A flashback is a re-experiencing of a traumatic event. It feels as if you are reliving the trauma. Not as a memory of the past, but as if it were happening right now. You are briefly back in that moment, with all the accompanying emotions and physical sensations.
Flashbacks are one of the most characteristic symptoms of unprocessed trauma and PTSD. They can arise within seconds and range from mild (a fleeting image) to overwhelming (being completely absorbed in the reexperience).
How do you recognise a flashback?
Flashbacks are not limited to visual images. They can involve all senses:
- Images: you “see” the event in front of you again
- Sounds: you hear voices, sounds or words from the past
- Fragrances: a certain smell evokes the experience
- Bodily sensations: you feel pain, pressure or touch that is not there
- Emotions: sudden panic, fear or sadness without immediate cause
Why do you get flashbacks?
To understand why flashbacks occur, it is important to know how our brain stores memories. Normal memories are processed and stored with a clear “time stamp”. You know it is something from the past. With traumatic experiences, this is different.
The amygdala, your brain's alarm system
During an overwhelming event, your brain switches to survival mode. The amygdala, your brain's alarm system, takes over. The part of your brain responsible for organising and processing memories, the hippocampus, is suppressed as a result. The result: memories are stored as loose fragments, with no clear context or sense of time.
These unprocessed fragments keep floating around in your brain like puzzle pieces that were never put into place. Then, when something in the present, a smell, sound, image or feeling, resembles a part of the trauma, it can trigger the memory trigger. Your brain recognises the pattern and activates the stored fragments. Because the memory has no time stamp, it does not feel like something from the past, but rather something that is happening now.
This explains why flashbacks are so overwhelming. It is not a conscious memory that you are recalling; it is an unconscious reaction of your brain that happens to you. This can be very annoying because it is unpredictable.
What can you do during a flashback?
The most important thing during a flashback is to “ground” yourself, bring yourself back to the here and now. Look around you and name aloud what you see. Feel your feet on the ground, grab an object, or focus on your breathing. This helps your brain register that you are no longer in the past, but in the present and that you are now safe.
Flashbacks are treatable. Therapies such as EMDR and trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy help to still process and time-stamp the unprocessed memories. As a result, flashbacks decrease in frequency and intensity.
EN 
NL