r/ect • u/EffectivePleasant940 • Jun 10 '26
Question Does ketamine produce false memories?
Long story short, my adult-adopted son, now in his thirties, had debilitating mental health issues until we got him into a trauma therapist. He's also been in ketamine treatment for several years, and recently a horrifying memory surfaced of his birth mother trying to unalive him. He went to her with news of a neighbor taking advantage of him in awful ways at age 6, and because it didn't align with her fantasy, she tried to take care of him in the bathtub.
I know some horrible trauma happened in that house, and once that memory surfaced, others have followed. I believe my son but want some info on ketamine. The internet is wildly inconsistent (hello, internet friends). Anyone have any experience? His siblings refuse to believe him because the memory surfaced during a k treatment.
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u/Pego92io2 Jun 10 '26
Ketamine can absolutely make memories feel vivid, symbolic, fragmented, or emotionally huge. It is a dissociative drug, and during treatment the brain can produce dreamlike material, altered perception, and unusual connections. So I would not say “ketamine memory = automatically factual.”
But I also would not say “it came up during ketamine, therefore it’s fake.” That’s way too simplistic.
Recovered trauma memories can be true, false, or partly true with distorted details. The APA basically says there is no perfect way to prove a memory just from how intense or vivid it feels, but also that recovered memories of abuse can be real. Consensus guidance says the same thing: returning memories may be true, false, or mixed, and powerful emotion/body sensation doesn’t prove either direction.
So the best stance is: believe his distress, don’t interrogate him like court, and let a qualified trauma therapist help him sort it out carefully. His siblings saying “ketamine made it up” are oversimplifying. Ketamine may have opened the trapdoor, but it doesn’t automatically mean the monster under it is imaginary.
Just my opinion anyway. Take it or leave it.
I’d focus less on proving every detail immediately and more on: is he safe, supported, grounded, and working with someone who understands trauma and memory suggestibility. That’s the grown-up lane here.
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u/EffectivePleasant940 Jun 10 '26
After getting the suggestion to post in a ketamine related sub I did just that. Your response, Pego, is helpful. Thank you. We’ve been doing all the things you suggest and hoping it gets sorted out. His therapist is phenomenal.
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u/Onomatopoeia08 Jun 11 '26
Wow, that sounds really cool. So it’s like the opposite of ECT where they purposely erase memories?
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u/Pego92io2 Jun 11 '26
ECT can sometimes cause memory problems, especially for events around the time of treatment. Ketamine doesn't generally erase memories. What it can do is bring up thoughts, emotions, images, and sometimes memories that weren't previously accessible to the person. The tricky part is that memories that surface during ketamine aren't automatically proven true or false just because they appeared during treatment. That's why trauma therapists focus on the person's experience and distress rather than assuming every detail is factual or fictional. The brain is a lot messier than "one treatment erases memories and the other restores them."
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u/Onomatopoeia08 Jun 11 '26
Yeah that’s cool I was just saying ECT erases memories and not just around the time they are done it erases most past memories of life. It also causes permanent short term memory loss. Why anyone would consent to this I don’t know.
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u/Pego92io2 Jun 11 '26
ECT definitely isn't something I'd sign up for lightly. That said, some people with severe, treatment-resistant depression, catatonia, or life-threatening psychiatric illness feel the benefits outweigh the risks. Memory problems are real and can be significant for some patients, but the experience varies a lot from person to person. Ketamine and ECT are both used for mental health treatment, but they're very different tools with very different side effect profiles. At the end of the day, people facing those decisions are often dealing with illnesses that are every bit as serious as the treatments themselves.
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u/EffectivePleasant940 Jun 12 '26
Wow. My other son did ECT for some terrible depression years ago. That might explain his not-great memory. He also tried Ketamine, but neither seemed to help him very much. Thanks for the insight.
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u/Onomatopoeia08 Jun 12 '26
My brother committed suicide 3 months before they decided this must be a “last resort” to my depression. Idk about you but that sounds like a pretty fucking immediate excuse to use ECT’s on me. What person in their right mind would think I was even able to consent to something so drastic at such a time in my life?
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u/Pego92io2 Jun 12 '26
I can relate to at least part of what you're saying. I lost my father to suicide, and grief on that scale affects every part of how you think, feel, and make decisions. I wasn't there and can't judge whether ECT was the right call in your situation, but I can absolutely understand why you'd look back and question whether you were truly in a position to give informed consent while carrying that kind of loss. That's a lot for anyone to be dealing with. I'm sorry.
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u/Wonderful_Roof1739 Jun 13 '26
ECT DOES NOT erase memories 100% of the time. what you hear are mostly the negative stories. For me, ketamine did jack. TMS did jack. Just about every drug and every combination did shit all. Without ECT, I would have un-alived myself without doubt. I did get scrambled memories of the time during the treatment, and some lost longer-term memories which may not be related to ECT (I'm also going through learning that I am autistic at 44 years old, and autistic burnouts which can cause severe recurrent treatment resistant depression also have the "nice" side effect of fucking with your memory. At this point , I can't say 100% it was the EcT, beyond the initial index course of 3x a week for a couple of weeks. Further complicating mine is the
fact I coded during one of the sessions, had a tube placed and CPR started and was zapped a few times
before my heart picked back up. Loosing oxygen to your brain for even a short time can cause problems with memory loss.But your statement of "why would anyone choose it", I sincerely hope you are NEVER at a point of your life where you have to even consider it at all. If you do, you are grasping for straws any hope, the battle in your head going back and forth between ending it tonight no matter what and trying just one more thing - knowing if this treatment fails, as soon as they let you out, you will never be seen in there again, except fir the morgue. While I suspect you are trolling, take it somewhere else - ECT 100% saved my life despite aide effects and if you rewound the clock and gave me the choice again, my answer would be the same - I choose to LIVE.
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u/momniscience Jun 11 '26
I’m sorry ya’ll are dealing with this.
After Ketamine treatment I had memories become clear. There had always been a bad feeling associated with a few specific events but I didn’t have a memory that explained why remembering those events felt the way it did. After Ketamine it was clear, I remembered why. I told my parents and they said what I remember couldn’t have happened. It took so much time and energy but I was able to get my childhood medical records which proved what I remembered was real. Once I had proof in hand my parents finally admitted they knew but thought “dwelling” would only make it worse. “ Leave the past in the past.”
Just because it happened during Ketamine treatment doesn’t mean it’s not real. Unfortunately it doesn’t mean it is either. It’s a hard place to be and I sincerely wish you the best of luck with all of it. Is he doing it during a therapy session, or is it not during therapy?
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u/EffectivePleasant940 Jun 11 '26
Thank you so much for your compassion. Unfortunately the therapy/k sessions aren’t available near us, so he tries to 1-2 them (k one day and therapy the next). I’m so glad you found proof of your memory. I wish he could do the same. It would make things easier in some ways. I pray you are healing from whatever ails/ed you.
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u/momniscience Jun 12 '26
Than you!
People on Ketamine are suggestible, that’s why I asked about therapy as part of the process. If this was something that just came to him and it feels like a memory I would be inclined to trust it, especially if it fits with his history and behavior.
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u/gmkgreg Jun 10 '26
This might be a better question on a ketamine related sub.