As it turns out, many of the things we think we forget are memories actually stored somewhere in our brains as memories we simply cannot access, say neuroscientists who have recently published a paper in Nature.

According to Wired, the brain still holds these lost feelings or thoughts, you just won’t have access to them. So what good are these lingering, but inaccessible old memories? Perhaps nothing–for the moment. However, one day we may possess the mind-bending drugs or mind-reading machines to unlock those memories that we’ve long since forgotten from when we were infants or from a traumatic experience that may help us remember what it was like before we could walk (“Gee, this baby food really was disgusting! Mom, why do you feed me this stuff?!”) or key insights to solving crimes locked away in brains with PTSD.

Whether this would be a good thing, I’m not entirely sure. Some lost memories may be protective or in fact a good thing for humans–a part of growing up or growing older. But perhaps some day unlocking these memories deep in the human brain could be of benefit to society—the key, of course, is knowing the difference between those that would offer such benefit and those that could potentially harm individuals and/or society. The key between now and then is figuring out who will be able to decide how to make that determination as well.

Summer Johnson, PhD