“Flashbacks” are moments when someone suddenly and vividly re-experiences a past event, almost as if it’s happening again in the present. They’re not just memories, you may feel immersed in them, with sights, sounds, emotions, or even physical sensations coming back strongly.
They could be commonly associated with trauma-related conditions, especially Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but they may happen in other contexts too.
What they feel like
A flashback may vary in intensity:
- Mild: a strong, intrusive memory or image
- Moderate: feeling emotionally transported back in time
- Severe: losing awareness of the present and reacting as if the past event is happening again
People might:
- Hear or see things from the past
- Feel the same fear, panic, or distress
- Physically react (sweating, racing heart): CONSULT WITH A PSYCHIATRIST
Common triggers
Flashbacks may often set off by cues connected to the original event, such as:
- Sounds, smells, feelings, or places
- Certain people or situations
- Stress or fatigue
Sometimes, the trigger may not be obvious at all.
Why they happen
They maybe linked to how the mind processes and stores intense experiences. During overwhelming events, memory encoding maybe fragmented, so instead of being stored as a normal past memory, parts of it could be resurface involuntarily and feel “current.”
“How could people manage them?
- Grounding techniques (focusing on the present moment)
- Therapy (especially trauma focused approaches like CBT or EMDR)
- Medication in some cases
- Building awareness of triggers
Shervan K Shahhian
LIBERTY PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 