Everyday Canvas

Flashbacks and Sudden Memories

Prompt: Memories
Can our memories trigger sudden emotions or insights when we suddenly recall them? If this happens to you, do you feel it in your body somehow? Also, do you resist such memories or do you encourage them?

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*I came up with this prompt after reading Carl Jung's Psyche, and Symbol. Jung's shadow work is used even in our day for healing old and buried troubles. Here is a link for other shadow-work prompts.
https://www.scienceofpeople.com/shadow-work-prompts/
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It may sometimes be a section of a song or a similar landscape or even a person that looks or talks like someone that may trigger an instant recall of a memory buried in the past and long forgotten. Such memories come out of nowhere and have a unique way of surfacing unexpectedly, often bringing back something disturbing.

Yet, this isn't always bad. Sometimes what comes up in the mind due a sudden memory, no matter the trigger, can provide a solution to a current problem. Sometimes, the mind offers a fresh perspective or a forgotten shard of knowledge that seems to solve a present problem.

Those who know blame the hippocampus and the amygdala for such things. Hippocampus, they say, is crucial for forming new memories and connecting them with emotions, while the amygdala processes emotions and attaches them to memories. That may as well be why such sudden memories often come with strong emotional reactions, ideas, and responses.

Sure enough, they are impactful. For example, when my cat got sick recently and I was stroking her, I suddenly recalled another cat a young tabby that was mine when I was thirteen. Having found him suddenly dead in the morning, I had kept stroking him and crying. I guess this was my PTSD coming back. Luckily this time, my cat's doctor saved her and as old as my present cat is, she seems to be okay. In fact, she is now sitting beside me and purring.

Some of such memories--like that of my old cat of about sixty-plus years ago--are called flashbacks or mind-pops. Flashbacks are a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans. I recall the mother of a Vietnam veteran telling us how his son would suddenly scream and run about the house in the middle of the night. Then, at daytime, he would be very, very quiet. It is said that combat, witnessing the death and injuries, or other high-stress experiences can result such flashbacks in veterans. Why not us, too, then, when we are subjected to any form of PTSD!

Sometimes, as writers, our sudden memories aid our writing by taking us to our own experiences by creating similar scenes and characters, which brings up this question in my mind: Are we writers writing because we need to make peace with all facets of life and death or are we trying to make peace with our own difficult experiences? What do you think?