I used to enjoy learning things about new research, regarding the workings of the human brain, that has been done using still-newish fMRI technology. (It's been a few years now since I actively pursued this.) But one thing that stood out for me was that neuroscientists who study these sorts of things say much more of who we are, and what we do, is controlled by areas of the brain to which we have no conscious access than we would typically imagine. So, from my perspective, a lot of what we experience mentally as well as emotionally probably has to do with material that is stored in non-conscious areas of our brains. At least that's my personal "take" on experiences such as you describe.