Taylor Messex

Professor Lucas

HUMN 1011

24 July 2016

Better Understanding of Science Fiction Theory: Fake Memory Implantation

“I am fascinated, how a person’s consciousness can be so transformed by nothing more magical than listening to words” (9 min 14 sec). This quote comes from the author interviewing Sculley in the episode, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” of The X-Files and is a perfect, concise explanation of the theme and metaphor I will be analyzing. During this episode, a girl who was supposedly abducted by aliens is put under hypnosis to reveal information while in the other work, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, the main character, Douglas Quail, remembers top secret, suppressed information while under sedation. These similar themes of altered states of consciousness (hypnosis and sedation), wiped memories, fake memory implantation, and government mind control allow for a better understanding of these procedures as metaphors for human tendencies and malevolent intelligence.

During an excerpt from We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, the technician is about to implant fake memories of a trip to Mars in the main character, Douglas Quail. The technician questions Quail about his trip to Mars, and Quail reveals he was an agent for Interplan who had already traveled to Mars on a top secret mission. Interplan, the society’s government, had suppressed this information from Quail in order for it to never be revealed. Sedation put Quail into such a trance, he remembered things he was not supposed to, as you can see here: Quail says, “Quite a truth drug you’ve got here; it brought up things I had absolutely no memory of” (pg. 40). This is the first sign of fake memory implantation in this work. Interplan deceived Quail into believing that he had been a regular store clerk for many years with no real excitement in his life.

Another way of explaining the author’s perspective from a writer’s standpoint is shown in the book The Twisted Words of Philip K. Dick: A Reading of Twenty Ontologically Uncertain Novels by Umberto Rossi. He enlightens the audience on the type of writing devices used by Philip K. Dick, one being amnesia. “Another device that creates ontological uncertainty is amnesia, something that Dick surely derived from an older sf writer, A.E. Van Vogt; loss of memory often hides crucial knowledge thus beguiling the amnesiac characters (and readers), as in Time Out of Joint, The Game-Players of Titan, We Can Remember It For You Wholsale, Inc., or The Divine Invasion, where God himself suffers from amnesia” (pg. 19). This factor of ontological uncertainty created by amnesia describes the theme of suppressed memories and how they were covered up by the government in We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.

This theory of fake memory implantation is parallel in the episode of The X-Files. The difference here is the girl who was abducted is put under hypnosis to voluntarily remember what happened to her instead of involuntarily like Mr. Douglas Quail in the other work. While under hypnosis the first time, the girl describes herself on a spaceship with aliens. During the second trance, she describes herself in a room with government officials. This uncovering of the truth during the second trance, unveiled the government’s implanted thoughts in her head which was summed up in the first trance.

David Lavery, Angela Hague, and Marla Cartwright, all agree that the writer of The X-Files is trying to portray government cover ups through his television series. This type of plot is particularly related to the episode “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.” “The X-Files, by contrast, with its recurrent themes of government pirating of alien technology and staging of phony UFO abduction events, reiterates the dominant cultural ideology that privileges human power and control, reducing the entire alien phenomenon to a comical cover up of government misbehavior” (pg. 12). This quotation by these authors of the book Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files, elaborates on this perspective of the writer of the series and the theory of fake memory implantation by the government for use in mind control.

It’s funny how the writer of The X-Files likes to portray the possibility of two different sides of the nation’s government. A quote from an independent review, This is Not Your Father’s FBI: The X-Files and the Delegitimation of the Nation-State, by Paul A. Cantor sums up these contrasting views of the writer of the series. It reads, “Sometimes it shows all-powerful shadowy forces running Americans’ lives with sophisticated methods of surveillance and mind control. At the other times, however, the show delights in portraying federal officials as inept, bumbling, and hence easily outwitted by private citizens, who display more intelligence and initiative” (pg. 5). It is obvious through this quote that the belief of the conspiracy of government mind control is written in this series, but the question is whether or not the people in charge are intelligent enough to use it without error and benevolently. Fake memory implantation becomes problematic when it is done without consent, malevolently, and/or inaccurately. This problem arises in the characters of both works when under their altered states of consciousness.

Both works suggest corruption amongst the fake memory implanters whether it be the government or some other corporation. In We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, the company who implanted memories of vacations, Rekal Inc., is a metaphor for the wrongdoings of this process. In “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” of The X-Files, the government officials seen in Chrissey’s hypnosis trance is a metaphor for this corruption as well. This is described in a quote from the book Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern written by Christopher Palmer. He writes, “In both cases the system, with its resemblance to postmodernity, is unstable and malfunctioning, and it is this which makes the stories happen, by supplying narrative friction” (pg. 21).

Seen in the works of outside sources analyzing these same two works, it is known that a similar, major theme is fake memory implantation used as government mind control. The procedure for this is similar as well, such as sedation and hypnosis or altered states of consciousness. This theme and these procedures are obviously important topics to the writers of “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” of The X-Files and We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. They are used as metaphors for petty human tendencies and usage of intelligence without the best ideals in mind.

Works Cited

Cantor, Paul A. “This is Not Your Father’s FBI: the X-Files and the Delegitimation of the

Nation-State.” Independent Review Vol. 6 Issue 1. (2001): 1–6. Web. 20 July

2016

Dick, Philip K. “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.” The Magazine of Fantasy

and Science Fiction. (1990) : 35–52. PDF file.

“Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.” The X-Files. Writ. Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, and

James Wong. Dir. Chris Carter. The Thirteen Productions, 1993.

Lavery, David, Angela Hague, and Marla Cartwright. Deny All Knowledge: Reading The

X-Files. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1996. Web. 20 July 2016

Palmer, Christopher. Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern.

Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003. Web. 20 July 2016.

Rossi. Umberto. The Twisted Words of Philip K. Dick: A Reading of Twenty

Ontologically Uncertain Novels. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2011. Web. 20 July 2016

Wooley, Christine A. “Visible Fandom: Reading The X-Files Through X-Philes.” Journal

of Film and Video 53.4 (2001): 29–53. Web. 20 July 2016

Yang, Sharon R. The X-Files and Literature: Unweaving the Story, Unraveling the Lie to

Find the Truth. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. Web. 20 July 2016.