L – Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

What if lying caused some physical changes in you?

We all know the story of Pinocchio. The wooden boy who wanted to become real. His major handicap, in that quest, was that whenever he told a lie, his nose would grow. Telling the truth would return it to its original size. Having some sort of indicator that you are telling a lie, in this case, helped Pinocchio realize some of his faults so that he could correct them. The end result, he becomes human, which is interesting in itself, for I know of no human who hasn’t lied at one time or another. But what if in reality, some physical changes did occur in you when you lied?

There are two ways to explore this. In the real world, what are the ways we already physically change when we lie, and in the fantasy world, similar to Pinocchio, what physical changes would seem appropriate to happen to you?

In the real world, there are already established practices and theories that can detect when you are lying.  The most popular one is the lie detector (or polygraph machine) test. If you’re like most people, lying makes your heart race, you pant, your blood pressure increased, and you drip sweat. A polygraph machine detects lies by looking for signs of these physiological changes

Another way to detect lying is through neuro-linguistic programming. (https://goo.gl/O6Ek5C) This is considered by some a pseudo-science, but people do believe in it. The gist of it is that your body is programmed to show where your thoughts are coming from. The window to those thoughts is through your eyes. By watching someone’s eye movements while they are talking, you can determine if the words they are sharing with you are actual recollections, or invented stories; whether they are auditorily remembered, visually remembered, kinesthetically remembered (touch, feel, smell), or there is internal dialogue that is occurring as they speak.

The eye movements are very subtle and you really have to know what you’re looking for in order to see. Check out this one minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hF5Vh3gvpU 

Both of these methods are defeatable if you are aware of what they do and you are trained to subvert them, like I guess some spies are.

What would be more interesting would be the Pinocchio scenario. Imagine that whenever you lie, there is a physical growth or shrinkage to a part of your body that is directly connected to the lie.

“You’ve been lying through your back teeth again.”

You start a rumor and either your tongue or ears begin to grow. You lie about stealing something, your hands grow. You lie about some abuse or sexual exploit and certain parts of your body would begin to shrink. Use your imagination.

Maybe your nose, similar to Pinocchio, can be the default organ of growth, for those lies that don’t fit into any category. The bigger the lie, the more intense the physical reaction.

The downside of any of this is that there are times we lie purposely to protect people. Someone just died and you want to hold off telling someone until after their birthday. You don’t want to ruin the image of a person to an infant, like their father or mother are bad people.  And there are just lies that are accepted, because we know the truth will out itself eventually with no real harm being done. Think of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the ghost that lives in my house that always hides my keys, so that I can’t find them.

The plus side is being able to see when someone is trying to deceive you. Picture if you will what politicians, car salesmen, repair people and for you teachers out there, some of your students, would look like. I can just imagine!

Remember mood rings. Those rings that changed color supposedly based on your emotional state. What if they could also be made to detect lying? Would you be as willing to purchase them like you did when they only showed moods?