[00:06] - Hi, I'm Michael Stevens, Do you even know who you are? - I don't remember that at all.
[00:21] The focus tester - Or are you your past? - I hit the back of my head and I forgot my entire life.
[00:34] [electronic music] ♪ ♪
[00:50] and thought, "That's what I look like? or not right in photos to other people.
[01:06] is mirror you. Most selfie cameras do this too, If you wanna see yourself in a mirror
[01:22] take two mirrors What you see won't be yourself reversed, So who would you say you are really?
[01:36] Or are you the atoms that make you up? Ah, maybe the real common thread, is your history,
[01:51] But what if we remember things differently Does that mean we don't know ourselves?
[02:04] frighteningly easy to create. and we're gonna have a little fun doing it. called "Who You Were."
[02:17] and have them tell us about their past. We're gonna plant a few little seeds in this mind field some fake memories.
[02:33] Hi, I'm Michael Stevens, that takes you on a trip down memory lane "Who You Were."
[02:47] Timothy DeLaGhetto. - How's it going, man. - Excited to kinda dive into some memories? a taste of your life.
[03:00] - So Tim was raised in California - Tim found popularity as a rapper, and has attracted over 3 million subscribers.
[03:16] In order to--to kind of see how you became who you are today - We spoke to your parents... - Mm-hmm. - Okay.  - I'm going to start
[03:30] before I slip in the false memory. by a very controlling school girl. and always wanted to know what you were doing.
[03:44] but then she was also very, like, possessive of me. - Okay. Here's a memory. - Yeah. - Until you noticed that
[03:58] - You know, I empathize with people... like, helping them feel like we were all a team. we made up out of thin air.
[04:11] - Mm-kay. - You actually took a ride from the balloon. - We're going deep--far back. - I didn't even know
[04:27] - Was it? - Yeah. - Timothy is not accepting the story as truth yet. - Dylan, how are you? - I'm doing great, man.
[04:40] from you Superman cape when you were young. to stop a car driving down the street. - You know, the dude hit his brakes.
[04:53] So when you were about four or five years old, and you dropped something. I'm not sure if I remember that to be honest.
[05:07] with a realistic detail can trigger the brain Did you have a favorite toy or anything - Oh, I mean, I had, like, some action figures, I think.
[05:22] I'm not sure, like--that was, like, the--what happened. That's a crazy adventure When you were around four or five years old,
[05:37] and you dropped something. Up in the air? - No. - None.
[05:51] It never happened, 24 hours from now, - Okay.
[06:04] to see if any of the seeds I planted today This is where you took your first hot air balloon ride. - Are you serious? - I'm serious.
[06:18] [soft dramatic music] to remember our past accurately all the time, into our own mental states.
[06:31] and why. Psychologists call our tendency to overvalue while distrusting that other people
[06:45] truly understand their own... is something called... to fool someone into believing
[06:59] and the amazing thing is that as if it were what they had always wanted. We know why we like the things we like.
[07:16] But do we? [dramatic music] Today, we'll be showing our subjects sets of photos
[07:28] of the person they'd prefer to work with. The focus tester who will be using slight of hand
[07:41] for faces they've rejected. Or will they justify and explain a decision - Thank you for participating in this study
[07:57] You will be shown sets of faces and be asked to select Are you ready to begin? - I am, yes. work with person "A" or person B?
[08:10] [soft dramatic music] I can do this. - Person "A" or Person B? "A."
[08:23] So we've made a pile of your ideal workplace colleagues. - Uh, now part two is to-- segment of the questionnaire.
[08:37] it's just to distract them from what's about to happen There it is. for pictures our subject rejected.
[08:52] with photos of people she didn't actually choose? - Okay.  - We'll start with a picture that she did pick before we slip in the rejects.
[09:06] - She looks nice. She looks really nice, - Here's another pair of photos - Person B. - Person B.
[09:19] the picture she actually rejected. - Um, she just looked nicer than the other one. didn't look very nice at all.
[09:31] this one choice? - Why did you prefer to work with this person? when you chose that--chose her? - Mm-hmm.
[09:43] get you the card and... [laughs] - This isn't just simple misremembering. a past that never happened.
[09:55] justify choices that they never made? - "A." - So why did you choose to work with this person?
[10:08] of a genuine person - People are completely fabricating I think we could actually up the ante.
[10:23] now we'll swap four. the photos that she actually rejected. I like to work with confidant people,
[10:37] As a woman, I wanna, like, and give them advice She looked like a type of person you could confide in
[10:52] So I think she had that type of look. She looks like she might be, like, a wise type of person. - She seems so sure of her decisions,
[11:07] - In particular, I'm curious about how you feel and, um, kindness, and somebody young. people I could work with, so...
[11:22] - Yes. - The interesting thing - Is they are not actually the ones you chose. - These ones were. - Oh.
[11:35] the questionnaire. It's this phenomenon, we will find a way to justify that choice... I was trying to justify these four...
[11:47] that I picked those four. - It's like a debate. I was gonna give reasons for that. but, um, that's the reason why.
[11:59] and I wasn't even, like, conscious about it. ♪ ♪ - You may think you know why you do the things you do,
[12:14] that actual past with completely new explanations to be exactly what happened. is all you can do?
[12:30] That may be the case for someone with... what happens to your sense of self? ♪ ♪
[12:45] retrograde amnesia. - Correct. - I walked into a restroom at my office building, and hit the back of my head
[13:01] it was, like, four- or five-inch laceration, which means everything autobiographical were completely erased. - Erased?
[13:17] I've forgotten my entire life. Her name... my children. - Wow.
[13:31] - Mm-hmm. - What memories did you have? You still knew things like how to ride a bike. - Well, when I handed him a toothbrush,
[13:45] but he didn't know what it was called. ever using one before? - Correct. that involved toothbrushes, but you knew how to operate it
[13:58] - Wow. - Things like that, you know, are stored in a different part of the brain. you were--you were born
[14:11] You have a name, you have a wife, - Mm-hmm. - And you have to just accept - Right, 'cause that's exactly how I felt.
[14:25] Like I stepped into somebody else's life, a lot of it I didn't believe. or--or was in the NFL.
[14:38] I just--seemed like nothing I would ever do, and a lot of it, you know, she had to prove to me. She put together a whole album full of pictures.
[14:50] - Wow. - And that kind of, you know, filled some of the gaps of who I was, you are who you are
[15:04] and when I hear that, 'Cause it's like, "Then who am I?" what do you say?
[15:17] because I haven't figured out who I am. my personality and who I am, I don't know who I am.
[15:33] ♪ ♪ Right? I mean, that's your story.
[15:46] and they're in the past. They can't be changed. [film reel humming] found numerous examples of seemingly sane people
[16:01] of past lives and alien abductions, that these events occurred. - Once people have decided that a memory is real,
[16:18] the brain can fill in details that never happened. or what people are telling you isn't entirely accurate. made that point in a 1996 experiment
[16:34] that they had been lost in a shopping mall as a child. and fill in details out of nowhere.
[16:46] Completely changing your personal history. ♪ ♪ they did not recall the false memory we planted.
[16:59] - Mm-kay. - You actually took a ride - I'm not sure if I remember that to be honest. - I don't remember that.
[17:13] and today we're gonna see if physical stimuli Today is all about you... - Mm-hmm. - [laughs] - This is where
[17:29] - [laughs] In a hot air balloon? for, like, a--another kid. - Some other kid? and see what can come back.
[17:44] and tell me - Hmm. - You dropped something... - [breathes deeply]
[17:57] Will this be the detail that pushes Tim What did I walk around with back then? - I spent another 15 minutes
[18:11] with details of the false balloon story. ♪ ♪ - [laughs]
[18:23] Let's check in with our other subjects. This is where you took your hot air balloon ride. This is Echo Park? - Yeah.
[18:38] - Yeah. - You don't remember any-- - Of course he doesn't. It never happened. - This is? - This is it, yeah.
[18:54] Does this bring back memories? ♪ ♪ - Um...
[19:08] I-I dropped something. Now how do you suppose he got that idea? Dylan's mind is gradually taking
[19:21] and adopting it as his own memory detail. then we took a hot air balloon ride, and possibly dropped a Superman cape.
[19:35] physical sensations can be an effective trigger to bring back real or imaginary memories. - Well, when I was four or five when I was here,
[19:50] fresh. to begin accepting the false memory. - I might remember, um...
[20:06] Being able to overlook the water. I remember, like, standing over and squatting,
[20:19] being so happy to be up there and my dad kept telling me to sit down, - [laughs] - How high up were you?
[20:36] - Probably, like... - Wow. Victoria's false memory is beginning to take hold
[20:48] What do you remember seeing from up in the hot air balloon? - Yeah? - And I could have been crazy, like, almost a little bit of mist hit my skin
[21:04] - What color was the balloon? - Red. - Yeah. has taken hold.
[21:16] and you dropped something. - You dropped something. - I did. - Ah. - And I just, like, remember
[21:30] - [laughs] About where did it fall do you think? six or seven blocks away. - By now, it seems Victoria's brain
[21:46] into a complete childhood experience. waking up at, like, getting in the car,
[21:59] having no idea where we were going and just go somewhere, and just, like, surprise us. by merging it with pleasant details
[22:14] - And next thing you know, like, we're just, like, flying over, - So who do you think was in the basket with you?
[22:26] Almost I wanna say, like, a churro or something like that. [laughs] Yeah. - It's a classic. that the balloon ride happened...
[22:40] - It's time for a reality check. - We went, like, on a hot air balloon ride, and I dropped, I think, my Superman cape.
[22:52] Why you looking like that? - [laughing] No, Dylan. That never happened. - Wait, what? - There was never
[23:05] Well, you made most of it up. Because, remember, we planted that story.
[23:17] I-I was actually having these-- of me, like, looking over, like the pond, - Has Dylan been to Echo Park before?
[23:30] for a rude awakening from her father. - What? Why would you make that up? - Did you truly believe
[23:45] - You remembered so many details... that never happened. - Yes. - So what were you remembering?
[23:58] because I really do feel like I have a memory. - I really felt like I had experienced that experience.
[24:11] - Well, Tim, I'll tell you what. It's not surprising - I knew it. [laughing] - Tim wasn't susceptible.
[24:25] and can have real-world implications. that faulty eye-witness memories overturned by DNA evidence.
[24:39] So who are you? You are always changing. and your memories can be altered
[24:54] in the end, who are you really? you're telling yourself, thanks for watching.
[25:11] ♪ ♪