10 years ago, Beki Probst expereinced a series of seizures which caused her to lose all memories directly related to her life. She still could read and write, remembered song lyrics, could drive (but did not remember the ‘rules of the road’), and could not recognize any of her family.

Astonishingly, apart from the loss of her vocational skills (she is now a custodian, although very happy with her job), she describes the experience as ‘joyful’ - she could not experience regret for the loss of memories she no longer had, and seemingly had a wonderful time exploring the world again - for the first time.

This is such an interesting story - it gets one wondering about the possible medical applications of inducing such a memory loss.

For example, what would happen if you took a serial killer whose intentions were mostly based on childhood trauma, and erased his memories? Would he still have the same types of dysfunction? What about a terminally depressed person, or post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers? Would it be ethical for us to allow them to optionally have their brain erased and start anew?