Braincrack!: What If You Could Create a Memory?

After that long ass blog post from yesterday, I wanted to write this down too, but figured I should space it out a little.

So Wong Fu Productions recently released a video called Shell. The premise behind the short film was something along the lines of "What if you could create a memory? What would it be?" The lead male character, played by Chris Dinh, is comforting the lead female character, played by Mimi Chao. Their relationship, up to that point, appears to be that of close friends. Chris's character picks up a large shell and listens. Handing it off to Mimi's character, he talks about how the sound, or memory, of the ocean is captured in that shell. He then asks the question. She doesn't quite follow his train of thought and says that the memory would be fake, but speaks her thought process and say you wouldn't know it'd be fake. She then asks him what his memory would be. As he explains, we see his created memory taking place. He doesn't say, but we see that he likes Mimi's character, and his memory would be that of a relationship with her. But he stops short, before the memory shows the two kissing in the sunset. She realizes what he's saying and turns the pseudo-memory into reality, albeit in a different location and under different circumstances.

The short film was really well made. It was shot in the classic Wes cinematography style, and I love his style. But I had a thought while watching this. So what if you really could create memories? I know for readings I've done here and there that your brain sometimes does create false memories. So even if what you're saying is not true, if you're misremembering, you can still truly believe the memory is real. But what if, in some not so distant future, a technology gets introduced that allows you to literally create a scene, a memory, of anything, and put it into your brain? What if this new, and very direct, form of entertainment (like an exhilarating memory of base jumping even though you've never been, or the memory of the fun you had on a trip you never took) goes awry? What if people flood their brains with too many false memories that you can't tell what's real and what's not? What if rash decisions were made? What would happen to the world?

I think it'd be a cool basis for another sci-fi film. If I had the resources and confidence to make something of it, I would, but alas, I'm even too nervous to shoot a simple cinematography centric video I've had planned out for over a year showing a day in Berkeley.