I participated in a trial for Neuralink, and I don't know who I am anymore
I participated in a trial for Neuralink, and I don't know who I am anymore
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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/LK_frustrated on 2023-06-27 21:13:09+00:00.
I underwent a trial for Neuralink. For anyone wondering why, I received $50,000 for participating in the trial. Additionally, I've always been a fan of technology, buying the new Iphone every year, smart watches, drones, and everything. So imagine my excitement when I first saw the advertisement for getting paid for having Neuralink installed in your brain. I considered myself as becoming superhuman, in addition to the lump sum of money. Among the advertised features of Neuralink was browsing the internet just by thinking. You could just think of a question, such as "what is the capital of Kenya", and you would get a voice in your head saying "Mombasa". If for example you didn't know any fact, instead of Googling it, you could instantly hear the answer in your head, allowing you to win trivia competitions completely effortlessly. You could also play movies and audio files directly into your brain.
The procedure was completely painless. I don't remember it. They just put me to sleep, and the next thing I know it, I'm waking up. The doctor then came into the room and said, "Jake, the procedure is done." I blinked at him, as if not knowing what to say. I literally had no thoughts in my head at that time. The doctor continued, "An immediate side effect of the procedure is short term memory loss. You may not remember some things. Patients usually forget some things that happened before the operation. But your memories will eventually come back to you. It takes some time, but you'll remember everything. Your award will be deposited onto your bank account."
Still sleepy, waiting for the anesthesia to wear off, I was escorted by the medical staff out of the operation room, through two sets of corridors, and into the lobby. I was sitting there in the lobby, still struggling to get a thought out of my sleepy head. Within a few minutes, I had woken up completely. I thought about what the doctor said, about the short term memory loss. I sat there with my eyes closed, and suddenly my memories started flooding in. They told me everything that I needed to know. My name was Jake, and I just underwent the first human trial of Neuralink, becoming a superhuman cyborg. I couldn't wait to try out my new ability.
As advertised, this Neuralink search engine feature was only triggered by the word "Neuralink". So I thought a question, "Neuralink who was the 18th president of the United States?" And I heard a loud, booming, masculine voice saying
Ulysses S. Grant
Ok that's cool. I genuinely didn't know the answer to that question. I thought another question, "Neuralink in what year was Napoleon Bonoparte born?" It answered,
1769
This was so cool, I was superhuman! The doctors told me that I specifically had to think the word "Neuralink" to trigger the device. Otherwise it won't work. It sits passively in the background, scanning your active thoughts, until it hears it's name being called. Then it responds with an audible hallucination. It's just as if you hear someone standing right next to you and saying something in your ear, except that you don't actually hear anything. It's just an audible thought that you receive. It sounds just like someone said it, but in reality you could be sitting in a quiet room. You could ask it to play music, play a podcast, cool stuff.
I couldn't wait to get back home and play with it. And also, I couldn't wait to get to the bank, and collect my reward. I walked out of the hospital lobby, feeling good about myself.
I was suddenly stumped, where do I go? And then I felt my memories flooding back to me all of a sudden. Oh yeah, the parking lot is to the left. I walked around the corner of the hospital, and I saw the parking lot. Funny that I briefly forgot about it. Maybe it has to do with the short term memory loss that the doctor mentioned.
As I was walking into the parking lot, I saw a mental image of my car. Oh yeah, that's my car. It was a white Tesla Model X. I suddenly remember buying it for Christmas three years ago. At first, I had to steer to drive it, but apparently one year ago they upgraded them to be fully self driving.
As I got in the car, I thought about going home again. For a split second I saw the mental image of a small white house in the middle of a field of grass. And then my memory came back to me. I live in an apartment in the city, sharing it with two other guys whom I've known since college. Yes, that's where I live. Why did I think about that house? That's strange. Yeah, it's probably just my imagination.
I strapped my seat belt on, and I told the car via voice activation, "take me home", assuming that the car had already been trained to recognize where "home" was. The front panel lit up with a map displaying me the address of my apartment. From then I just had to relax on the seat, while the car did all the driving.
We drove through as city, and while the roads didn't seem familiar, I figured it was just due to short term memory loss. Sure enough, my memories came flooding to me in a few moments. Of course, I've always taken these streets to go to home before. This is in fact the same route that I took to get to the hospital.
During the drive I spent more time playing with my new gift. I asked, "Neuralink, What is the pharaoh Akehaton known for?" It answered in it's deep, booming voice:
Akhenaten was a pharaoh who made religious reforms, built a new capital at Amarna and sired Tutankhamun, one of the most famous ancient kings.
I then asked it, "Neuralink, why is Tutankhamun one of the most famous ancient kings?"
Tutankhamun is so famous because his tomb was discovered entirely complete, containing fabulous treasures that helped the egyptologists to better understand the process of mummification.
We had an interesting conversation. Before I know it, I'm at my apartment. The car drops me off at the front entrance, while it drives off and parks itself. I go into the apartment, and the short term memory loss again hits me. Seriously, what's my unit number? Where do I live? I had a faint glimmer of a thought, but then I lost it. And then my memories came back. I was presented with a mental image of a door on floor 5, the unit number 55. And then I thought I heard a voice inside my head saying "fifty-five". That kind of stopped me in my tracks, and I looked around, yet no one was there. It was barely even a voice though, more of like a thought. It definitely wasn't from Neuralink, because it didn't have that clear, booming, pronounced quality. And yet it somehow wasn't in the same mental voice as my own thoughts. It was kind of off. I don't know. It was probably just my overactive imagination.
As I got into the elevator, I hit the button for floor 5, and the elevator started to ascend. I felt a gut feeling that I'm not supposed to be here. For some reason, as if you're in a part of the city that you haven't been to yet. Like when you're in a dangerous back alley or somewhere. But I just brushed it off. After all, I had lived here for the past 5 years since college. This was my home.
The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and I came out. My unit was the third one on the left side of the hallway. I came in front of the door, I saw that house again in the middle of the field of grass. And then that thought just dissipated. My hand reached into my pocket, took out the key to my apartment. I unlocked the door and went inside.
I was greeted by a spacious living room with lots of video game consoles strewn across the floor, underneath a big flat screen TV. Two men sat on the sofa, at the opposite side of the room, anticipating me. I looked at the men, and blinked. My memories came flooding back to me. These guys were George and Jim.We went to college together. We were roommates and best friends ever since.
"You got it?" "How did it go?" I answered, "Well, I've been having some short term memory loss. Nothing really horrible though. Just some known side effects. The doctor warned me about them." George said, "Well bro you just gotta take it easy, and wait for the memories to return to you. Don't trust fleeting thoughts."
How did he know that the memories return to you? That's only something that the doctor told me. Did the doctor tell him too? Or did George read up on the procedure online?
They quickly looked at each other. Then they started laughing. "Aw, it's cool man, no worries." "Here Jake, let's play some video games." "You know you want to. You know it's our family tradition." They were smiling, laughing, hugging me, slapping me on the shoulder blades, and in general being very friendly, positive, and energetic. I started laughing too. And then I saw a memory of us playing video games together in the past, multiple times. Apparently it was just a thing that we did, playing video games together.
Something in me, like a gut feeling, made me feel scared and out of place, almost as if I didn't recognize the room for a split second. I don't know, for some reason I frantically looked to the door. As if it's my first time here or something. Like I'm in a house party hosted by random strangers. But that's silly, I live here, and these are my guys, my bros.
By now Jim had already plugged in the cables, the controllers, and started the video game. The slapped my shoulder and belly laughed. We poured some Sprite into small cups made of transparent plastic, and toasted, and drank it. Before I knew it, the whole bottle was emptied out.
We started...
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