Aliens wiping out your memories? How would they do that?

Question

Sometimes in alien abduction stories, the aliens wipe your memory and you only recall the horrid probing truth later through hypnotherapy.

Is there any known technique known to modern earthly doctors that allow memories to be erased in this manner?

Answer 1

The Men In Black use a 'flashy thing'.

Answer 2

I beleive the aliens use some sort of telepath manipulation to do this.

Answer 3

Uhhhhhhhhhh, okay!

Answer 4

they use a biological computer interface. I don't remember any ore details . The aliens are suppressing that info.

Answer 5

drugs man drugs.  

Answer 6

Our Doctors can use drugs, which are supposed to take out bad memories. But I think they "aliens" use high voltage "static". They are around a million years in advance of our selves. They can download a langauge, direct into your brain, from thier on board (flying saucer) computers. Some have been here thousands of years and are thousands of years old. As they opperate out side of time as we know it. Or they can manipulate time. But they are not subject to the ravages of time as we are. They say free radicals are the cause of old age, and they have mastered the control of this.

Answer 7

Memory engrams can be suppressed through repression. This is where a part of the brain basically decides to block out the memory path ways of the undesired memory and stays dormant within one's subconsciousness. Usually this happens with small children who have repeatedly abused. Sometimes its so extreme that the child actually "disociates" the experience by basically having what you might call an out of body experience. Now you don't really leave your body but in the case of disociation a person can in essence tune out the traumatic event. In a few rare cases sometimes stress can trigger a new, deffensive, personality (ies).

The other way to alter, or suppress memory as others have stated, is through the use of psychotropic drugs and hallucinagens. The US government did an extensive experiment (highly unethical one at that) where they dosed subjects, unwittingly, with large amounts of LSD to not only see what would happen, but see if they could alter one's behavior. Basically an attempt at mind control. Weather or not the government actually had any success is probably something they've kept classified. However they did admit that people under the influence of LSD were far more suggestable than people who were not.

Another common drug used to wipe out memory and extract information is sodium penatal - truth syrum.

And of course we come to hyponsis. Despite what others have said, hypnosis is a field of emense potential. It can be benificial in certain situations (like say you want to quit smoking, or correct some other bad behavior). But that said hypnosis is not effective at helping people recover memory. This is because of the phenomena called post-hypnotic suggestion. This is basically where the hypnotist puts you under and then "programs" new thoughts and behaviors that are activitated after the treatment. In otherwords you more or less remember what the hypnotist tells you to remember, nothing more.

However that doesn't mean remembering an abduction through post-hypnotic suggestion doesn't seem any less real. If you are programmed to remember a traumatic event like that, it will seem very real and unpleasant.

Hypnosis can also be used to suppress memory - for that reason alone researchers are trying to figure out how to use it to recover memory and actually, it is not a dead end. There has been some success, just nothing that works all the time.

If aliens were here abducting humans for whatever purpose, they are probably not going to use any means we know of to suppress the memories. They would probably use their own technology. Or the next most likely answer is that they would use a more advanced form of post-hypnotic suggestion. This is because drugs can be traced and repressed thoughts can be remembered.  

Answer 8

This is a question from the school of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"

It assumes the unproven existence of "aliens"

It assumes said aliens kidnap people

It assumes that kidnappees have their memories altered

It assume hypnotherapy is a valid way or recalling "lost" memories

and then gets bogged down in the details of how they could do it....which is like asking whether the angels on the head of the pin wear tap or ballet shoes

For the record there are lots of drugs known for their amnestic qualities (ketamine, Xanax, propofol for eg)   People will often have amnesia after head injuries, seizures, or serious illnesses.  Memory is really a quite fragile and malleable thing.  One thing it is not, is an accurate record of events like a tape or video recording.

Answer 9

It is my experience that there is actually a spray that can be used to wipe very recent memories. Nothing can actually wipe memories completely, not even death.

The chemical and mechanical means causes the brain to either not be able to recall the information from the mind or it causes the mind to cover up the information as in the case of trauma.

Normally what the aliens do is give you a false memory, like a dream. Then yep, under hypnosis when all the mechanical veils are  removed the truth comes out.

Then again not all those perceived as aliens are aliens, I just said there was a spray that worked on short term memory didn't I...

Edited to add:

Pay careful attention to the Dark Queen's response

Answer 10

Actually it is the other way around. There were no alien involved, and the "memories" are created at the time of hypnosis. It is called false memories, and has been used to wrongfully convict people of s*x abuse among other things, so it is now totally discredited. Except among some people who believe in alien, that is, where any effort to bring them to reason is time wasted.

Answer 11

They cover it up using static electricity to block the other electrical signals from coming to those memories. It can be bypassed, however.

Answer 12

I don't remember.

Answer 13

the part of the brain that remembers things is very small and very susceptible to damage. that is why amnesia is a common side effect of head injuries. if the 'aliens' figured out how to manipulate this part of the brain, they would be able to pick and choose which memories to erase

Answer 14

That's not aliens, that's old age.  Now where did I leave my coffee...

Answer 15

I have no clue.