Name: One of the Most Unsettling Phenomena of the Human Brain
Uploaded: 2024-02-25T02:53:17.000Z
Duration: 11 min 44 s
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It doesn’t take much. A picture. A song. A scent.  A breeze at just the right temperature with just  

the right amount of force. Suddenly, memories  flash through our head. Clicked on by the  

cursor of these familiar experiences, old files  open. Often with an intense poignancy, longing,  

regret, delight, or whatever else, we watch them  play. People. Places. Things. Feelings. States  

of who were—at least who we believe we were. In many ways, we are our memories. If you were  

given the choice to either live for thousands of  years but every day, all of your memories would  

be erased, or live for fifty years and all of your  memories would remain fully intact and consistent,  

which would you choose? For most of us, I believe,  the choice is obvious. Fifty years with clear,  

consistent memories provides the richer, more  meaningful life. Perhaps, in this dichotomy,  

it provides the only rich, meaningful life.  But what does this mean about what we derive  

value from? The meaning we form from ourselves—our  identity—is, of course, not merely physical. It’s  

the ability of our mind to retain and provide  subjective continuity—a tracking of our past  

that we ceaselessly have access to in the present. What if an old image of yourself, of your friends,  

or the sensation of a familiar breeze with  the scent of a place you’ve been many times,  

didn’t open anything? No memories—at least  no clear, consistent ones. The files and  

folders have been trashed with no backup. Not  only that, but no new memories can be formed  

either. Who would you be? What would this  mean? Would there be a you? For some of us,  

this isn’t a thought experiment or hypothetical.  It is or will become reality. Our memories will  

be lost—daily, momentarily, from our entire life. The term dementia refers to a group of symptoms  

that impair memory, thinking, and other general  functions. Typically, dementia is associated with  

memory loss. Dementia can be caused by many  diseases and conditions. The leading cause,  

however, is Alzheimer's disease. As many as  60-80% of cases of dementia are caused by  

Alzheimer's. It is also the seventh leading cause  of death in America, in general. According to the  

Alzheimer's Association, 10% of 65-year-olds  have Alzheimer's. That percentage continues to  

increase significantly with age. And due to the  increasing number of older people as a result of  

advancements in medicine and technology, cases  of Alzheimer’s are significantly increasing. 

The cause of Alzheimer’s is still mostly unknown.  The main characteristic, however, is abnormal  

protein deposits in the brain. Two proteins called  amyloid and tau form plaques around and cause  

tangles within brain cells, eventually causing  them to die. As the cells die, the neurons and  

their network become disconnected, and parts of  the brain shrink. The correlated functions of the  

brain deteriorate alongside, and dementia sets in. There are seven stages of dementia. The first two  

go by mostly unnoticed. Minor forgetfulness  and occasional difficulty finding the right  

words. In the third and fourth stages, symptoms  become increasingly noticeable. Significant and  

interfering forgetfulness. Difficulty forming  and completing sentences. Decreasing ability  

to manage daily tasks and keep up with events. And  other general dysfunction. In stages five and six,  

severe cognitive decline takes place. The mind  begins to take the individual from themselves.  

Significant memory loss occurs. Confusion about  oneself and one’s environment. Major personality  

changes. Inability to accomplish basic tasks.  Delusions. And hallucinations. By stage seven,  

dementia essentially takes everything that is  left. The recognition of family members and  

oneself. Language skills. Bodily function. What  remains is total disorientation and dysfunction.  

At this point, the world has lost nearly  all symbolic meaning. The ability to label,  

define, recognize, and recall things is gone. And  these things, from the perspective of the mind,  

is all the world is. The individual is now  completely adrift in a shrinking sea of  

evaporating brain cells until, finally, the  sea dries up enough for no life to remain. 

Putting aside the gruesome, horrible details of  this very real experience for very real people,  

it is both deeply profound and deeply unsettling  to consider dementia’s implications—what it  

suggests about who we are and what it means  to exist and derive meaning from existence.  

Proportional to the degree in which dementia dims  the light of consciousness and selfhood within  

the affected, it illuminates the delicacy and  abstractness of these things for the unaffected. 

In 1995, American artist William Utermohlen was  diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 61. Following  

his diagnosis, over the subsequent five years,  into and throughout the stages of his dementia,  

Utermohlen painted a now-famous series  of self-portraits. In these portraits,  

one can observe the internal effects of  dementia depicted visually—how the affected  

person’s self-perception, autonomy, and symbolic  understanding of the world changes and erodes  

overtime. The portraits start out with detail  and accuracy, but soon, they become abstract,  

containing unusual colors and shaping  until, finally, in the last portraits,  

they dip into nothing more than grungy, shaded  circles with what can maybe be made out to be  

the shadows of what was once a nose or a brow. At some point throughout the process, it can be  

assumed that Utermohlen loses comprehension of  the significance of the portraits. But to the  

outside observer, they reveal the fragility  and abstract underlying nature of self-hood,  

memories, and cognitive function. What are we  without our memories, without the ability to  

remember accurately, without the ability to form  memories, without certain aspects of our brain? 

In general, recalling a memory is, in some  sense, like watching a video. The video,  

though it was produced in the past, is and can  only be watched right now. Memories are always  

in the present. Remembering is always  a present act. Unlike a video, however,  

with memories, there is no consistent, distinct,  and tangible record of them. We can, of course,  

corroborate our memories with others, with  trackable events, or with external proof,  

but for most of life’s events in which there  are no witnesses who can provide a testimony,  

or there are conflicting testimonies, or there are  no clear facts or evidence, our past is accessible  

to us solely through our memories. But if our  memories can be this fragile, this susceptible,  

how much can we trust them in general? A common symptom of dementia is forming  

false memories. These are memories of events and  things that never happened—or didn’t happen in a  

way that one believes they did. But false memories  are not exclusive to those affected by dementia.  

They can and likely do occur in everyone. In a study in 1994 conducted by psychologist  

Elizabeth Loftus, participants were asked  to describe a specific event from their  

childhood—getting lost in a shopping mall.  Participants then proceeded to describe the  

event with great detail. The issue is that none  of the participants had actually ever gotten lost  

in a mall. It was merely suggested to them in a  question asked by the psychologist conducting the  

study. 25% of the participants, however, formed  entire confabulated memories of this event. There  

are many other studies like this—studies that  demonstrate to statistical significance the  

phenomenon of false memory formation as  a result of things like suggestibility,  

mislabeling information, and the projection of  one’s current views or desires onto past events. 

How many of our memories are false  memories? Confabulations generated  

out of our desire for something other than  the truth—out of jealousy, shame, hope,  

confidence, a changing in personal views and  values; out of ineptitude and credulousness;  

out of cognitive biases. There are so many  blind spots in the mind, the mind is more  

like one big blind spot with one tiny spotlight.  Like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy,  

each instance of remembering a thing  also remembers the previous instance  

of remembering the thing (sometimes solely the  previous instance), each instance potentially  

losing detail and accuracy—connective tissue  to the real experience. We are all playing a  

lifelong games of telephone with ourselves about  ourselves. We are all demented in some sense. 

Alzheimer’s and dementia are so unsettling and  horrifying, not only because of the terrible,  

prospective firsthand experience but also  because of what it reveals about our existence  

in general. We are passengers—to our bodies,  our minds, the universe. We are inextricably  

contained inside the clump of jell-O-like  fat inside our skull, and our identities are  

fragile constructions made within this, out  of the imprecise shapes of memories—synaptic  

connections vulnerable to being ripped apart. The kinds of questions one might ask who  

suffers from later stage dementia aren’t  so dissimilar from the kinds of questions  

one might ask broadly when considering the  implications of dementia, when considering  

the origins and prospects of existing inside a  mind. Where am I? What am I doing? What am I?