Hey dubble,
I find this fascinating..
I was trying to explain to my partner yesterday a bit about my experience and this is all I could come up with (this relates to emotions but relates to my memories too). This is just my own opinion and way to describe my experience:

I likened a healthy person's emotional/ memory center to a rainbow, red to violet and all those colors in between. Their rainbow is a spectrum, it's linear, it moves with ease from one color to another, it's also a circle (think a color wheel). Say a healthy person is in the 'red' section (mad let's say. or remembering a time they were mad). I'll put them physically there, they're standing in the red section BUT they can see into the green section, the violet, the yellow etc. They see the other emotions WHILE they are in the red section too. They also can see other memories (one particular shade of blue was when their mom got a puppy, that color purple was when they broke their leg). I think it's called 'integration' but i'm not sure.

I, on the other hand (who suffer from BPD) am not so fluid in my emotions, OR memories. Mine are also a rainbow (of many different colors), but it is not a spectrum. Imagine a piece of paper with squares all over it (not connected) just squares off on their own but on the same piece of paper. Color a different color into each square. Say if I'm standing in the red square (a certain emotion or memory)... because I'm off in this square on one part of the page I can't see the other colors. I explained it that it was not just like being in a flat 2-dimensional square but being in a room...no window , no door (I can't see the other colors), all I see is the color of the room I'm in, all I see is red...all I see is pink. all I see is yellow. etc. I can't see the other colors that are out there. This describes my emotions but also the way I compartmentalize memories (I think), again this is my own experience. I can't make this linear rainbow path between the memories. I have just as diverse a rainbow, but it's not connected.

This is the best I could explain it. But your question really gets me thinking, I like it a lot actually. I'll think more on it.