For example if I ask someone what they had for breakfast or what song was on the radio yesterday, they may not know.
But if I asked them what they did the day their loved one died 30 years ago, they could probably tell you: I had Cheerios for breakfast. The mail was late. I got stuck in traffic. Boyz II Men was on the radio.
Why does our brain store these tiny details in times of trauma?
In: 7
When you go through any event certain connections are activated in your brain. When this is a good or bad (traumatic) event, we release chemicals that “tag” this connection to tell your brain that it’s an important memory.
Later that night when you go to sleep, your brain finds these tagged connections and consolidates them in your memory. It’s theorised that trauma is replayed in our minds as we dream, and the brain looks for similar memories that it can relate the trauma to, which allows your brain to better understand what you’re going through, and slowly lessens the trauma over time.
So, like overnight therapy, your trauma is revisited without emotion, then connected to relative experiences, which tells your brain that although the trauma you felt is bad, you’ve gone through similar events, and you’ll get through this…
Or something like that =P
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