Memories of the Future

Can a simple pill make us remember? And if it can, should it?

The Observer, May 2004

So a man goes to the doctor, and the doctor tells him there is bad news. In fact, there is bad news and really bad news. Which does he want first?
‘The really bad news.’
‘The really bad news is that you have Aids.’
‘Oh my God. And what’s the bad news?’
‘The bad news is you also have Alzheimer’s.’
‘Could be worse,’ the man says. ‘At least I don’t have Aids.’

This year may be remembered as the year in which we all got the really bad news. Alzheimer’s competes fiercely with HIV to be the disease of our times, and it is difficult to get through a day without hearing someone say, ‘Now where did I put that thing – I must be getting Alzheimer’s.’ The disease has entered our culture far beyond the level of dubious internet jokes: bookshops are increasingly busy with fiction and memoirs in which someone can’t recognise their own children; celebrity interviews feature poignant moments in which actors (in this case David Hyde Pierce from Frasier) will recall, ‘The last time I got an Emmy, I brought it to my dad. He was so excited because he couldn’t wait to tell my mom – and she had died four years before.’

There are more symptoms of Alzheimer’s than just severe memory loss, but it is memory loss that provides the most disturbing details of the disease, and the symptom that, as healthy individuals, we fear most. We may approximate what it is like to lose our sight by closing our eyes and bumping into things, and to go deaf by blocking our ears; in both cases our memories will help us manage. But one cannot imagine what it is like to have no memory. We may forget our keys, but we don’t usually forget where our front door is; we may forget where we left our car, but we do not forget that it is somewhere in the car park.

Psychologists have long since tired of telling each other that we are our memories, but it is as potent a thought as ever. It is no wonder that severe memory loss can be a disaster for those who experience it and those who observe it.

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