I found a hypnotist to explore the boundaries between memory and imagination. We sat down and talked about the task: I wanted to go back to my first memory. He said that the hypnotic trance is something that must be exercised, that to get to such a deep layer of conscience, several exercises were required to get accustomed to the state.
Our first exercise took around 2 hours. Very slowly he guided me through a state of relaxation. He created this trance by softly speaking about the relationship between time and perception. He said that he would get me into a trance for 30 minutes of real time but that inside the trance state, these 30 minutes could be perceived as 4 hours or 4 seconds. First, he created a scenario where visualization was required: I was walking through the woods by myself. Within the woods I would find a fence. This fence was supposed to represent the barriers that are blocking my conscience from remembering this early memory. As he asked me to control my breath and to get deeper and deeper into the trance, he commanded me to cross the fence.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When I crossed the fence I saw the bedroom where I spent my early childhood. A ray of light flooded the scene through the window. The light was yellowish and warm and everything was slightly out of focus. I recognized immediately that this quality of light was a direct reproduction of my SuperTakumar 50mm lens. It was clear that I was “seeing” this memory through the eyes of a camera.
When I crossed the fence I saw the bedroom where I spent my early childhood. A ray of light flooded the scene through the window. The light was yellowish and warm and everything was slightly out of focus. I recognized immediately that this quality of light was a direct reproduction of my SuperTakumar 50mm lens. It was clear that I was “seeing” this memory through the eyes of a camera.
My p.o.v. of the scene was floating close to the ceiling and I saw the hand-painted curtains that my mother designed for me as a baby. They had images of bears and balloons. These curtains were real, they did exist. Nevertheless, light never entered in such a way through the window. This was an inner part of the building and it was impossible to have such a straight and strong ray of light coming from there
As my perspective floated across the room, I saw a crib where a baby was standing and playing. I guess this baby was me, which was kind of strange, since it would have been impossible for me to have such kind of perspective. As the eye drifted backwards, I saw the head of the baby: he was blonde, pale skin and clear blue eyes. Since my hair and eyes are black, it became evident that this was not me. This baby seemed to be almost designed, he seemed to come not from real life but from a TV advertisement for baby food.
At that point, while I was describing the images to my hypnotist, I started laughing since this was a pure act of imagination. I thought to myself: maybe I´m not even hypnotized, maybe I´m just playing along. My hypnotist decided to finish the session at that point.
It is important to note how this image was a product of the conflation between a series of real elements that were re-contextualized within the frame of a memory. There were the curtains (which are a real element from my past), the room (which is also a real, but the light that was flooding the room was conjured up/invented/unreal), the baby (which came from TV ads) and the texture of the perception (that came from the aesthetics I used to film). All of these elements were recombined to create an image that was completely imaginary and nonetheless stemmed from a real memory.
It was at this moment that I started to question: what are the limits of a memory? At what point does a memory stop functioning as the registry of something real and become purely an act of imagination? What is the relationship between imagination and memory?
THE SECOND HYPNOSIS SESSION
Some months later, we decided to repeat the experiment. The goal was the same but the conditions of the experiment changed slightly. This time, I would be forbidden from speaking during the trance (since the last time it made me too self aware to relax). As before, the experiment took a couple of hours. He first started by making me breathe deeply, by making me approach a semi-conscious state. The same visualization exercise of the woods and the fence was repeated. Nonetheless, this time, as the trance got deeper, I started visualizing a hand that was guiding me through this forest.
As I crossed the fence, images started to become blurrier and I completely lost conscience of the outside world. I fell into a state which I could only describe as hypnagogic. Textures and shapes became more abstract. After a while, I saw a giant storage unit with big wooden shelves filled with processed meats and cheese.
I woke up some minutes later remembering very little of what happened during the trance. Somehow this second time, the experience felt more real. Even though I had no way of explaining where these images came from, I had the feeling that these images were not just regular imagination. I couldn´t say that these images felt like real memories either. Somehow it felt more like a hallucination or a hypnagogic stream of images. Yet, the whole process felt different from mere imagination.
I started to question then, what´s the difference between memory and imagination? When we envision our past, to what degree are we just fabricating memories? Reflecting on my footage as well, up to what point can I say that these reenactments are truthful to memory? And, extending that question, what is a truthful memory? It seemed to me that the barriers between memory and imagination are very feeble. Certain things from my past are blurry, imprecise, unstable and yet I believe that these things happened to me. On the other hand, imagined scenarios can be more vivid than "real memories".
AN IMPLANTED MEMORY
Within my texts there was a very clear image from childhood. In it, I remembered seeing a live giant crocodile walking through the corridors of a hotel. When inquiring about this memory, I asked my father about it. He said that he was just teasing me, that he said: “Look at that hotel, they have a crocodile and they let him walk along the corridors; it is the hotel´s pet”. Somehow, my father’s joke got mixed up with all the crocodile statues, cartoons, plush toys and stuffed species that decorated the town. Within my memory, all of these things were conflated to produce an image of a crocodile walking through a hotel. This memory, you could say, was implanted in me. It was completely absurd and it was very vivid, and yet it never happened at all. Still, it seemed like a memory to me.
It seems to me that the only barrier between memory and imagination lies in the value that we give to the images: “it is a memory because I believe it is so; it is imagination because I don´t believe it happened”. It may be astonishing but maybe the barrier between memory and imagination lies only in the condition of believing. In other words, to imagine and to believe may be one fundamental characteristic of a memory.
