Are Flashbacks Like the Movies?

Mine are weird- I’ll remember snapshots but never like the whole event. Like my main trauma happened outside during a lunar eclipse. So if I’m outside and I look at the moon- I’ll have really intense feelings and the moon will like change to be the deep red it was during the eclipse. I know it’s not real but it’s what my brain visualizes

No. They aren't. They're sudden and actually really scary for those with inexperience with them. They're like flashes for me personally. They're like sensations of the feelings of felt during the flashback. I get brief flashes of pictures or some are like gifs. Nothing long, usually only last for a few moments.

For me personally, I would compare it more to watching a movie with a VR headset on that you can’t take off. Like at least a part of me knows I’m not experiencing reality, but my senses get so overwhelmed by my memories that I completely lose touch if I don’t ground myself in time.

My flashbacks are hard to explain.But I feel like mine aren't.I feel like they are but movies overdramatize everything I don't want my flashbacks to be compared to that.I zone out and cover by ears or have a panic attacks.Its like your in a nightmare.Hope this helps you understand.

memories that force you into dissociation? Thats how I experience it.

Hi, Friend. Mine never have been. Movies romanticise things, remember. I tend to zone out from what anyone around me can see, and in my mind, I'm very vividly seeing something else than what's there. It's happened enough that when it occurs, I'll mentally tell myself to snap out of it, but it's like even my own thoughts are being directed at me from a distance. It typically runs its own course and I ease back into reality. Sometimes the trigger for it will affect me repeatedly, and other times, it just happens the once.

I think it depends on the age and type of trauma. A lot of mine a very realistic and look just like it did originally, but some when I was younger are harder to visualize.

for me personally i heavily dissociante and have thought spirals, there is usually an image or two in my brain that i am visualizing when this occurs, but not always

With my experience I hear noise or if someone says something that is a reminder I stop and just hear that thing or sentence that was done at the time of the traumatic experience. I also have nightmares that are the memories of whatever happened but worse and more violent.

Trauma puts us into that fight-or-flight response, which interrupts the part of our brain that interprets information into a story. So more likely you will remember bits and pieces, not in any particular order. Perhaps you remember the feeling of sitting in a chair, feeling overwhelmed, and you don’t remember the context of the rest of the memory. Maybe you remember watching two people fighting, and also you remember hiding behind a door, but those two events were not happening even on the same year. Maybe you feel like you’re cold and you can’t see, but you don’t know why. Most often though, you’re not even remembering any specific memory, You just feel very strong emotions which do not match to the current situation. With some practice of awareness you can learn to identify when your emotions don’t match the present situation, and understand that you are having an emotional flashback because part of you is triggered to remember feeling this way in the past, in a similar situation.

I experience mine as sensations

I'm not sure, but whenever a teacher of mine yells at another student, it triggers many things (I always have both my earbuds in when it's too loud)

Honestly I'm not sure. The trauma inflicted on me happened when I was too young to remember details. When the trauma I experienced is mentioned in conversation. Even if it's not directed at me, I just get an overwhelming feeling of dread and I almost feel the pain I experienced back then.

Me either, I think some people might but I wouldn’t say that’s the way all people experience them