Mystery of Memory & Terrence Howard
Wild times arise
Recently, actor Terrence Howard appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast and has apparently ruffled plenty of feathers. He had many things to say on the show ranging from a new form of physics, to an altered periodic table, the COVID response, and even his estranged correspondence with science popularizer Neil Degrasse Tyson. Much of the current public fervor revolves around whether his physics and chemistry claims have any merits. However, one of his most controversial statements seems to have been regarding having memories of being in his mother’s womb.
Many have stated that Howard’s claim of pre-birth memories should inherently invalidate all of his statements. Some have cited “infantile amnesia” as proof of Howard’s dishonesty based on a lack of neurological development. Others will simply make the claim that there is no proof that this is possible. Interestingly, fellow actor Nicholas Cage has also made similar claims publicly… minus the physics and chemistry assertions.
Having observed much of the discussion following his podcast appearance, it is clear that Howard has definitively stirred the pot regarding various topics.
Pertaining to memory, there are many theories as to where memories are stored with the vast majority of neuroscientists believing that they are stored somewhere in the physical brain. There is much evidence suggesting that they are correct as there are many examples of neurological damage via either blunt force brain trauma or neurodegenerative conditions (Alzheimer’s, Dementia) that have unequivocally shown detrimental effects on memory. In 2005, a group of researchers at UCLA conducted memory research in epileptic patients which allowed them to implant 64 tiny electrodes in their brains (Quiroga et. al, 2005). Each participant was shown a large number of images including animals, celebrities, and landmark buildings. The electrodes recorded the brain cells' firings as images were shown for the first time and also following recollection. The researchers reported specific neurons reacted to specific animals, celebrities, or landmarks even though they were shown a variation of these images. This led to the dubbing of this finding as the “Halle Berry Neuron” leading the public to believe that a specific memory is stored in a specific neuron. However, since then other theories of memory have arisen including the “distributed representation theory” which is based on the premise that a specific stimulus is coded by a unique pattern of activity over large groups of neurons distributed throughout the brain (Rissman et. al, 2012; Voitov et. al, 2022). Currently, there is no predominant theory regarding memory and many researchers have maintained the more generalized belief that the hippocampus (Lisman et. al, 2017; Roux et. al, 2021; Wiltgen et. al, 2010) is essential for memory while others will cite the prefrontal cortex in combination with the hippocampus as being the necessary structures (Yadav et. al, 2022). More exotic theories regarding memory storage include magnetite nanoparticles in the brain (Banaclocha et. al, 2010).
While there are billions of neurons and glial cells all playing key roles in neural communication, it is important to note that it is generally accepted that neuronal firing dictates brain activity. Groups of neurons firing together create oscillations known as brain waves. The speed of this electrical activity generally corresponds with a person’s state of consciousness (ex. sleep, baseline, and altered states). Slow wave dominance (delta - 0.1 to 4 Hz) represents deep sleep while baseline consciousness is primarily modulated by alpha and beta waves (8 to 35 Hz).
Over the past decade, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been doing extensive research regarding the role of gamma waves in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Gamma waves are considered to be the fastest brain waves ranging from 35 Hz all the way up to 150 Hz. It’s been well documented in numerous independent studies that gamma waves are essential for memory encoding and retrieval (Creery et. al, 2022; Thompson et. al, 2021; Van Vugt et. al, 2010; Wynn et. al, 2023; Lin et. al, 2019; Benussi et. al, 2022; Bakhtiari et. al, 2023; Katerman et. al, 2022). It’s also been found that gamma wave power is suppressed in the elderly and even moreso in AD patients compared to healthy adults (Murty et. al, 2020; Murty et. al, 2021; Güntekin et. al, 2023; Kumar et. al, 2023; Casula et. al, 2022). This is an indication of an essential electrophysiological correlate to memory.
The Pico Power lab at MIT has been experimenting with gamma entrainment stimulation for animal models that exude AD characteristics. An aspect of AD characteristics is a suppression of gamma wave power. The gamma entrainment stimulation consists of light flicker and sound frequencies that cause the brain to synchronize with speed of the stimulus. The researchers found that gamma wave stimulation had a positive effect on motor performance, induced a reduction of phosphorylated tau, and improved cognition. Research is currently taking place to test the effects on human subjects with AD (Jones et. al, 2023).
A 2007 intracranial EEG study in the journal Psychological Science observed that gamma waves distinguish true from false memories. The researchers exposed 52 patients to a list of nouns which they were allowed to study and were later asked to recall in any order. The successful noun recall coincided with increased gamma power surges directly preceding successful memory recall while the unsuccessful recall did not exude gamma power surges.
The information presented thus far indicates that the fast brain oscillations seem to be essential for memory. Sometimes peeking at anomalies can assist in developing a more comprehensive perspective of basic function. One of the greatest mysteries in modern clinical practice is that of terminal lucidity especially in patients with AD (Gilmore-Bykovskyi et. al, 2023). Terminal lucidity occurs when a patient is nearing the end of life and is generally non-verbal and physically incapacitated. As the patient nears death, seemingly out of nowhere they instantly recover their cognitive and verbal abilities. The patient begins to lucidly interact with their surroundings and loved ones in a manner that hadn’t taken place for years. Following this moment of lucidity, the patient generally dies shortly thereafter. The mystery of this phenomena is based on the extensive damage that the patient’s brain has experienced over the course of their disease state and yet somehow, they become capable of spontaneously recovering their memory and cognition. Currently Dr. Sam Parnia from Langone University in New York is conducting a multi-site 500 patient EEG study to measure the brain activity during these moments of terminal lucidity.
Based on much of the EEG data regarding memory encoding and recollection, we hypothesize that terminal lucidity coincides with a distinct increase in gamma waves. The question is whether this gamma wave increase would have a neuronal origin or something else altogether being that the damage to the hardware (brain) would seem to render parts of the brain incapable of firing electrically in a proper manner. Did a surge of neurotransmitter releases induce this temporary recovery of memory by reactivating atrophied, dormant neural networks? If so, what was the trigger and can it be willfully induced to further neurodegenerative research scopes?
Going further, another distinctly perplexing mystery regarding memory is that of children regarding the ongoing research conducted at the University of Virginia (UVA) since the 1960’s. This research consists of gathering data in regards to children who claim to recall “past life” memories. A man named Chester Carlson played a pivotal role in this field of research having donated over $1 million to establish the Division of Perceptual Studies at UVA in 1968. This donation spurred the research of Dr. Ian Stevenson, a medical doctor who dedicated his life to this field of study. The methodology for this research would consist as follows:
Parents would reach out to Dr. Stevenson claiming that their child was seemingly infatuated with discussing the life of another person whom they had no contact or connection with.
Stevenson would ask a set of questions to the child and parents to verify that no direct influence had taken place regarding these memories.
Stevenson would then ask many detailed questions to the child such as: what was their name? where they were born? What were the names of their parents and siblings? What address did they live at throughout their lives? Who did they marry? What kind of car did they drive? How did they die?
The verification of these answers would take place via Stevenson utilizing public records, police records, tracking down the family members of the deceased person, talking with neighbors of the person, and any media publications that existed at that time that could confirm or refute the claims.
If a significant number of claims could be confirmed through a combination of these sources, the case would be considered “solved” and added to an ongoing database.
As it stands today, UVA has reported over 1,700 solved cases of reincarnation. In some extreme cases, Stevenson was able to document birthmarks or deformities that coincided with the manner in which the purported past life subject died or experienced significant physical trauma. An example of this would be the case of Hanumant Saxena, an Indian boy who claimed to have been a man named Maha Ram Singh in a prior life. Maha Ram Singh had been killed by a shotgun blast to the chest a few weeks prior to the birth of Hanumant. At the age of 3, Hanumant began speaking about the life of Maha Ram and that he was him pointing to a birthmark in the middle of his chest. Dr. S.C. Pandeya was the physician who witnessed Maha Ram’s body following the shooting and drew an image of the wound which matched the birthmark on Hanumant’s body. Stevenson would verify that other statements made by Hanumant regarding people and places familiar to Maha Ram were correct indicating that the case was solved. A compilation of these types of case studies were published in 1997 in a book authored by Stevenson titled, “Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects”. A literature review regarding birthmarks and birth defects pertaining to reincarnation was recently undertaken (Matlock, 2024).
(Hanumant Saxena at the age of 16 years old)
(The image of Maha Ram Singh’s wound by Dr. S.C. Pandeya)
(An image of an 8-year old Lekh Pal’s hand deformity associated with an injury sustained in a previous life.)
While the concept of reincarnation is generally associated with eastern religious philosophies such as Buddhism and Hinduism, the research at UVA does not subscribe to any spiritual or religious doctrine. There are no current explanations for how these memories come about other than assumed trickery by the parents of the child. Some attempt to interject the concept of epigenetic memory and that this could possibly explain past life recollection. Epigenetic memory is based on the observation that life experiences that aren’t coded into the DNA can be passed on to children (Rechavi et. al, 2016). The challenge in that speculation is that not all past lives come from a family lineage with some children describing having been a person of a different ethnicity entirely.
At this point, we have 2 ways to look at this concept of reincarnation recall in children:
A) It’s an impossibility… so stop reading now.
B) It’s real and there’s likely a rational, mechanical explanation for it’s transpiration.
As cited above, gamma waves appear to be essential to memory encoding and recall. One would presume that if some children do have the ability to recall a “past life”, they would likely need to generate an appropriate level of gamma waves in order to do so. Interestingly, there is data indicating that throughout an average human’s lifetime, gamma wave power peaks at the age of about 5 years old and degrades as a person ages (Takano et. al, 1998; Tierney et. al, 2014; McKeon et. al, 2023). This would indicate that mechanistically speaking, children would theoretically exude the necessary oscillations to generate enhanced memory recall. In the case of “past lives”, the gamma power might be so enhanced that there is an overshoot of memory recall beyond this linear lifetime. However, this would also indicate that memories, in the case of “past life” recall, are likely not stored in the brain but rather accessed by the brain when oscillating at the proper speed. Interestingly, as children mature and reach the age of about 7, their ability to recall past lives drops off significantly coincidentally coinciding with a decrease in gamma wave power.
(Fig. 1 from (Tierney et. al, 2014) showing gamma wave power weakening with age.)
Theoretically, the way in which a study could be designed to verify whether these children are truly recalling past lives would be to essentially do a replication study (Sederberg et. al, 2007) measuring whether there is an increase of gamma waves coinciding with the details of the past life recollection. This would obviously need to take place alongside veridical validation of these statements similarly to what Ian Stevenson did and Dr. Jim Tucker does currently. If there is a gamma wave increase during correct answers that have been externally verified, then it could serve as an additional layer of validation. If there is a visual component to “past life” recall, future research combining fMRI and EEG could be utilized to essentially recreate what the child is seeing in their mind as they recall the memory. This could add yet another layer of validation towards this perplexing phenomena.
Regardless of all the potential research that could take place to validate “past life” recollection, the question still goes unanswered… where do the memories come from if not the brain?
In the case of terminal lucidity we can theoretically make the case for re-accessing atrophied parts of the brain with a surge of neurotransmitter release leading to the oscillatory activity (gamma) necessary for cognition and recall. Unfortunately, this modality of thought doesn’t translate to “past life” recall in children being that they have no experiences within their current life to explain this memory. Another facet to think about is that this phenomena of “past life recollection” isn’t solely relegated to children. Subjects who have experienced moments of transcendence via near-death experiences (NDE), psychedelics, meditation, or hypnotic states have also reported instances of perceived past life recall or experience (Greyson, 2021; Sharma et. al, 2004; Wells, 1993; Nayak et. al, 2022; Timmerman et. al, 2021; Van Gordon et. al, 2018; Sparby et. al, 2021; Don Pyun et. al, 2009; Pederzoli et. al, 2021; Lucchetti et. al, 2013). Interestingly, these altered states of consciousness have been verified to coincide with neural activity dominated by gamma waves as cited and sourced in the piece titled, “Alcohol, Psychedelics, and Idealism of the Brain”.
How can we make sense of all this?
From what it appears, specific oscillatory frequencies are key for everyday working memory recall and encoding. When the brain is incapable of generating these oscillations, memory seems to be impaired. However, when the brain is generating these oscillations in an above average manner, it seems that recollection of memories outside of the norm can transpire. This doesn’t appear to be a random occurrence when considering the apparent consistencies in physiological correlates.
This brings us to the work of theoretical physicist Joachim Keppler.
Keppler is the founder of the DIWISS research institute and has developed a model based on stochastic electrodynamics (SED) that implies that conscious states are not the product of neural processing but instead originate from the resonant coupling of the brain to an omnipresent field of consciousness known as the zero-point field (ZPF). The ZPF stands for the presence of ubiquitous vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. In recent times, Keppler has outlined an experimental design to demonstrate the veracity of this model.
The model is predicated upon brain oscillations interacting in a fluid manner with the ZPF creating conscious experience. This would essentially mimic the experience of using electronic devices that do not store all the information presented but rather tap into electromagnetic fields to generate images on a screen (phone, computer, television). In Keppler’s model, the brain doesn’t just download information from the ZPF but also uploads information acting as a read-write head. Think of it as constant uploading into the cloud and downloading from the cloud at a 20G speed equivalent. From our vantage point, this is currently the only plausible model for not only how “past life” recollection takes place but possibly the majority of memory mechanisms.
The perspective comes from viewing the brain more as a field of electromagnetic activity rather than simply electrochemical reactions. The electromagnetic field theory of consciousness isn’t a new concept having been discussed for decades now but Keppler’s model appears to be the most comprehensive version to date. However, we must remain cognizant that this doesn’t negate the neural network imagery and connectivity seen on fMRI but simply changes the context with which they are viewed. What if the neural networks and pathways (hippocampus/prefrontal cortex) activated during memory recall operate similarly to cache memory in a computer/phone allowing for enhanced memory retrieval and performance? Utilizing fMRI and EEG, we would be able to see the network activation and oscillatory changes coinciding with memory recall but that wouldn’t necessarily indicate that the memory was physically stored in those neurons or glial cells.
Back to the original million dollar question… does Terrence Howard’s claim of having pre-birth memories have any validity to it?
Based on all the information presented thus far, it would seem that pre-birth memories are entirely plausible for certain individuals. The fields of terminal lucidity, “past life” recollection, and even Alzheimer’s disease offer glimpses into extremes pertaining to memory. We can attempt to sweep anomalies under the rug being that they disturb baseline models of reality or we can attempt to deconstruct and understand their occurrences. This type of inquiry leads to many more questions than answers such as attempting to understand how moments of insight arise… what takes place during the phenomena of acquired savant syndrome and how can we optimize our connection with the ZPF to gain deeper insights into the underlying reality of the human experience?
Much more research needs to take place!
PS. Another field of research that offers confounding insights into the mechanisms of memory is that of autistic children. A 2023 meta-analysis of autistic children with savant syndrome found that these children have distinct memory capabilities well beyond the capacity of average children. An autistic savant is generally considered to be someone with autism who has exceptional abilities in one or more areas while exuding variations of social or intellectual impairments. A separate 2023 meta-analysis of resting state EEG in autistic children found that they exude greater gamma power than non-autistic subjects. While this meta-analysis didn’t specifically include autistic savant children, it indicates that autistic children across the board exhibit a higher baseline gamma wave power than average. A 2018 case report in the journal Explore presents data regarding 3 unrelated autistic children that claim to have past life memories. While not focused primarily on reincarnation, the Treffert Center in Wisconsin has engaged in decades of research regarding the abilities of autistic savant children based on the work of founder Dr. Darold Treffert.