Mnemophrenia

What if like a fairy godmother came down from the sky,

and she said, "Jeanette, with one wave of my magic wand I’m going to give you the perfect life."

What would you say?

Yes, there’s a lot of worry nowadays that mnemophrenia could be caused by virtual reality,

and some people have laughed this off as being nonsense,

how could people possibly confuse virtual reality with real life,

but it seems to me to be entirely possible.

And here we are.

Careful,

watch your step here.

And there’s another one right here so be careful.

Now comes the fun part, got some nice narrow steps for you so give me your hand.

Couple more steps. Careful.- I’m so glad to be back home.

I bet. Come on, one more. Yeah, well done Sir Edmund.

Go on back, there’s more.

I can’t believe you live in an antique.

I know, right?

- Is it recording now? - Apparently so.

I bet it looks awful.

Nah, you look lovely. Look at that...

Beautiful!

Can you feel it?

Still a bit sore but, no, it doesn’t feel any different.

Uh-uh, don’t do that.

I shouldn’t still be this tired after a week. I feel so lethargic.

I’m not sure that’s from the surgery. You were feeling tired even before.

Maybe I’ll book in some blood tests for tomorrow. See if anything is down.

What?

Come on… don’t.

Nothing.

- I couldn’t delay it. - I didn't say anything.

- I was waiting so long. - I know.

This chip is such an opportunity.

To live my ancestors’ experiences...

Jeanette and Nicholas were real people, not just avatars.

Look, you know I’m with you 100%.

It’s just seems to me like an invasive way to achieve an inferior result.

How is it inferior? To feel exactly what someone else has felt first hand?

It's what my empathy study has been crying out for.

Okay that’s great. Thank you. Thanks for that.

So Jeanette, are you happy to share with the group your story?

How you, you know, discovered the condition and so on?

Okay. Well,I first found out that I had it when I was clearing out some boxes in the loft in my parents’ house.

I found the cases of the Memory Palace films I watched when I was about 18.

And the thing that first drew my attention to them was that the pictures on the front were of the guy,

Douglas, who until really recently I’d always thought was a really important person in my life...

... and who had existed.

So university huh?- Mm-hmm.

You excited?- Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.

It was sociology right?- Yep.

That’s like studying people and cultures and...

Mm-hmm.

Nah, I couldn’t handle that.

Me and crowds just... less people the better.

Probably explains why I work in the ocean.

So, what’re you doing this summer?

Better yet... what would you do this summer if you could do anything?

- Anything? - Yeah.

Oh... I’d travel somewhere amazing.

Maybe South America?

Or I’d go to a war zone somewhere, where people really needed my help, you know?

Yeah.- Do something important.

Wow, it’s a good answer. I wasn’t expecting that.

What about now? What do you do for fun?

Ahmm, don’t know. Go to the cinema with my friends,

- We’ve got a film club. - Yeah.

We like watching old films, you know?

When I first realized I had a fake memory,

I just didn’t want to believe for a long time that it wasn’t real.

You say that you think you’ve had mnemophrenia for about a year.

Yeah.

Why haven’t you done anything before? Like we’ve been doing to try to come to terms?

Shouldn’t your primary drive be your mnemophrenia, solve this thing rather than go and make a film about it?

Well, no!

My primary search is not for my own answers.

My primary goal is to make an honest and truthful documentary.

This is the first film that’s actually going to show people that this condition even exists,

and maybe from that more people will come forward to say that they have it too.

I mean, I don’t know about you guys but my experience up til now

is that I feel ashamed to have this.

Ok, Anna. I’m Nicholas.

Used VR since you were eight...

Three or four hours every day...

... mostly travel experiences...

Mnemophrenic...

Discovered your mnemophrenia…

... ten years old. That’s young.

Yeah, I was 10.

Okay, you’re going to be testing a new virtual reality product called Total Cinema.

Total Cinema is the next step in VR and uses the five main senses that we think about in everyday life.

So not just sight and sound, but also touch, taste and smell,

to make the experience more complete as an actual event of your life.

Wow.

So this is the headset.

The first thing we do is calibrate this to your brain patterns,

and then we give you a set of a very simple experiences.

- Okay? So, can I? - Yeah.

Is it the same as your headset?- It's similar.

Mine provides a control data stream for the system.

10 years’ old, yeah?

Yeah, I was 10.

Was it difficult?

No, not really.

Really?

I was fine with it. It was never really an issue.

There was a time when I was a teenager and other people tried to make me feel

there was something wrong with me but...

As soon as I realized that the problem wasn’t mine I was never conflicted about it again.

That’s great. It’s really refreshing.

Yeah. I’m actually so grateful for it.

Grateful? That’s a strange choice of word. Okay about it maybe, but grateful?

Why not? Mnemophrenia isn’t a disease, it’s just a new way of being.

It helps me be more than what I am.

And the sooner people stop looking at it as something bad and start really using its potential, the better.

I’m just…

I’m just in a state of anxiety all the time, you know? I can’t sleep.

I can’t concentrate on anything at all...

I think the problem is that I’ve watched so much VR,

like 4-5 a week sometimes,

that I don’t even need to watch much of it anymore,

and James is just completely embedded in my head.

Like he’s everywhere.

You know, my family has met him, my friends have met him, my daughter has met him.

You know, she gets on really well with it but it’s just, none of them know it.

And that’s really fucked up.

I experienced the cheating of my wife, but then I wanted to try it in real life as well.

So, if I can just clarify? You had the experiences,

and then you actually cheated on your wife.

Is that what you’re saying?

That’s the way I think it happened. Yes.

I feel guilty about the real ones.

Real ones?

So Jeanette, were you able to complete the task that I set for you?

Yeah I did. I’ll show you.

I made a sort of chart like you suggested

of going back from when I met Douglas until the present day.

And looking at it I just feel like all my life choices have been taken away from me really.

Because going back to the beginning...

I’ve put that I felt supported throughout my parents’ problems because of him,

and I had a phobia when I was young that I feel he was a really big part of me overcoming.

And then when I went to university...

I was really spontaneous and courageous and that was as a result of knowing him.

I was attracted to older men because of him.

And all these things lead on to stuff like the Master’s degree that I chose,

the man that I married,

everything that happens within my marriage, the fact that I’m divorced,

everything that happens within my marriage, the fact that I’m divorced, the fact that I brought a baby into this world with somebody that I don’t even love.

the fact that I brought a baby into this world with somebody that I don’t even love.

So, how does it feel to have to give him up now?

I just feel really angry with the fact that knowing him affected what happened in my marriage.

Because throughout my whole relationship I always compared my husband to Douglas unfavorably.

And when I found out that he wasn’t even real...

the shock of just made me think I don’t even want to be in this marriage anymore.

It's really refreshing.

And her brain patterns are really interesting.

Her brain patterns?

Just nice to hear that attitude.

Yeah...

Yeah, great... attitude.

She’s right. It’s not a disease.

That’s what I’ve been saying for years.

We’re changing as a species.

It just pisses me off that it's one more thing that divides us,

when if it was harnessed,

it could actually bring us together.

Well I didn’t change. And I’m bloody glad I didn’t.

I actually like being able to tell the difference between reality and fiction.

I find it kind of helpful.

You sound like my parents.

The universe doesn’t have boxes, naturally.

What’s that?

Square, uniform boxes to put things in.

Ideas, people. No straight lines in nature.

Lots of round things, spirals, parabolas, cloud formations.

I hate boxes, don’t you?

That’s very poetic. You should write that down.

What were you just doing?

Something for my paper on expansion.

I don’t want to spoil it.

I’d like you to try it, too.- Ok.

You look beautiful today.

Aww, I like it when you say that.

I know.

How’s it going with Nicholas?

Amazing!

All my ideas about empathy, everything I’m researching

he was articulating it 50 years ago.

All the benefits of mnemophrenia that we take for granted

he was embracing it before anyone really understood these things.

He was really ahead of his time.

Yeah. It’s inspiring.

What’s he like?

He’s quite shy, almost withdrawn sometimes.

Except when he’s talking about his ideas then he can talk and talk.

He has an infectious enthusiasm

and he is really attached to his grandmother. They have a special bond.

Did you question your feelings towards your husband in the past?

Yeah, I think I probably confused respect and admiration

for love and passion.

But then you still had choice.