I forgot to set this

March 1, 2006 9:56 PM

$1000 reward to anyone who can produce a published case of “repressed memory” (in fiction or non-fiction) prior to 1800. I figure this is something someone here on MetaFilter could dig up.
posted by mulligan (21 comments total)

Evidently you've been at this for a while.
posted by notmtwain at 10:19 PM on March 1, 2006

wait, is mulligan harrison pope? or is he just linking something he found?
posted by shmegegge at 10:40 PM on March 1, 2006

Seems like a question for AskMe moreso than the blue.
posted by edgeways at 10:45 PM on March 1, 2006

I have a repressed memory of this being an askMeFi post...if only I had some 18th century documentation...
posted by Ohdemah at 10:47 PM on March 1, 2006

Samuel Richardson's Pamela, at or about p. 391 in the Penguin edition.
posted by orthogonality at 11:32 PM on March 1, 2006

So wait, things don't exist unless there's a literature reference before 1800?
posted by tkolar at 12:13 AM on March 2, 2006

Renaissance plays often draw much of their psychological interest from this, no? One of the better known examples: Lady Macbeth's bout of insanity/total breakdown in the light of having assisted with her hubby's regicide. In a broader vein, we might think of the Prospero's retelling/reconfiguring of historical narrative vis-a-vis Caliban and the island's history - but this is more a sociological repression of memory, rather than a psychological one.
posted by domch at 12:55 AM on March 2, 2006

apologies about the above comment! I re-read the criteria for repressed memory and Lady Macbeth doesn't fit!
posted by domch at 1:02 AM on March 2, 2006

Well, I'm not that old, but I can assure you that 'repressed memory' is a real phenomenon. I won't say I 'suffered' from it, as it is easy to see this was a good thing. When the memories returned, it was truly a bizarre experience, and rather frightening.

Consider growing up in your teen years with a candy-coated memory of your early years. A big part of thought and experience forgotten. Then at age 25, along comes a cue that opens a flood of memory long buried. Suffice it to say it was not a memory of some horror. But memory is associative, and there were unpleasant things remembered with the good.
posted by Goofyy at 1:58 AM on March 2, 2006

Um, how would finding a single example, or even several, prove that repressed memory isn't simply a romantic notion invented sometime before 1800?
posted by xanthippe at 4:14 AM on March 2, 2006

This is textual idiocy, if not masturbation.

These "researchers" commit logical fallacies of confusing cause and effect, and post hoc ergo propter hoc by stating that if a literary textual example of the phenomenon can be found before 1800 then it is the actual *cause* of the phenomenon. This shows no understanding of how discourses or bodies of knowledge are originated more generally, how scientific bodies of knowledge are generated specifically, or the history of the development of "repressed memory" research. It is a real academic shame.
posted by mrmojoflying at 5:46 AM on March 2, 2006

In other news, unless someone can find pre-1900s documentation of relativistic effects, relativity is a romantic notion invented in the 1900s.
posted by qvantamon at 6:16 AM on March 2, 2006

Um, Plato. See the Meno.

Can I have my $1000 please?!

Sheesh, stupid.
posted by zpousman at 6:43 AM on March 2, 2006

zpousman wins hard.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:04 AM on March 2, 2006

Why are people dropping references in the thread, rather then submitting their stuff to these guys?

Still, I doubt you could find references to psychological "stress" before the 1800s either, because all of modern psychology developed at that time period, making psychological part of popular knowledge.
posted by delmoi at 7:24 AM on March 2, 2006

Buddha sat down under the Bodhi tree, meditated, and remembered that he was the Buddha, despite years of wandering in the wilderness of Samsara -- which is actually Nirvana.

Ka-ching!
posted by digaman at 8:23 AM on March 2, 2006

Didn't they just burn you as a witch if you experienced something like that back then?
posted by HTuttle at 9:33 AM on March 2, 2006

mrmojoflying has it. This is pretty similar to that guy offering a million bucks for "conclusive proof of macroevolution."
posted by muddgirl at 10:03 AM on March 2, 2006

I hereby offer $1000* to anyone who can find written reference prior to 1800, fiction or non-fiction, that I cheated on my wife.

See, honey, I told you it was your imagination.

*as if
posted by davejay at 10:08 AM on March 2, 2006

delmoi asks...
Why are people dropping references in the thread, rather then submitting their stuff to these guys?

Because they're far more likely to get a response here then they ever will be to see $1000 from the idiots who offered this "bounty"?
posted by tkolar at 12:30 PM on March 2, 2006

Repressed memory. Another fun theory from Syracuse. Right up there with Facilitated Communication for people with Autistic Disorder.
posted by jsteward at 5:55 PM on March 2, 2006