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Block Out Those Nasty Memories
Here’s a new highly questionable drug application, from the BBC:
A common blood pressure drug could help people who have witnessed traumatic events, such as the London bombings, to block out their distressing memories. […]
The drug has been shown to interfere with the way the brain stores memories. […]
However there are concerns that a drug which can alter memories could be misused, perhaps by the military who may want soldiers to become desensitised to violence.
Ha! Nevermind any of the other truly nasty shit that could be done to you by military and non-military alike. as far as I recall, this is somewhat similar to the effects the drug scopolamine is alleged to have and it’s supposedly being used in a lot of crime incidents in Colombia. It’s funny, just when you think that all the conspiracy talk of mind control and weird abuse is probably bullshit, they come out with a cute little mainstream news item like this that makes you wonder… what if?
[Via Technoccult]
August 2nd, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Is this the same stuff that they were given soldiers in Afghanistan a while back? There was a Village Voice cover story about it probably about a a year and a half to two years ago.
Again, rather than teaching people techniques to handle the distress and trauma they may deal with we are given another handy product to make people dependent on. And rather than fucking changing the way we live and really taking a look at ourselves we have just another excuse to not deal with the fundamental issue.
Have you ever read a book called Friendly Fascism? It was written in the very early 80’s and I highly recommend you find a copy and read it; a lot of this stuff we’re seeing now was forecast back then based upon things that were going on then.
It’s like if you can people high or numb enough they won’t even mind that your boot is coming down on their faces and may continue to do so forever.
August 2nd, 2005 at 6:48 pm
Actually, I think they were doing tests with Ecstasy, if I may recall. Perhaps that’s what you’re referring to?
Anyway, I also have to wonder if just because you can’t connect to memories, what long term effects does this have on you? I tend to think your body or soul or mind is going to record this shit with or without you, and its going to effect you one way or another.
Laura Jane was talking about something similar a while ago in relation to New Ageism and how they try to train you not to use negative emotion words - thinking that the cognitive-semantic expression is what controls the actual feeling, rather than vice versa
August 2nd, 2005 at 7:22 pm
I think you’re right, now that you mention it, about it being Ecstasy they were using. But what they’re trying to do is very similar.
The whole Reichian angle is that the trauma is held in your muscles and your body in general when you are unable to express the emotions fully and completely. I wonder if this would be the case even if you’ve given yourself some drug that prevents you from even recognizing you’ve had the emotions to begin with. But I think the mind-body is sort of an interdependent mechanism and that it can work both ways. A certain cognition can cause you to have an emotion (this is the basis of disputing irrational thoughts in rational emotive behavioral therapy and why it works–you no longer experience certain things as traumatic because you recognize the thoughts associated with that reaction, e.g. “I simply cannot deal with the fact that so-and-so broke up with me” are irrational and that a more reasonable thought-process actually does prevent you from experiencing that event as “awful,” even if it might still be a little frustrating). Of course, a certain feeling can cause you to have certain thought processes. The New Agey response I feel is still healthier than popping pills.