Stephanie Soo

You're not ill.

You're not feeling dazed.

And then something happens either right in front of your face or something happens to you and you do not remember it.

Is that possible?

And then one day, 20 years later, you suddenly remember this moment that you had.

Is that something that actually happens?

Are repressed memories real?

It depends on who you ask.

Pick a side and welcome to the memory wars.

This was a huge thing back in the 90s, the memory wars was.

There is one side of people who believe that your mind is so powerful that you can repress these traumatic memories deep into the back of your brain, and then they can come back to you when your brain decides that you are safe enough to start working through this trauma.

That these memories are hidden, but the signs of something being there is not hidden.

So these memories still influence your behavior, your emotions, maybe even physical symptoms.

But these memories themselves are repressed.

You have no recollection of them for a really long time.

Then you have the other side of people who believe that this is not a real thing, that you cannot just forget a memory and then suddenly remember a memory.

And the stakes for the memory wars are very high.

You're talking about criminal convictions, multimillion dollar lawsuits, families being ripped apart.

If all you have is a memory from 20 years ago, how do you know who is telling the truth?

It could be likely that if you ask someone from the false memory syndrome foundation, they would tell you that they're all lying.