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Originally Posted by Parva
So what about 'emotional flashbacks'? They're dissociative in nature; that IS the flashback. I do think there is a relevant difference between PTSD-based flashbacks and childhood traumatic flashbacks / emotional flashbacks. However, I've never heard of flashbacks stemming from neutral or positive events in life. I think most people would call that a memory. To me, that's the problem. Dissociative flashbacks are pathological in nature; memories aren't. If this is true, then isn't it likely that dissociation is the difference between a memory and a flashback?
I differ from Amandalouise - I use my own research as part of the therapy. Sometimes it affects me, sometimes not. But that's just all grist for the mill....Everyone follows their own muse.
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a positive flashback is more than a memory.
a memory is when someone is remembering something but they are not reliving it as if its happening right now.
a flashback is reliving a past situation, event as if its happening right now.
here is an example of a memory... I can sit here tonight and remember what I did today.
here is an example of a positive flashback....
my wife and I got married shortly after New York passed the same sex marriage law clearing the way for my wife and I become married. it was a wonderful experience, we traveled around to our relatives and invited them to come along to niagra falls where my wife and I got married and had our honeymoon. nothing traumatic happened, we all had a great time.
today I and my wife attended the same sex marriage of a very close friend. during the wedding I was having flashbacks where I was literally reliving parts of my marriage ceremony to my wife. at one point she had to get my attention because I was literally holding my hand up for her to put the ring on my finger during the wedding like she had done so many years ago. we both smiled at each other knowing our wedding was such a wonderful time for me and her that there I was at a friends wedding having positive flashbacks about our own wedding. if it was just a memory I would not have been literally holding my hand up for my wife to place the ring on my finger. I would have been sitting there calmly listening to the ceremony of our friends and calmly remembering our wedding but not acting it out physically as if it was happening today. that's what a positive flash back is... when someone has something positive happening and they literally relive in every detain that positive event as if its happening right now at this moment. I have had many times when I have had flashbacks because of positive things...where nothing traumatic happened and my body and brain literally relived the past positive events in my life.
heres another one of my positive flashbacks. a couple summers ago my wife and I went upstate hiking. it was a wonderful day. a week later we were watching a tv show and there was the mountain we hiked up, it instantly made me flash back to literally reliving doing so, it was more vivid that memory and I literally got up off the sofa and started making climbing motions to get around this one boulder. again nothing traumatic happ0ened on that hike, we all had a great time hiking up, having a picnic at the summit and then hiking back down. it was just that this fantastically made documentary about the mountains triggered my brain and body to literally relive that wonderful hike and time spent with friends.