There is a reason for it. Current thinking is that memories of events are retrieved by a process in the hippocampus (until the memories become substantially re-consolidated). Memories of strong emotional experiences are also retrieved by a process in the amygdala. They are not memories of events but just a link between the emotion and the object that caused it. In recent memories these are usually connected—If the amygdala retreives it prompts the hippocampus to do so also—if the hippocampus does the retreiving it triggers the amygdala. But the two processes can be disconnected for a particular memory pair. You see X and feel the memory of fear or anger but not the episodic memory of when and where you felt that emotion towards X. The amygdala retrieves but the hippocampus fails to.
This has happened to me but not often.
There is a reason for it. Current thinking is that memories of events are retrieved by a process in the hippocampus (until the memories become substantially re-consolidated). Memories of strong emotional experiences are also retrieved by a process in the amygdala. They are not memories of events but just a link between the emotion and the object that caused it. In recent memories these are usually connected—If the amygdala retreives it prompts the hippocampus to do so also—if the hippocampus does the retreiving it triggers the amygdala. But the two processes can be disconnected for a particular memory pair. You see X and feel the memory of fear or anger but not the episodic memory of when and where you felt that emotion towards X. The amygdala retrieves but the hippocampus fails to.
Thanks—I appreciate the explanation.