Scientists Can Play Inception On Us By Planting Ideas In Our Brains

Inception is no longer a scary possibility of what might happen to humanity one day. It’s a fact. New research has shown that subliminal messages can be easily planted in someone’s brain without the person suspecting anything #todaymagic

A team of scientists from Nagoya University published a paper explaining that humans can be trained to associate an image or situation that is real with something unreal, but desirable. In their experiment, subjects were put in functional magnetic resonance imaging machines and made to see the color red when they were showed black and white only images.

Five hundred attempts followed and subjects started seeing the color red more often than not in pictures of black and white stripes. It seems unbelievable that the brain can be tricked in such a way but it’s not for the worse, scientists believe. This neuro-feedback training can strengthen associative memories in their brains because training session’s ripple effects can be seen months afterwards.

“This method may be applied to reduce or eliminate association of some specific cue and fear,” Takeo Watanabe, one of the study’s authors says. “For example, it [could be used to] reduce or eliminate bad memories developed in a battlefield. Our team has [also] recently found that people with high-functioning autism have some abnormal connectivities between different brain areas. Using our method, it may be possible to change some of the abnormal conductivities [to make them closer] to normal ones.”

Used with good intentions and in the right context, this Inception-style training method can solve a lot of problems.