The compressed life review (CLR) is a mnemonic illusion of having “your entire life flashing before your eyes”.This research was guided by concerns over the retrospective 7gm pravana methodology used in CLR studies.To depart from this methodology, I considered the long-term working memory (WM), “concentric”, and “activation-based” models of memory.A novel theoretically rooted laboratory-based experimental technique aimed to elicit the CLR-like experience with no risk to healthy participants was developed.
It consists of listening to superimposed audio recordings of previously trained verbal cues to an individually composed set of self-defining memories (SDMs).The technique evoked a self-reported CLR-like experience in 10 out of 20 participants.A significant similarity in eye movement patterns between a single SDM condition and a choir of SDM conditions in self-reported CLR experiencers was confirmed.In both conditions, stimuli caused relative visual immobilization, in contrast to listening to a single neutral phrase, rawafricaonline.com and a choir of neutral phrases that led to active visual exploration.
The data suggest that CLR-like phenomenology may be successfully induced by triggering short-term access to the verbally cued SDMs and may be associated with specific patterns of visual activity that are not reportedly involved with deliberate autobiographical retrieval.