Mindwipe

A mindwipe is a memory erasure procedure used in a number of fictional stories in which the subject's memories and sometimes personality are erased. Often those are replaced by new memories more useful to those who are carrying out the mindwiping. It is a more thorough form of brainwashing. It is sometimes used as an alternative to capital punishment, or to make the subject more useful to the system. The mindwipe can be performed by a hypnotic or magical ability, or by an electronic device. It is often coupled with stories where the characters have amnesia, although the latter concept includes cases that occur naturally or by accident instead of the result of a deliberate procedure.

Examples

• The 1952 short story Paycheck by Philip K. Dick, in which an engineer, who has been working on a top-secret project after which his memory is wiped, discovers that he has not received any payments, but an assortment of random items, and that the secret police is after him. It was made into a film in 2003.^[1]
• Alfred Bester's 1953 novel The Demolished Man; the technique is labeled "Demolition" there.
• The 1966 short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick in which a businessman undergoes a procedure where he receives memories of a vacation on Mars, only to discover that the procedure has backfired, and that his mind had already been wiped. It was the basis for the 1990 film Total Recall.^[2]
• The TV series UFO features amnesia injections.^[3]
• In the TV series Blake's 7, Blake had been mindwiped prior to the events in the series, but begins to recall things.
• The 1980 novel The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum. Jason Bourne is an amnesiac who discovers that he has had his memories wiped, but not his skills and instincts, of being an expert assassin. This has been adapted into a book and movie series.^[2]
• The Men in Black comic book series and film franchise, which features a device called the neuralyzer, which performs the mind wipe with a camera flash. The agent then makes a hypnotic suggestion to fill in what happened.^[4]
• In the TV series Babylon 5, the Psi-Corps are characters with telepathic abilities; they are able to erase memories.^[5]
• Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl novel series, where it is one of the technologies/abilities available.^[6]
• In the cartoon series Totally Spies!, various characters get their memory wiped.^[7][8]
• The 2004 comic book series Identity Crisis.^[9][10]
• The 2009 TV series Dollhouse is about a corporation where certain female employees called Actives (or Dolls) are mind-wiped and implanted with custom personalities and abilities to service their clients.^[11][12]
• The 2009 anime series Eden of the East, in which the main character discovers that he has had his memory erased and that he is involved in a high-stakes competition.^[13]
• The 2013 video game Remember Me, in which the protagonist gets her memories wiped by the megacorporation Memorize. The game also allows the player to manipulate a person's memories using a technique called "remixing".^[14]
• In the 2012 video game Syndicate the protagonist and agent of the megacorporation EuroCorp had is told that all of Eurocorp's agents were abducted as children with their memories being modified so they would remain loyal to Eurocorp.

See also

• Mind control in popular culture
• Drug-induced amnesia § In popular culture
• Neuralyzer

Further reading

• Packer, Sharon (2014). Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films. McFarland. p. 196. ISBN 9781476618005.
• Schneider, Susan (2010). "Mindscan: Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain". Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 241–256. ISBN 9781444327908.
• Shedroff, Nathan; Noessel, Christopher (2012). "Brain Interfaces". Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction. O'Reilly Media. pp. 125–156. ISBN 9781457102660.

References

1. Roger Ebert (December 24, 2003). "Paycheck". rogerebert.com. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
2. "8 movies about memory manipulation, and how they inspired neuroscience - TED Blog". TED Blog. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
3. "Underappreciated TV: UFO". Den of Geek. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
4. Mejia, Paula (October 2014). "Forget Those Painful Memories With a Memory-Zapper?". Newsweek.
5. "Guide Page: "Passing Through Gethsemane"". midwinter.com. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
6. Colfer, Eoin (26 April 2001). Artemis Fowl. Artemis Fowl series. Viking Press. p. 37. ISBN 0-670899623. OCLC 46493219.
7. "The Eraser". Totally Spies!. Season 1. Episode 6. Netflix.
8. "Trent Goes Wild". Totally Spies!. Season 6. Episode 16.
9. "STL COMICS - Calling All Comics - A Closer Look at the Identity Crisis - by Kevin McCarley". Stlcomics.com. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
10. "Identity Crisis". Retrieved October 6, 2014.
11. Annalee Newitz. "Five Brain-Manipulating Technologies That Prove Dollhouse Exists Right Now". io9. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
12. Call, Lewis (2013). "It's About Trust: Slavery and Ethics in the Dollhouse". BDSM in American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 183-193. ISBN 9780230348042.
13. Benjamin Fennell. "Review: Eden of the East". Anime Herald. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
14. Gantayat, Anoop (August 14, 2012). "Capcom Announces 3rd Person Action Title Remember Me". Andriasang. Archived from the original on August 17, 2012.