Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast.

Today, we're venturing beyond sleep and exploring an exciting new realm of brain science.

Let's set the stage. Imagine a courtroom.

The air is thick with the scent of old paper and nervous energy.

On the stand sits a woman.

Let's call her Sarah.

She's been called to testify as a key witness in a robbery case.

Her memory of the event is not just strong.

It's absolute.

She looks at the defense attorney and then at the defendant,

a man in a rumpled suit, and says

with unwavering certainty, I remember his face. I saw him running away from the scene. It was

him. She recounts the details, the cold, rainy day, the sound of the alarm, the specific way

the man's hair was matted to his forehead. Her story is so vivid, so rich with

sensory detail that you, as an observer, have no doubt she is telling the truth. You feel the same

certainty she does. We're wired to trust this kind of narrative. We're wired to believe that our

memories are a reliable chronicle of our past, a kind of personal

video recorder sealed and unchangeable.

But what if I told you that Sarah's certainty and your belief in it is a dangerous illusion?

What if the very act of accessing a memory doesn't just retrieve it, but also opens it up to a new

kind of vulnerability? What if that certainty, that

bedrock of our identity is actually just a feeling, a trick of the mind? This is the beautiful

...