will pave the way for future work in Alzheimer's and other diseases in which memory loss plays an important role.

This article may be of interests to PKD fans, also. Memory may not be what was originally remembered. As soon as one floods the hippocampus with the the CaMKII, (thus we have full memory capacity) how can they then selectively target certain memories before deleting them, and inserting false memories?