25 synonyms and near synonyms of flashback from the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, plus 10 antonyms and near antonyms. Find another word for flashback. Flashback: as in memory, recollection. In fiction, a flashback is a scene that takes place before a story begins. Flashbacks interrupt the chronological order of the main narrative to take a reader back in.
What is a flashback? A Viet Nam veteran with was driving on the New Jersey Turnpike near Newark Airport when a helicopter flew directly overhead. Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes, pulled his car to the side of the road, jumped out, and threw himself into a ditch. The unexpected sound of the helicopter had taken him back to Viet Nam and a time of being psychologically overwhelmed by incoming enemy fire. The flashback was intense.
His experience was not of remembering an event, but of living the event. In an explicit flashback. The person is involuntarily transported back in time.
To the person, it does not seem so. What they experience is being experienced as if it were happening in the present. An explicit flashback involves feelings and facts.Flashbacks from early are different. They do not include factual information.
Until about five years of age, factual - or explicit - is immature. But implicit memory, the memory of an emotional state, may go back to birth.
When the memory of a strong emotional state is activated, the person is exposed to an involuntarily replay of what was felt at perhaps age one or two. Since facts are not replayed, the emotions seem to belong to what is going on in the present. At the University at Albany and the University of California Los Angeles has confirmed what therapists have long suspected, that can be caused by early childhood trauma in which emotions flashback but memory does not.In this research, very young rodents were exposed to one session of. Later, the animals were tested for both memory of the event and for response. Because the trauma took place early in their life, the rodents did not remember in which the trauma took place. Yet, the rodents showed clear signs of PTSD: a persistent increase in when exposed to new situations, and drastic changes in levels of stress.
Where does early trauma come from? Violence and abuse are obvious causes. But seemingly benign practices may also cause trauma.
Neurological researcher Allan Schore says the practice of putting a young child in bed, closing the door, and letting them 'cry it out' is severely traumatizing. Parents, and so-called experts, have claimed that since the child will not remember this being done, it will have no impact.
Schore says research shows that though a child may appear to be peacefully asleep after 'crying it out,' the child may not be asleep at all, but rather is in a frozen state of 'dissociated terror.' An article on 'crying it out' can be found at this.
Certainly no mother wants to intentionally traumatize a child. On how to calm a crying baby and get some sleep is ovvered by Sarah Ockwell-SmithClients I have worked with to alleviate expressed concern about having overwhelming, unbearable feelings on a flight and being unable to escape. They are unable to specify a time when they had such feelings. Yet, such feelings are too much of a threat for them to fly. Taking a flight is an emotional risk. They fear they may have an overwhelming experience, and unable to leave the plane, have no way to escape the experience. Whether they understand it or not, they fear they will have an implicit flashback.
Since escape is seen as the answer to emotional overwhelm, escape from the original traumatic experience must have not been impossible. What can a person do about implicit flashbacks? Three things: 1. Recognize that when an emotion is too intense and too persistent to fit the current situation, you may be experiencing the flashback of an experience from early childhood. Face-to-face with an attuned and therapist, put the emotions into words. Doing so links the therapist's presence to the emotions in the flashback, and neutralizes them; 3.
Tell the therapist in detail what triggered the flashback; by linking the therapist's presence to the triggers, the triggers are neutralized. My own experience confirms that realtime re experiencing does not always include all the senses, and confirm that emotions feature strongly - but you have missed the sensory memory of tactile experience! I experienced physical pain in my genitals alongside intense terror, but no visuals when I relived in flashback the first time I was raped. This was also not a brief experience - as commonly believed to apply to flashbacks - rather it went on for several hours with brief returns to the present reality between re immersion in the abuse experience (age 6) Oral abuse going back to under 2 (witnessed by my sister and dated by room location/ cot.) I experienced physical gagging and suffocation reflex type sensations preceded by apprehension and seeing a shadow come towards me. None of my flashbacks have involved thought processes.I believe that survivors experiences are wrongly interrpreted as recall, as if voluntary and as if bringing to mind old memories.
I am convinced the experiences were never laid down in the part of the brain that processes everyday experience. That terror relegates them on block to some more primitive raw state as protection to prevent traumatic shock paralysing capacity to function. That its a survival mechanism. That the trauma experience re surfaces un-mediated by thought, only when safety from danger has been secured - often, as in my case, decades later. I am sure most of the brain has no conception of time passing at all, that such sophisticated conceptions concern language mediated experience only, not the vast bulk of what has been experienced.
Very informative article. I'm really curious as to whether these implicit flashbacks can occur in individuals who experience trauma as an adult but who remember little or none of the trauma itself (for example due to alcohol, which I know inhibits memory consolidation). Is it possible that the flashback experiences of these people might be similar to those of people who lack memories of their trauma due to being traumatized at a very young age? This knowledge could be huge for people who don't remember all of their trauma and who experience intense emotional reactions that are incongruous with their current situation but who lack those more easily recognizable explicit flashbacks. Is there any literature or research on this phenomenon in adults that you could recommend to me? I'm very interested in this topic. Upon reading this it seems that I am not suffering from flashbacks but whatever it going on is bothering me enough that I had to check it out.I realise my issue also seems ridiculous but its causing me distress.I am terrified of spiders.
I have been for as long as I can remember. I moved into a new house last year and was pleased to find that it wasn't a very active spider house. However, when it got to the end of the summer I had a period of two months when enormous spiders would just appear out nowhere in my bedroom.The incident that appears to have kicked things off for me is when I awoke to my cat trying to kill a spider which was sat on my face. It was also one of the most enormous blackest spiders I have had the misfortune of encountering. The event left me shaken for hours.
Apparently I was screaming and screaming for several minutes but I don't remember.Ever since this, often when I relax a vision of a spider running comes into my mind. This is happening at all sorts of times but commonly when I am drifting off to sleep. Also, I am waking up from sleep with a sudden start because of this image.
I am not even thinking about it consciously (as far as I am aware) but I will suddenly jump because the image just appears in my head. It's like the same type of visual that you would use for imagination but I am not aware that it is a thought. It seems to be something that I cannot control.It's driving me crazy. I also feel things crawling over me but that is nothing new. However it has amplified since the event.Does anyone have any idea what this is or how I can help myself please?. I would like to add that this does happen to me when I am doing almost anything. On the pc or making dinner ect.
However I seem to notice the times that it happens when I am trying to sleep more. May be because it is the same place that it happened or I don't have a distraction from the visualisation therefore the emotional impact is greater?I feel like a paranoid freak! I am always watching for the slightest movement to indicate a spiders presence.Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that it isn't just happening when I am relaxing, even though I made it sound that way originally. It just bothers me more in those moments. First of all, study after study and research has proven time and again that crying it out is NOT harmful to children.
That in fact, they learn to self soothe which is a very important skill. Babies who have constant attention lack this skill, thus have difficulty with independence in infancy and toddlerhood. This can lead to a whole host of attachment issues.Unrelated, can someone with PTSD have flashbacks to an event they weren't present for? In other words, I may not have been present for the actual event, but it was traumatizing to me because it happened to someone very close to me.
Can I have flashbacks even though I wasn't there?. Please cite the studies.
It's shocking that to know you don't recognize crying it out is child abuse that traumatizes and can cause brain damage. Young children have no ability to self soothe other than what they internalize based on BEING soothed. A child who cries it out is not soothed, but unable to soothe, is thrown into 'Immobilization,' the defense system used by primitive creatures which had no cortex. When conditions cause humans to be thrown into this primitive defense system, damage the cortex and PTSD results.
I wonder why psychologists are always saying that people don't form memories when they're small children and can't recall events that happened later because their memory is immature. Sure, memory is probably immature in small children, and maybe many people can't remember back to when they are very small, but there are still plenty of people that remember back to when they were toddlers. I've known people that claim they have memories from when they were three or four years old. I personally have memories going back to when I was two years old.
I told some of my memories of events that happened to other people that were adults at the time the events happened and they were present when the events took place and they were completely shocked of how accurate and vivid my memories were since I was a little tiny child.Some of my most vivid and earliest memories I have are from experiences of abuse and of witnessing other small children being abused (tortured really). I think, for me, trauma caused me to start remembering things very early. But, I have spoken to the other children that were abused with me and who witnesses me being abused, and I found that their memory of the least worse cases of abuse we experienced together was pretty hazy. The worse torture we experienced they didn't even have memories of; or they claimed they didn't remember it, but once I started detailing it the memories came back to them, and then they started to tell me the rest of the event to me just as it happened, but lacking the vivid details I remembered. They told me that when I told them of the events, they started to remember part of it, but more oddly they felt strong anxiety, fear, anger, and even grief like someone just died. One of them aid she felt as though she was going to vomit.
Please keep in mind, they told me about these strong feelings BEFORE I told them anything vivid, I just started to say the things leading up to the abuse, and the lighter, beginning stages of abuse, and they had these emotional responses. However, I do not have strong emotional responses with my memories of the events. I don't feel like I am reliving the events either. Sure, I feel sad and sometimes angry when I recall the memories, but it isn't intense. I can remember the events as though they happened earlier today, meaning the memories are that vivid. I had a very traumatic experience in my school days where I was bullied infront of a class of over 300 people on my graduation day and no one helped me. My bullies were boys and girls who ganged up and blocked me from entering the premises and tore my clothes and wouldn't give my graduation cap back.
It lasted for 45 minutes while my parents were seated somewhere inside the ceremony.I had to after I couldn't take it run and hide in the locker room and cried hysterically until somehow my dad found out n took me home.The school authorities witnessed it but did nothing to help as it was not happening on school grounds. I was so humiliated I actually physically and mentally felt like id experienced rape. I felt sadness then guilt humiliation then shock then denial and was deeply depressed. I tried dealing bit it and I was gloomy and depressed for days but eventually a few months later stopped interacting with people. I Stopped eating, I dropped out of university I had joined after a month and slept the bad feeling as depression took hold of me.i wanted to die and I could not tell or explain anyone how I felt as they thought I was making mountain out of a hill, but the feeling of embarrassment and humiliation and letting someone else have power over me to hurt me ruined me until I felt totally blank. It lasted 2 years. The constant feeling of somthing heavy on my body and mind that numbness which made me lie in bed all day not wanting to move or eat or breath even.Then 1 day I got up took a shower wore my best suit and rejoined my university like somthing was pushing me from inside to take a leap that day in the opposite direction.
My mind was so clear and functioning.3 years later I completed my degree. But on my graduation ceremony I froze on the hallway on the way to the auditorium and felt the worst case of panic attack. I felt like everyone was watching me and my self respect was physically being ripped and torn out of my skin, I felt physical pain and my heart sank very low like it was being compressed with a boulder.
I couldn't go in and had to miss the ceremony. I was experiencing guilt humiliation and horror from more than 5 years ago. I missed the ceremony and stayed home in same almost catatonic state for 2 months until I started to get better again. It has been a year now since my university graduation. I feel miserable everyday but there are random days I physically feel it all again.Are these flashbacks?! Is there any cure for them.
I live in a country where mental health issues are looked down on and people don't take such kind of treatments as they are taboo and I don't want to be labelled crazy or mental.What can I do at home to feel better and not feel suicidal. I know suicide is wrong and I know I won't ever do it but it still crosses my mind. Would this count as a flashback or trauma or am I being overly sensitive?(Note: My parents are very kind and loving and have not abused me.
However, I was bullied in kindergarten and 1st grade causing us to avoidPublic school by my classmates and the school faculty said that I was wrong to complain and the cruel action of my classmate was 100% ok.)When I was 1-2 years old I lost 2 very dear family members in the same year, my grandfather on a holiday (the only grandparent who cared about me) and my younger sister on his birthday (born the same year she died). My grandmother (she scared me) made the situation worse by lying to the police and adding possible (but fake) criminal offences into the mix.Whenever my grandfather or sister is mentioned I burst out in tears. When dealing with new issues concerning my grandmother I am fearful and anxious.I think I am overly sensitive and overreacting, but a part of me would like to find some kind of relief.
(redirected from Flashback (narrative technique))Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia.
flash·back
(flăsh′băk′)n.1.a. A literary or cinematic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative.
b. The episode or scene depicted by means of this device.
2. a. Psychiatry A recurring, intensely vivid mental image of a past traumatic experience: soldiers who had flashbacks of the war.
b. An unexpected recurrence of the effects of a hallucinogenic drug long after its original use.
c. A vivid memory that arises spontaneously or is provoked by an experience.
d. An experience that has characteristics of an earlier experience.
flashback
(ˈflæʃˌbæk) n (Film) a transition in a novel, film, etc, to an earlier scene or event
vb (Film) (intr, adverb) to return in a novel, film, etc, to a past event
flash•back
(ˈflæʃˌbæk)n.
1. the insertion of an earlier event into the chronological structure of a novel, motion picture, play, etc., or the scene so inserted.
2. Also called flash′back hallucino′sis.Psychiatry. an abnormally vivid, often recurrent recollection of a disturbing past event, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations.
Noun | 1. | flashback - a transition (in literary or theatrical works or films) to an earlier event or scene that interrupts the normal chronological development of the story literature - creative writing of recognized artistic value transition - a passage that connects a topic to one that follows flash-forward - a transition (in literary or theatrical works or films) to a later event or scene that interrupts the normal chronological development of the story |
2. | flashback - an unexpected but vivid recurrence of a past experience (especially a recurrence of the effects of an hallucinogenic drug taken much earlier) recurrence, return - happening again (especially at regular intervals); 'the return of spring' |
flashback
[ˈflæʃbæk]N (Cine) → escenafretrospectiva, flashbackm
flashback
[ˈflæʃbæk]n → flash-backm, retourmen arrièrea flashback to sth → un retour en arrière sur qch
flash·back
retrospección y actualización de imágenes pasadas.
flashback
n flashback m (Ang), reviviscencia, recuerdo vivo hasta con alucinaciones de una experiencia traumática en el pasado; (due to drugs) recurrencia de alucinaciones producidas por una droga tomada en el pasadoWant to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.
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