[Rive1976]

I have some memories. I know I have had them before but I forget them and then they resurface years later. Is that a flashback or is a flashback something you remember but never forget?

[SorryShaped]

Flashbacks are, for me, like being in that moment all over again, not remembering but re-experiencing and being powerless to stop the film

[katydid777]

Originally Posted by SorryShaped

Flashbacks are, for me, like being in that moment all over again, not remembering but re-experiencing and being powerless to stop the film

It is the same for me. It could be any time of the day, then something triggers me and I am at that time, and place. It hapends a lot while I am asleep, I will be dreaming, then it goes to a bad place. I wake as quickly as I can, if I can wake from it at all. Once I am awake, I have to make sure that I am not in that place. But I can't go back to sleep, bc I am way too upset. This may Trigger!!!

[SorryShaped]

It happens to me literally any time any place. I've been in savasana and feeling very meditative and started flashing back. Tears, fear, and it all happening again. I have this huge level of fear that leads into it almost every time, like a panic attack but way worse, which does let me pull the car off the road

[Rive1976]

Thanks guys. I am asking more about forgotten flashbacks. For example I remembered something that happened years ago I forgot about it then remembered again the other day. Is that still a flashback?

[Lilfae]

I don't think I can answer your question, but my flashbacks are usually emotional and/or physical, like I feel the same emotions or physical sensations that I felt back then. I don't remember all of it. And sometimes there's just picture that pops up into my head along with it, or a very short sequence of what happened. I've rarely had that whole film thing.

[Lilfae]

Originally Posted by Dnester

Thanks guys. I am asking more about forgotten flashbacks. For example I remembered something that happened years ago I forgot about it then remembered again the other day. Is that still a flashback?

/
I think it's normal to all of sudden have flashbacks of something you had forgotten or not thought about in a long time. I've read heaps about it since my last reply, and as far as I understand, this is how a lot of people start to remember things they have repressed somehow. Or just not thought about because they didn't know how. If you experience a trauma your brain will store the memories of it slintered into all the different pieces, and it may be hard to make sense of anything. But when you get flashbacks you might start to make some sense of things.. I think..

I was abused, and I never completely forgot what happened, I never forgot about _him_, but I forgot about the feelings and sensations I had when he did things to me. I didn't understand why I felt the way I did back then. I thought it was completely normal and the way it was supposed to be, and that there was somethings wrong with me. But when I started having flashbacks I remembered how I felt, and I was experienced enough to understand why I felt the way I did.

I don't know if this made any sense?

Originally Posted by Dnester

Thanks guys. I am asking more about forgotten flashbacks. For example I remembered something that happened years ago I forgot about it then remembered again the other day. Is that still a flashback?

Yes that is still a flashback.

What Happens In The Brain When You Have A Memory Flashback

The hippocampus is important for forming associations so that the different parts of a memory can be later retrieved as a single event. While the amygdala is involved in processing emotional information and making basic responses to things associated with fear, such as recoiling from a snake.

Trauma causes the opposite to happen.

The amygdala instead up-regulates increasing fear while the hippocampal processing is decreased, disrupting its ability to bind and distort memories into a single memory.

Brain imaging revealed that negative memories showed an increased activity in the amygdala; however, how the items in the memory fit together was not remembered.

Also, the activity in the hippocampus was reduced, thus reducing associations. This results in strong memories for the negative content of an event without the context of the event being encoded. This causes the trigger to activate the same response in different situations as the brain is unable to know that the same thing is not happening.

Basically if there was a blue towel when the memory happened, the brain will activate the same sequence of events (as if the person is back in time) when a blue towel is seen. Let me expand on this by an example from my past.

[Amyjay]

My understanding is that flashbacks are not simple "rememberings" but the intense re-experiencing of a traumatic event.
Recalling something that has previously been forgotten is thinking about something that was once known, not thought about for a time, and is now being thought about again.

A flashback is the sudden and intense physical or emotional re-experiencing of a past traumatic event as though it is happening to you again right now, in the present.

[amandalouise]

here where I am flashbacks are different than forgotten memories.

here where I am a flashback is literally mentally experiencing a traumatic event as if it was happening right now. and they are triggered by something in the present moment.

example (using a non triggering thing so that you can see what I mean)

yesterday morning I had bacon and eggs for breakfast.
today I was talking to a neighbor and she stated she was hungary for bacon and eggs.
this caused me to mentally relive having bacon and eggs yesterday but it felt like it was happening right now. it felt like I was still sitting in my kitchen with a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me, I could see it, emotionally and physically feel it and I could hear what was going on in the kitchen when I was eating bacon and eggs yesterday.

some places call flashbacks..... having hallucinations because the memory feels so real.

on the other side of things its normal for human beings to remember something and then forget it and then remember it again. its called short term and long term memory.

[Lilfae]

I agree with you, @Amyjay and @amandalouise, that flashbacks is not simply the same as re-memebering something you had forgotten about, but I think you can still have flashbacks about something you had forgotten, and the flashback doesn't necessarily include everything you sensed at the time. Thus it may be hard to understand to understand what it comes from, and what exactly triggers it. You can have flashbacks to something you felt emotionally or physically as a young child, for instance.